Modern WisdomTaking Wisdom From The Lives Of The Stoics | Ryan Holiday | Modern Wisdom Podcast 226
At a glance
WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT
Ryan Holiday Explores Why Ancient Stoicism Perfectly Fits Modern Life
- Ryan Holiday joins Chris Williamson to discuss why Stoicism, a 2,000-year-old philosophy, feels uniquely relevant and modern today. They explore Stoicism’s core ideas—focusing on what we can control, resilience in adversity, justice, and memento mori—through the lives of figures like Zeno, Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius.
- Holiday explains his aim with Lives of the Stoics: to show Stoicism as something lived by real, often flawed people in chaotic times, not just abstract theory. The conversation ranges from ancient plagues to COVID-19, from Roman emperors to modern politics, from information overload to the Lindy effect and the timelessness of classic texts.
- They also examine tensions within Stoicism and within modern life: wealth and virtue, ambition and contentment, discipline and instinct, excellence and self-compassion. Holiday shares his personal practices (journaling, writing, memento mori) and candidly reflects on his own struggles with temper, burnout, and doing less.
- Throughout, they argue that the core human problems have barely changed across millennia—and that Stoicism endures because it offers tested, practical answers rather than fashionable but unproven ideas.
IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING
5 ideasFocus relentlessly on what you can control, not external events.
Holiday emphasizes the Stoic core: we don’t control the world, only our response. Most of us waste time complaining or blaming—about people, politics, or the weather—instead of asking, “What am I going to do about it?”
Treat adversity as a training ground, not an interruption.
Stoicism itself began with Zeno losing his fortune in a shipwreck and Marcus Aurelius ruling during a devastating plague. Rather than seeing hardship as a detour, Stoics see it as the raw material for character and wisdom.
Study lives, not just ideas—philosophy must be lived to matter.
Holiday wrote Lives of the Stoics to show how these thinkers actually behaved under pressure: governing provinces fairly, advising emperors, enduring slavery, and running an empire. This biographical lens reveals where they embodied or betrayed their own teachings.
Use time‑tested wisdom instead of chasing the latest intellectual trends.
Invoking the Lindy effect, Holiday argues that ideas that have survived for millennia (Stoicism, classic literature, foundational texts on race or morality) are pre‑vetted by history. New “hot take” books may be lucrative but are unproven compared to Marcus Aurelius or James Baldwin.
Design an information diet as carefully as your food diet.
Stoic suspicion of noise maps cleanly onto modern news and social media addiction. Holiday notes that most people consume real-time trivia they can’t act on, and suggests replacing much of that with books and deeper historical study.
WORDS WORTH SAVING
5 quotesThe core premise of Stoicism is basically, look, we don’t control the world around us, but we control how we respond.
— Ryan Holiday
At the core of it, Stoicism is supposed to be a philosophy that you do, not something that you say.
— Ryan Holiday
If you want to understand what’s happening in the world, you’ve got to stop watching the news and you’ve got to start reading books.
— Ryan Holiday
Life is constantly teaching us that lesson… when you actually get the things that you think you wanted, you realize that they were never capable of giving you what you thought you wanted.
— Ryan Holiday
The ability to not do is, in some cases, the hardest thing to do.
— Ryan Holiday
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