When entering the year 2026 I decided to focus my studies on
Stoic philosophy. I’ve debated with myself on if I should dedicate more years
of study to it, but I’ll let the year play out before making that decision. I
did several of the courses from The Daily Stoic while also digging into what
the Daily Stoic Book Club was reading for the month. While I got to reread
Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, I also got to read about Plato’s philosophical
experiment in Syracuse and the misadventures of Adora Hazard in Go Gentle. I
think right now I should take time to reflect on how I got here and look at
where I’m going.
I got into philosophy during the Covid-19 pandemic as I,
along with millions of others, entered an existential crisis. I often use
Spotify, and the first philosophy podcast I subscribed to was The Nietzsche
Podcast by Essential Salts. Looking into what was available on the platform was
what led me to The Daily Stoic, with Ryan Holiday uploading new content every
day. This is how I was introduced to Stoic philosophy, a school of thought from
Ancient Greece and The Roman Republic. I listened to the podcast every day and
bought both The Daily Stoic and The Daily Dad books by Holiday.
After a turbulent 2024 I decided to jump into doing The
Daily Stoic’s New Year, New You challenge, which I rather enjoyed. They also put
out a course celebrating Marcus Aurelius’ 1,904th birthday, with
videos and articles on the Roman emperor. It was after reading Meditations for
the first time that I decided that I’d buy a membership to Daily Stoic Life,
and that’s when I found myself entering the manosphere. While I didn’t know
what I was getting into, I recognized the type of operation having seen what
the Tate Brothers were pulling. There are some women who are members, but the
demographics strongly leans male.
What is the point of Daily Stoic life? I don’t find it a
better social media site to use than something you could get for free like
Facebook or Discord. And what are we paying for? As consumers of their products
we get to talk to Ryan Holiday every other month it seems when he does a like Q
& A on Zoom. Ultimately, I feel the worth of the product boils down to if
you enjoy doing these courses or challenges. I thought it was funny before finishing
this article I was nearly done with Go Gentle, and Adora Hazard is praised for
pointing our that the Stoics were “the original gangsters of self-help.”
I found myself getting frustrated by the hustle culture
pushed by The Daily Stoic, as the Habits For Success course had me waking up at
4:30 am in the morning while keeping a checklist to mark off tasks for the day.
Inspired by Benjamin Franklin, who I read kept track of what virtues he broke,
dedicated a notebook to doing the same thing. The experiment told me that I
feel like I’m not industrious or prudent enough, and I kept at it longer than
Franklin was able to. I was given tools to maximize the productivity of my
time, while becoming frazzled with everything that I had put on my plate.
The problem for me is that Stoic philosophy inspired me to
consider considering what’s in my control and what’s not before I reacted to
something. I’m attending AA meetings, and the serenity prayer used by them was
inspired by Stoic philosopher Epictetus. As part of the New Year, New You
Challenge I made my word for the year courage, and I made the effort to do new
and fun things because I made that decision for this year. I do also get to
work on balancing my life to do more with it, and that includes self-overcoming.
My issue is right now I’m training to do many things at a
time, from being an elected official to someone who can help prevent diabetes.
With as many things I must focus on, I find the tools from The Daily Stoic
helpful, but Holiday makes the point as well that we need to take time to
relax. It hurts me when The Green Party or The Kotzebue Chess Club suffer
because I can’t give them the attention they need. Do I keep wearing and
putting on new hats as they come or should focus on becoming an expert in
something?
I don’t want just to talk about the hustle culture in The
Daily Stoic, as the philosophy has helped me become more grateful and giving. I
decided to pick up a hobby for fun while making sure I walk my dog Malik every
day. I think it’s fun to discuss the free will issue, but how are we meant to live
a good life? Stoic philosophy is used for self-help as the entire school of
thought was founded after Zeno wrecked his ship and lost everything. His bounce
back was to discover that the incident put him on an amazing journey.
Ryan Holiday tattooed the phrase “Amor Fati” on his arm, which means love of fate. Nineteenth century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche popularized the term, and he’s someone whose books are in my backlog while I buy new ones to read along with whatever book club I’m in. There are other schools of thought out there, and I’ve been interested in exploring why we are the way we are. I appreciate the idea that we have a duty we get to fulfill, but we also need to know why we’re doing things Epictetus to know what it is we need to achieve.
