PASSAGE OF THE WEEK:
The Stoics talked about knowing your place and path in life. They talked about tuning out gossip, about keeping your distance from flawed people, about not picking up bad habits from others, about reserve and dignity and poise, about not caring what others think.
This is difficult stuff. It takes a lot of self-discipline. But it is a key to health, happiness and in the case of Marcus and Cato and Antoninus, greatness too.
— A Person Without Boundaries Is Not a Person (Listen)
YOUTUBE TAKEAWAY OF THE WEEK:
In one of the most watched videos on the Daily Stoic YouTube Channel this week, Ryan Holiday shares lessons and strategies from the Stoic that all the Stoics admired most, Cato the Younger. Interestingly, Cato never wrote anything down—he’s a hero to generations of Stoics not because of his philosophical writings but because of his towering example. Here’s Ryan:
“Cato walked around Rome barefoot. Even though he was wealthy, he dressed as if he wasn’t. He was okay standing alone and looking different and being judged and misunderstood. This wasn’t just a kind of tourism into a different way of life. What Cato was doing was preparing for the moment when it really counted. When he has to stand alone against Caesar, when he has to stand alone against corruption, when he has to stand alone against the decadence of his time—he’s practiced this. He’s prepared for it.”
Watch the full video: 5 Stoic Secrets From The Ultimate Man Of Principle (Cato The Younger)
PODCAST TAKEAWAY OF THE WEEK:
In a recent episode of the Daily Stoic podcast, Ryan Holiday Ryan speaks with Mark Manson about the new documentary based on his astronomically successful book The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, the catastrophes of success, taking time off, disrupting the self-help industry, and the trap people with any kind of audience tend to fall into:
“When you make all these people the center of your universe, it’s easy to think you are the center of their universe.”
Listen to the full episode: Mark Manson on Disrupting the Self-Help Industry
WHAT RYAN HOLIDAY IS READING:
“I couldn’t ignore that yes had become my mantra. I shared a name with the very famous literary character from James Joyce’s epic novel Ulysses. Her final soliloquy is about saying yes to falling in love and surrendering to her husband. I was also falling in love. With a poker game.”
— Molly’s Game: The True Story of the 26-Year-Old Woman Behind the Most Exclusive, High-Stakes Underground Poker Game in the World by Molly Bloom
YOUR STOIC WEEKEND REMINDER:
Anxiety is inside, not outside.
Marcus Aurelius wrote in Meditations:
“Today I escaped anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions — not outside.”
In modern times, psychologists and neuroscientists have confirmed what the Stoics knew intuitively: Stress and anxiety don’t happen to you. We say things like “my boss is making me stressed” or “this project is giving me anxiety.”
No. No one can make you stressed or anxious. No one but you. It is within you, within your perceptions, within the stories you tell yourself about what this or that means.
(For more on this idea, watch this video!)
EMAIL OF THE WEEK:
The Things You Own…Can’t Own You (Listen)
On my RADAR - By Dhananjay Parkhe 
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