This Is How It's Meant To Be Done | It Is Well to Be Flexible

courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world. This is how it's meant to be done, because so much of stoicism comes down to us in books, it's easy to assume that it's a written philosophy, that philosophy was something the stoics did alone in private, hunched over a wax tablet or some unfurled scroll.

“Isn't that how we got meditations or Santa Claus letters?”

Yeah, but that's not how we got the philosophy itself. Stoicism began on a porch in Athens, the stoic peculiar, the painted porch where Zeno would talk and trade ideas with whoever was around. The great playwright David Manit had a funny way of putting it on the stoic podcast to Wildback, says what he loves about the stoics is that they were just porch guys, just regular

people hanging out talking about how to become the best version of themselves. Keto, the man widely admired as one of the greatest stoics, we don't even have second-hand reports of his words, but we know that he liked to do his philosophizing on foot, or Plutarch tells us that he would take me andering walks through Rome, talking with whomever he met on his rounds and that for all his austere habits he loved philosophical dinner parties,

where they talked about ideas long into the night.

You know, Epictetus never wrote anything down, his discourses comes to us from a student

who tells us that whatever he used to hear him say he wrote down word for word as best he could as a record for later use of Epictetus' thoughts and frank expressions.

“And that's how Epictetus taught in person going back and forth in real time.”

So for most of its history stoicism was a spoken conversational philosophy. It's meant to be heard, meant to be talked about, meant for that back and forth. And it's a great tradition that we're a part of, one that's gone on unbroken for thousands of years. And by the way, we are continuing it here with Daily Stoke in me, Ryan Holiday, I'm going

to be hitting the road the old way here very soon. It's part of the Daily Stoke live tour. I'm making the rounds. I'm going to be in Portland here in early June, San Francisco, then Chicago, Boston, DC, Detroit, Australia, Midwest, East Coast, all over, even New Zealand.

And I'd love to see you. Come ask me questions, trade ideas, hang out, talk to me, talk to other stoics, grab your tickets at daily stoiclive.com. You know what, silently kills sales teams, the inability to see what's happening in their pipeline.

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“Must he live in the private sector, let him be a spokesperson?”

Is he condemned to silence, let him aid his followers citizens by silent public witness? Is it dangerous to enter the forum, let him display himself in private homes at public events and gatherings, as a good associate of faithful friend and a moderate tablemate?

And then the story is one of my all-time favorites.

I loved this the first time I heard it.

Shortly before his death as victory in the Civil War was finally within his grasp, Lincoln told a story to an audience of generals and admirals about a man who had approached him for a high ranking government appointment. Just the man asked if he might be made a foreign minister upon being turned down the man asked for a more modest position upon being turned down again.

He asked for a job as a low-level customs officer. Finally, he could not even get that. He finally just asked Lincoln for an old pair of trousers. Ah, Lincoln laughed, as you concluded the story, it is well to be humble. This story embodies the flexibility and the determination of stoicism.

If we can't do this, then perhaps we can try that. And if we can't do that, then perhaps we can try some other thing.

And if that thing is impossible, then there is always another.

Even if that thing is just being a good human being, we always have some opportunity to practice our philosophy to make some kind of contribution. I love this story and I think the lesson that Lincoln was trying to say is that you find your role, you're willing to accept or make whatever works, right?

“And I think that's what Sanico was saying.”

And I suspect Sanico was also telling this story near the end of his life as the options in public life were closing to him. Okay, so Neuro turned out to be insane, okay, so you're forced into exile. All throughout Sanico's life, in fact, he's forced to adjust, to accommodate, to make the best of a bad situation.

And for the stoics, this was the resignation, not like resignation, like, "Oh, everything

sucks, what am I going to do?"

But like, "Oh, this is the role I've been assigned. I'm going to act the hell out of it." And this is something that Epictetus talks about as well. He says that we're like actors in a play, we're not the author, we're not the playwright, but we have to really embrace the role that we're assigned.

And this ability to be flexible to not go, "Oh, but I only operate at this level. I'm a Harvard grad. I cannot possibly accept X, Y, or Z."

“This makes us really fragile because life is going to humble us.”

Life is going to put us in unfamiliar situations. But the person who can adjust, who can say, "Yeah, I'll start here. I might work my way back up, I might be such a stunning actor in this role that I get promoted or I get noticed, but I'm not going to put on any airs. I'm not going to close myself off to anything.

I'm going to embrace this." And this is something I think about when I, obviously, when I talk about this idea of the obstacle is the way, it's not, it's naive to think, "Oh, you can turn everything into a wonderful positive. That's not what it is."

It's not "Oh, this horrible thing happened," but by some magical trick, I turn it into the best thing that ever happens to me in the loss of my father or the loss of all your money or the loss of your job or the loss of this or that it's ridiculous and offensive to be glib to say, "Oh, just focus on the good." No, what we're saying is that there's some good that can be derived from this.

There's something positive, we can move the ball forward in some way because of this. Let's say we would have chosen to be happy. We can settle for the old pair of trousers, that's Lincoln's joke, right? We can settle for something as opposed to taking our ball and going home, crying about it, feeling persecuted about it, throwing up our hands, giving up because of it.

“And that's what Seneca ultimately does as well, his great writing towards the end of his life”

comes as these other doors have been shut in his face. I would argue he makes his largest contribution through this writing, and that's why we're here talking about it today. Be humble, be flexible, today, make the most of it. Talk to you soon.

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