You Have To Be Both These Things | The Long Way Around

Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world. You have to be both these things. You have your principles, you have your ways, you made your decision, you set the rules. This is what you do, this is what you think Stoicism is. And it is, no question, it is a philosophy of firmness, of unwavering commitment, of steadfastness and strictness.

But there is a risk to that, as we see in the life of Cato, which I talk about in lives of the Stoics. Cato was a man of principle, He was a man of courage and conviction. He was also incredibly difficult to deal with and ultimately fell short of preserving the Roman Republic in part because he lacked the ability to compromise or collaborate. He was lowercase conservative, meaning that he tried always to keep things as they were, which made it hard for him to accept things that were new or different.

Marcus Aurelius seems to have learned from this. He had convictions and principles. He was unyielding with himself, yet he also had a pragmatic streak, he was tolerant of others, he met people where they were. He said that he learned from his teacher Apollonius that a man can both show strength and flexibility. What a great combination.

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