For thousands of years the stoics have been writing and talking and teaching by their example the answer to our most important question which is how to live how to be a good person how to make your way through a complicated and confusing world and what the stoics do best is make this stuff really simple everyone's wish is is to be better senica says but we're often in the dark about how to do so so in today's episode that's what I Want to do I want to give you 60 stoic lessons about how to do that
how to live how to be a person in this confusing overwhelming world how to thrive in times of chaos and how to live a life of virtue of Courage discipline Justice and wisdom when Markus C says the obstacle is the way he's talking about something very specific in that passage in meditations he's talking about difficult and obnoxious and annoying and frustrating people he's saying they are An opportunity to practice virtue we don't control them we don't control what they do we don't control what they say but we control how we respond to those people we
control what they make us do we control what we do we control who we are in response to them so frustrating people are a chance to practice patience people who wrong us are a chance to practice forgiveness people are a chance for us to practice our persuasive skills the idea is that everyone we meet even The most annoying and frustrating and obnoxious people are chance for us to be what we're capable of being they're testing us they're making us better your problem is that you want the third thing Marcus real says okay you did something
good for someone they received that benefit that's awesome transaction concluded you don't need the third thing recognition gratitude appreciation you don't need the world to throw you a parade you don't need acknowledgement And you didn't even do anything special you did your job which is to do good to be good to help people to be kind you did the right thing that's enough it's easy to get swept away to get carried away to get worked up there are forces that have always been howling and blowing at people today it's the news and social media but
in the past it was the frenzy of the mob or public opinion floor of the Coliseum our job the the task of stoicism is to help us keep that Even ke Marcus says to be like the rocks that the waves crash over eventually the Sea Falls still around cryus one of the early stoic he said look if I wanted to follow the mob I wouldn't have become a philosopher our task the purpose of stoicism is to help us slow down to act with some restraint to be able to reflect to put every impression or opinion
to the test as epicus said to not get swept away to not be buffeted by forces beyond our control to keep our Bearings to keep our values to keep from losing our minds when everyone else around us is losing theirs so this thing that you're anxious about that you're dreading that you don't want to happen one question you can ask yourself Mark really says is how does it stop you this other person this unfairness this bad outcome says how does it stop you from acting with courage and Justice and wisdom and discipline how does it
stop you from acting with the four virtues And you realize it does it look there can be a whole bunch of things that you don't want to happen that are not going to be fun if they happen that are going to cause problems but they can't prevent you from doing your main job from doing what's actually important from acting and living with virtue not only can these things not stop you from acting with courage and discipline and Justice and wisdom but in fact there are opportunities to act with courage and Justice and discipline and wisdom
some people say that Marcus aurelius's meditations is depressing well you know what Marcus aurelius's life is depressing this is a guy who lives through a historic flood a plague endless Wars there's a coup they say no parent should have to bury a child Marcus aelius buries half of his children he has to attend six funerals for his children he lost his father at an early age later he loses his wife It's one thing after another for this guy one heartbreak after another so Marx relases meditations isn't depressing the fact that he got out of bed
every morning was a profound statement of Hope and perseverance and resilience and optimism that he cared about anything that he strove to be better that he strove to be a good person that he didn't let it wear him down turn him into annihilist that it didn't deprive him of meaning and purpose this is the Hopefulness this is the optimism this is the cheerfulness in stoicism that despite the blows of Fate the unfairness of life we keep going we keep striving to be good we keep striving to be and do our best in meditations Marcus Aurelius
meditates on the interconnectedness of all being he talks about how everyone shares a nature common to his own in fact he talks about the idea of the common good like 40 times in meditations he said we were put here for other People we were put here to put up with other people he also said to do good for and with other people one of the reasons we get lonely is we're so focused on our stuff our problems what's going on with us what we want but really if we think about this whole human species as
this interconnected thing even our connection with animals with the environment that we're put here to make a small contribution to this large project that we can help other people and that Actually one way to forget our own sufferings and loneliness and struggles is to help other people to be a part of something bigger than ourselves and in the midst of a plague and warfare and all the struggles of Marcus's life he never lost track of that and he always insisted that he was put here to help and be of service to other people is a
world without dishonest people possible is a world without annoying people possible Markus asked himself this Question in his journal 2,000 years ago and he says look the answer is of course no he says so when you meet one of those people go look this was statistically bound to happen this is one of those people they are a percentage of the whole and we can apply this same exercise look is a world where Everyone likes you possible is a world without delayed planes possible are you going to hit every green light no of course not so
this is one of them just accept it This is one of them it was statistically bound to happen don't get worked up about it don't take it personally and certainly don't be surprised it was bound to happen you're weak if you lose your temper theism was a masculine philosophy but Marcus really has pointed out how how sort of pathetic it is that we get overwhelmed by our emotions and we lash out at people men sometimes judge other men for crying but it's strange that we don't judge each other For losing our temper which actually does
hurt people which is of less purpose when you feel that sort of Rage or anger coming on The Stoke say get control of yourself get command of yourself say is this who I want to be is this what being a mature adult is and the answer is almost certainly no The Grudge are holding it's meaningless Mark says look at the people who held these grudges who raged about things who held on to things he says where are they now They're dead and gone The Grudge went nowhere and the same is going to happen to your
thing whatever it is you're upset about however significant it was for you eventually it disappears along with you so how can you work on letting it go how can you move on how can you process how can you not carry it around how can you not let it consume you nobody's born a saint even the people that we admire so much that we look up to they weren't born that way they Became that way it's about the striving to be better than we are that makes us great when you see someone who's cool under pressure
when you see someone who's generous when you see someone who forgives when you see someone who doesn't have a big ego don't tell yourself oh they're just naturally better than me that's letting yourself off the hook and it's also unfair to them because it's ignoring all the work that goes into it how they're driving to Be that way if you take Marcus Aus as this perfectly formed philosopher king you're missing that he was writing in meditations the purpose of him writing meditations was to be the person he was aspiring to be and so we don't
want to see these people as being born that way because they weren't they were working at it and there was people in their life REM Marcus it's antoninus or his philosophy teacher rusticus who shaped and inspired and helped him become who He was meant to be in the same as true for us Marcus Aus was a master of the morning I think you have to be to be a successful person you think that being Your Own Boss or being rich or powerful or important will give you a lot of freedom and it does but it
also demands so much discipline from you because so much is counting on you one of the most interesting passages in meditations is Marcus aurelus talking to himself about why he has to get up early in the Morning he says but it's so much nicer here under the covers and then he says but is this what you were put here to do to huddle under the blankets and stay warm no it's not he says you have a duty to go do and he says look at the plants and the animals and the birds and the bees
getting up and doing what their nature demands and so that's what Marcus really tried to do he tried to get up early he says at dawn when you awake he gets up early he seases the day he owns The morning I think it's probably there in the morning that he's carving out some time to do a little journaling to do a little thinking to be intentional about the kind of person that he wants to be in the course of that day and that's what survives to us in meditation and then he tries to get after
what he has to do he says concentrate like a Roman do this thing in front of you like it's the last thing you are doing in your life and that's great advice for All of us whatever time we woke up in the morning let's Seize the Day seize the morning and get after it in book 11 of meditations Marcus talks about something that must have been very common for him which is that people didn't like him people cursed him they criticized him they questioned his Integrity his commitment all these things so in book 11 13
He says someone despises me that's their problem mine he says not to do or say anything Despicable he says someone hates me their problem mine is to be patient and cheerful with everyone including them ready to show them their mistake not spitefully or to show off my own self-control but in an honest upright way that's what we should be like inside he says and never let the gods catch us feeling anger or resentment if someone doesn't like you that's their problem and the important thing is you don't let it change you you don't let it
affect You don't let make you like them you just lock on to what you have to do and you try to be patient and kind you try to think better and do better for other people that in fact they might ever even think of doing for you Marcus relus in meditation says the things you think about determine the quality of your mind says your life is died by the color of your thoughts that's such a perfect way to put it he's not saying like the law of attraction that we attract these Things no he's saying
like if all you look for is the bad in people all you're going to see is the bad in people if all all you see is darkness and awfulness and evil that's what your world is going to look like so the stoics are saying that what we think about what we look for in this world determines what we're going to be able to see and that is the discipline of perception that's the power that we have our mind dies what our life will look like it's the lenses Through which we look at the world if
you decide to see agency and Power in yourself and in every situation you're in you'll find it even in the darkest hardest circumstances if you look for shittiness you'll see shittiness if you look for goodness you'll see goodness it's as simple as that people don't seem to understand this one really important thing it's that you have a superpower you have the power Mark cus says to have no opinion he says remember events Things are not asking to be judged by you you don't have to have an opinion about this he says you can just see
it as it is you can think nothing of it you don't have to label it you don't have to put it in categories you don't have to say it's fair or unfair positive or negative smart or dumb just accept it as it is the stoics try to see the world as objective try not to insert opinions or judgments on top of things because this Is the path to peace it's the path to wisdom and of course being agnostic in this way allows you to get to work doing what you need to do rather than wasting
your time labeling judging and having opinions about stuff that is not up to you it's unfortunate that this happened you didn't want it to happen you didn't choose for it to happen but it did happen Mark serus writes that to himself in meditations he says it's unfortunate that this happened but then he catches Himself and he goes no it's fortunate that it happened to me he means that I think in part because it didn't happen to someone else but what he really means is it's fortunate that it happened to me because he trained for stuff
like this right markus's Reign is one difficult thing after another there's a plague there's floods there's everything that could go wrong does and he's talking of those he says it's unfortunate this happened no it's fortunate to me and he Says and I've remained unharmed by because that's what stoic philosophy is about this idea that we're not harmed by external things we respond to those external things that's what we control that's what we focus on so whatever it is that you're going through whatever just happened it's not unfortunate that it happened to you it's fortunate that
it happened to you instead of someone else and it's fortunate that you know how to deal with it it's wrong to think Of sism just as a philosophy for adversity yeah it's true you know Zeno founds stoicism in a disaster there are stoics who are tortured stoics who are imprisoned stoics who deal with poverty but Marcus really finds himself the emperor of Rome extreme power extreme wealth extreme Fame and he uses meditations to see that as an opportunity to practice virtue he says you know you can live well even in a palace he talks to
himself about Accepting it with indifference letting it go without arrogance one of the things he talks about repeatedly in meditations is not being Caesar aied d purple by the purple cloak of the emperor so we shouldn't just see stoicism as a philosophy that helps us deal with the difficulties and the painful parts of life but also as a philosophy that helps us from being corrupted by that makes us better when we achieve success when we have things That's part of sism too basically nothing lasts that's the very stoic idea in meditations markia says Alexander the
Great and his mule driver the same thing happened to both they were both buried in the same same Earth there's that Latin saying sick Transit Gloria right all glory is fleeting we think that if we become famous or popular or important right this says something about us it makes us Immortal but it doesn't you're you're eventually inevitably invariably Forgotten nothing lasts it doesn't matter you could be the biggest thing in the world and then one day you're not suddenly you're not one of my books uh Stillness hit number one and then you know what happened
the next week someone else was there right uh I've had a good run but it'll go away eventually it it inevitably invariably always does so what does matter then the Stokes would say just just being a good person doing good work focusing on what you control That's it we don't know a lot about the policies that Marcus enacts as Emperor but we know of a couple one he passes a law that makes life easier for slaves and protections for them and then another he demands that the Gladiators be given wooden swords to practice and fight
with basically to take a very dangerous fatal Sport and make it not so dangerous I like this idea of stoicism being at least in part about standing up for the little guy Marcus says that one Of the things he learns from the stoics is this idea of a society of equals of equal laws of a ruler who protects the rights of their subjects I just love the idea that Mark's talking about that in theory and then he is in a position to do something about it and he does not enough none of us do enough
he reads Epic us he sees the Brilliance of this slave who becomes a philosopher and yeah he makes the life easier for slaves but he never questions the institution of Slavery itself but I do generally like the idea that Marcus did his best to practice what he preached so for the last 5 years i' I've carried this thing in my pocket some people think it's morbid some people think it's weird some people think it's unnecessary but it's one of the most important powerful philosophical reminders I think there could be it's it's this coin it says
momento Mory on the back has a quote from Marx Reus it says you could leave Life right now the second half of that quote is let that determine what you do and say and think the stoics practice this idea of momento Mor senica writes so much about death there's a a translation of his works just called how to die in fact in the in the ancient world the whole point of philosophy they said was to learn how to die to wrestle with the ephemerality of existence with the inevitability of death and so I I have
this little coin in my pocket it Reminds me not to to waste time not take people or things for granted to focus on what's actually important to not think too much of myself to certainly not think that I am Invincible or Immortal and uh it's just a lovely stoic practice that I think about always and so should you it doesn't matter if you're cold or tired if you're hungry or well rested it doesn't matter the situation at all Markus say it's just that you do the right thing say the rest doesn't matter That's your job
the stoic say your job is to do right that's what the virtue of justice is about there's no excuses there's no explanations Theo's virtue was the main thing that was what we were put here to do doesn't matter what other people do or say Mark cus writes to himself in meditations my job is to be good also to do good to help other people to be a force or good in the world to leave this place better than you found it that's the ultimate habit That's the Habit that trumps all the other ones and it's
something you have to let guide and inspire all your actions and choices s has this great line he says we can't choose our parents but we can choose whose children we would like like to be and she basically chooses right which side of the family tree she's going to be descended from you know like and and so it doesn't really matter where you come from or what you did or what your parents did You you have this ability to like sort of choose whose footsteps you're going to follow in I love that idea yeah so
where do you see grace with stoicism I mean one of the things Mark talks about a lot is is this idea of Revenge and you know he says the best revenge is to not be like that the the sort of penultimate moment in his life so he's he's ill and near death and um his most trusted General basically sensing that the the emperor was weak Names himself Emperor so he starts a palace coup and Marcus is not as sick as they thought and he recovers and so now he's faced with this terrible dilemma can't be
two Emperors and this person has put everything into danger and turmoil and and so I mean we know what his predecessors would have done in this situation hadrien comes to power and just liquidates you know and Marcus decides not to do that he can't ignore It he can't just let this happen but he decides he says this is an opportunity he says we can teach future Generations there's a way to even deal with Civil War I which I just think is this amazing sort of way of thinking about it and um they they go to
restore order and ultimately the the the other generalist guy named aidus cus is struck down by an assassin and they they bring Mar they bring Marcus reis's head and they think The emperor is going to be happy and reward them and he he's he breaks down in tears because they've stolen from him the opportunity for clemency H and so he he sends this message to the Senate and he says not a single person is to be put to death for this Rebellion he says um do not stain my Reign in Blood let it never happen
and this just this idea like when Marcus really says the obstacle is the way yeah I think people have taken that because That's how I I wrote the first book they've taken the obstacles away to mean here's how you get ahead in business here's how you deal with these little disadvantages you turn them into springboards and there there that is part of it but that famous passage in meditations where he says you know uh the impediment action advances action what stands in the way becomes way he's talking about other people he's talking about frustrating obnoxious
dishonest Evil people he's saying that other he says bad people are an opportunity to practice virtue and so I I think to me that's Grace is only possible if there is first the thing you don't want to happen you know like if everyone was wonderful to each other and everything went perfectly there would be no opportunity for grace and so I I think stoicism would say that that these things that you don't want to happen these things that shouldn't happen these Things that are unfair to happen these awful dark terrible things that human beings do
to each other the only the only good thing about them is who we can be in response to them if we we don't let them destroy our character and make us like the people that did the thing one of the things the stoics talk about is how when you really love what you do you forget sometimes even to wash and eat I don't know about forgetting to wash but I do forget to eat all the time I get busy I get caught up in what I'm doing I I love what I'm doing I'm also running
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and yet you neglect the most valuable Empire there is the greatest Empire senica said is command of oneself your thoughts your opinions your actions your urges command of oneself is the Greatest Empire self-command self-discipline self-control that's real power think of how many powerful people how many important people how many people who ruled great armies or nations didn't have that they were SL slaves to their desires to their Ambitions to their need for more and more and more and if you have control of yourself then you have more than they will ever have what's the secret
to the good life senica said in a single word it's emia Which he defined as the sense the path that you're on and not being distracted by the paths that crisscross yours it says and this is the important part he says especially not distracted by those who are hopelessly lost right so it's a sense of who you are what you're supposed to be doing and then being that person doing that thing and ignoring everyone and everything else you have two choices senica says you can laugh or cry Democritus one of the philosophers He cried he
despaired at how awful and evil the world was senica pointed out herac Cletus he laughed at it we think of the stoics as humorless but they weren't instead of despairing instead of being angry instead of being depressed instead of any of those negative emotions they decided to laugh at the the pain that life can inflict on us cuz it's the one part of it we control we control our response to it so we might as well Find humor in it instead of pain And suffering and anger this Tombstone right here has a little Epitaph it
says I'd rather wear out than rust out Theodore Roosevelt's father used to say that to him it became one of his Motts but it reminds me of this thing from senica senica says how much life do you have to show for all of those years he's talking about how people they live to a big number but what do they have to show for it so do you have to show for the time that you have spent on this planet Cuz that's one of the things that senica says it's not that you die once at 80
or 90 or whatever he says you're dying every day so I'm 37 as I say this have I lived 37 years I think so I think I've really lived those years that's the question are you wearing yourself out do you have something to show for the time you've been lucky enough to give you've been lucky enough to get what do you have to show for how are you living it's better to wear out than rust out there's A tension in stoicism so on on the one hand senica says we should imagine all the things that
could possibly happen this is premedium laurum says the unexpected blow lands heaviest if you're just navely going through the world expecting everything to be wonderful never considering that this might happen or that might happen you're going to be caught off guard and it's going to Rattle you and and hurt you worse than if you had some ability to anticipate This at the same time he says he who suffers before it is necessary suffers more than it is necessary he was talking about the way that we can sort of spiral and catastrophize so it's important when
we think about this premeditation that the stoic idea of anticipating and considering might happen it's not to torture ourselves it's not just to go down this spiral of negativity and dorismar said that three times a day a general should say to themselves what if The enemy appeared over here what if the enemy appeared over here what if the enemy appeared over here he wasn't saying that he just wanted his generals to be really anxious and worried all the time he was having them run through the thought exercises if this happens I'll do this if this
happens I'll do this if this happens I'll do this so when we think about this stoic practice it's not just for generalized anxiety or worry it's constructive okay if this happens Here's what I'm going to do if this happens here's what I'm going to do it's focusing on how we might respond to this so it should actually be empowering in some way as opposed to disempowering and scary and alarming you're thinking here are the constructive things I can do about these hypotheticals I believe that I have agency and power to solve this scenario if it
were to happen death is the one certainty it's the one thing that will happen to every person that Ever been born it's the prophecy that never fails they say and yet how many people in this Cemetery were surprised by it how many people were caught off guard how many people thought Oh I thought I had more time and how many of these people wasted enormous amounts of their time as we all do senica says we protect our property we protect our money and yet we're so frivolous with our time the one thing we should be
the strictest misers about he says we just Really hand out to people we let it be wasted because we think we have so much of it and we don't eventually we all come to the end and not just eventually could be sooner than you think momento Mory the dog say you could leave life right now let that determine what you do and say and think just reading a book is not enough you have to reread the book sonus says we have to linger on the works of the master thinkers it's talking about reading it once
and again And again and again because each time we read the book we find something new we bring something new to it we take something new out of it it's not just that we suffer more in imagination than we do in reality as senica says it's that we add suffering right so we're dreading this thing that might happen indeed it might happen but by thinking about it walking ourselves through it going over it over and over and over again living in it right now as if it Will happen what we're effectively doing is borrowing that
suffering we're like I want to deal with it now I want to sit in it now I want to feel it for longer so we have to remember that that this use of our creativity the way we're thinking about the thing over and over again we're living we're actually just adding suffering on top of the thing that may or may not actually even happen you're not going to be successful because you haven't defined what success Is you haven't really thought about where you're trying to go senica says that if you don't know what port you're
sailing towards no wind is favorable if you don't take the time to really go where am I trying to go what does that look like you're not going to be able to make the individual day-to-day part byart decisions that will allow you to actually get there you won't know how to respond properly to the things to the opportunities and to the obstacles that You face along the way it's strange that the stoics have this reputation for being unfeeling for being emotionless because actually four of senica's best and most moving pieces of writing are actually known
as his consolations to people who have lost someone and he's consoling them in their grief and I actually read these essays whenever I've lost someone or I'm trying to comfort someone who's lost someone the part that hit me the most is writing this letter To the daughter of a friend who has died he's saying look your father loved you very much what do you think he would want from you right now of course he wouldn't want you to be happy that he's dead but would he want his memory of you senica says to make you
miserable no it's the exact opposite he'd want you to think about him and be happy to remember good times to be filled with joy it's such a wonderful little insight about grief and it's such a good insight to The stoics too because if the stoics were feeling and didn't have emotion senica would just say get over it don't feel it but that's not what he's saying at all instead he came up with this great way of thinking about it every new year senica started the year off with the same thing he would throw himself into
the Tyber River the freezing River in Rome on the 1 of January there's two things he's getting out of it one it's like a fresh start it's washing himself Clean of who he was the year before metaphorically literally wiping the Slate clean but two I think he's starting the year off by doing something hard and painful and unpleasant and weird something that requires willpower his famous line about we treat the body rigorously so that it's not disobedient to the mind he's starting the year off by asserting who's in charge he's saying I'm in charge I'm
so in charge I'm hurling myself into this freezing River Even though I really don't want to and that's such a great important stoic lesson is something we all have to practice it's very easy for your day just to get fil up there's a passage in one of senica's essays where he's talking about these busy Romans who are just running around town all day and he said but if you ask them what are they actually doing would they have a good answer he calls this sort of busy idleness I could very easily find my Days just
getting filled up with email getting filled up with just stuff but I know that I'm not doing my job that I'm not moving the ball forward if I'm not doing what's called Deep work every day the ability to focus to lock in to have large uninterrupted blocks of focus is the most essential thing that you can do for me I try to do that really early I try to spend 1 to two to 3 hours of uninterrupted work work not administrative work not responding to Stuff catching up on stuff you need to have uninterrupted blocks
of deep work of focus where you are locked in and you're actually doing what it is that you do in recovery circles they have this great acronym halt stands for Hungry angry lonely or tired the point is when you're feeling those things you're less likely to be able to be the strong willed disciplined healthy safe smart person that you want to be the stoics weren't superhumans and in fact a Big part of stoicism is that kind of self-awareness monitoring why you're feeling what you're feeling stopping when you feel that feeling and going why am I
feeling this way so if you're mad at yourself for falling off if you're mad at yourself for not being the disciplined stoic and complete and total self-command of themselves stop and think about that acronym ask yourself hey what's actually going on with me senica says that philosophy doesn't take Away natural feeling but it doesn't matter how many books you've read how steeped in stoicism you are if you're hungry angry lonely tired you're not going to be your best self and thinking about that is a really really important part of making better decisions I remember Tim
Ferris told me one time that he like senica practices poverty it seems weird especially cuz Tim is very very successful but maybe that's the point Tim was pointing out that one of The things senica liked to do one day a month or every quarter or so is he would practice poverty he'd wear his worst clothes he'd sleep on the floor and his point was when he would practice this poverty when he would deliberately subject himself to difficult circumstances and realize that they're not so bad he could then say to himself is this really what you're
afraid of is this something you have to worry about that was one of the things Tim told me He said The more you schedule and practice discomfort in your life the less unplanned discomfort will throw you off in your real life so that's what senica was really doing he was practicing the thing we're all afraid of which is starting back from zero going back to how it was when we were just starting out losing what we have losing our Creature Comforts he was practicing those not cuz he wanted it to happen but he knew that
it potentially could happen If it did happen he didn't want to be rattled by it he didn't want to be overwhelmed or ruined by it if someone came and just took $100 from you or if you caught your neighbor building something on your property you'd be livid you'd say hey you're stealing from me you can't do that senica said the craziest thing in the world is that we protect our money we protect our property way more than we protect our time we let people steal our time like That right we let our neighbor drone on
and on about some nonsense we get sucked into some drama from our neighbor we Fritter away our time on stuff that doesn't matter and that's the one thing they're not making more of that's the one thing you can never get back in fact senica says the time that passes belongs to death it's dead and gone and can never return so you have to ask yourself why aren't you protecting this resource better why are you letting people steal From you and you got to stop you should be happy to pay your taxes the stoics weren't making
a political statement when they said that they were saying that life is a series of taxes delays are attacks on travel critics are attacks on doing stuff in public annoying people is a attack of going outside your house and senica says we have to pay the taxes of Life gladly we can't run away from them we can't think that we deserve to be exempt from them We can't grind our ourselves down with bitterness and resentment by fighting against them by feeling like we've been singled out by them what else are you going to do it's
one of the certainties of life so you might as well accept it be grateful for it what does it mean to pay a lot of income taxes it means you have a lot of income these are good problems to have senica says we pay the taxes of Life gladly painters like painting goes the expression but writers Writers like having written I think this is actually true for a lot of difficult things they're not fun while you're doing them but it's how you feel after senica said we treat the body rigorously so that it's not disobedient
to the mind there's a certain amount of abuse that we're putting ourselves through when we run or lift weights or push our limits on something but it's how we feel after that's another really important stoic idea masonius Rufus says when you do Something hard out of discipline the labor passes quickly but the pride the accomplishment remains and so that's the idea as you're pushing yourself physically just finish to run wasn't so fun while I was doing it was tiring while I did it but how I feel after that's the reward the thing you're worried about
could happen the flight could get delayed you could miss the thing you were desperately trying to make package could get lost in the mail You could get robbed all these things could happen senica says my advice to you is do not be unhappy before it happens he says he who suffers before it is necessary suffers more than is necessary our anxiety our worry our anticipation of the thing is torture before it happens it's unnecessary it's unfair so just don't torture yourself before it's going to happen be present while you can you don't need to borrow
suffering you don't need to make Yourself more unhappy than you need to be of course it's it's lovely to go on a trip it's lovely to go cool places but but senica warns us to make sure that to borrow epicurus's phrase that we're not fleeing ourself he Likens the way that we travel from this destination to that destination this vacation this exotic local one to the other to the other trying to find happiness or peace or Serenity as if that's where we're going to find it when when in reality all that Is going to be
on the inside he Likens it to the person tossing and turning in bed as if there's some magical comfortable place that they'll finally fall asleep you're never going to find it he says in the external things you have to look inward you have to look to philosophy you you you find the Peace by by slowing down by ceasing to move uh by staying in one spot obviously we all know we're going to die we know we're going to die someday right someday in The future but this is wrong senica says this is the wrong way
to think about it he says death is isn't this thing that we're moving towards that looms off in the distance he says death is happening right now not just in in the sense that in the midst of life we are in death but the time that passes belongs to death senica says we're dying every minute we're dying every second the time that passes is gone forever as we kill time it kills us so how are you spending your Time how are you living accordingly knowing the fact that you are dying this very minute this very
day you can't learn that which you think you already know that's epic tetus he was sent the the best and the brightest students from all over the Roman Empire but he understood that conceit was the enemy the problem with being a knowt all is that it's true it's impossible for you to know anything more if you come to learning from a place of humility if you Come to it like Socrates did the Great Hero of the sto that you know what you don't know or that you you understand that you know very little then it
becomes possible for you to learn so much more it's impossible to learn that which you think you already know focus on what you don't know focus on how much there is left to learn always stay a student that's how you get better smarter and wiser this is what you trained for that that's the whole point Of philosophy epicus is to be able to say to whatever situation you find yourself in whatever the moment is big or small positive or negative you're supposed to be able to say this is what I trained for this is what
it was all leading up to this the point of all and now I'm going to apply all these things that I learned that I've been reading about that I've been talking about that I've been EXP experimenting with all the experiences that I've gained up until This point this is what it was all for it's pretty simple but it's worth remembering there's some stuff that's in your control and there's some stuff that's not in your control and the time and the energy and the emotions that you spend that you throw at the things you don't control
take away from the energy and time and opportunity and progress you can make on the things that you do control so this basic exercise at the core of stoic philosophy the dichotomy Of control there's some stuff that's up to us and there's some stuff that's not is incredibly basic but says it's the first task of the philosopher to understand what's up to us and understand what isn't up to us and basically stoicism says we don't control what happens we don't control what other people do we don't control what's happened before we don't control what's going
to happen in the future we control how we respond to what happens it may be Reasonable that you're concerned about this thing it it would cause trouble if it happened again so when the Stokes talk about how some things are in our control some things are not in our control what they're saying is Well focus on what you control about this situation reminding yourself that hey just feel anxiety emoting about the problem biting her nails about it talking about it incessantly to people it's not making it any more or less Likely to happen so try
to put that energy to constructive use try to think about okay here's what I'm going to do here's what I can do here are ways that I can influence this situation or at least prepare myself to be resilient or endure or or bounce back from it if it does happen right put yourself to constructive use put yourself working on something that makes a difference just make sure you're not confusing ending mental bandwidth and energy and Torturing yourself emotionally don't confuse that with making a positive difference epicus has an incredibly difficult Life Born Into Slavery walks
with a limp because of it and so you might think that there is some bitterness there there's some frustration there this would all be perfectly understandable but that's not how epicus responds when you experience difficulty you have to say to yourself life has spared me with a strong Sparring partner and this is how one becomes Olympic class material by wrestling with by fighting with something stronger something better something really difficult and challenging and so you have to think of the adversity the problems the obstacles that life inevitably puts in your path not as unfair not
as disadvantages but in fact exactly the opposite advantages as something good that's happened to you something that's making you better than You would be had that never happened you're an actor we're all actors in a Play We Don't control what's happening out here we don't control who wrote it we don't control the direction we're in but like a good actor you control how you play your role you act the hell out of your role you don't control what the director does you don't control what the other actors do you don't control how the play ends
and if it's a bad play you want to be the best actor in that bad Play but if we all play our roles well life can be amazing I don't have goals I have zero goals I'm not trying to sell a certain number of copies I'm not trying to write a certain number of books I'm not trying to beat anyone I'm not trying to be the best at anything don't really care about bestseller list I'm trying to do the thing I like doing the thing I wake up every day I try my best I put
in my hours I focus on what I control I control what I put in I control the Effort that I put in I control the energy that I direct at it the brain power that I put in it everything else is not really up to me so I leave that where it is my goals are to be the best that I'm capable of being to realize my potential that's what I wake up and do and to to focus on specific metrics or specific goals or specific accomplishments to me is artificially delimiting it's like putting a
ceiling on my job is to do my best to do the Thing that's what I want to keep doing to do the thing to do the writing to do the work let the chips fall where they may I don't need goals I don't need that it's my motivation so that's not what I focus on it's kind of a strange analogy but epicas said that a philosopher is like a great ball player and he said that Socrates actually is the greatest ball player there ever was what he was saying is that a ball player doesn't label
a throw good or bad they just have To catch it if it's a catchable ball they have to catch it and then they have to throw it back he said that's what we have to do in life also and he said Socrates was great because he dealt with a bad marriage he dealt with war he dealt with the fascism of his time but his life would throw these things at him he would catch them right and throw it back that he gave as good as he got and that's what we're trying to do as philosophers
that's what we're training For that's how we're trying to live life throws balls at us and we have to catch them and then we have to throw them back doesn't matter if they're good throws or bad throws that's what got thrown to us we catch it and we throw it back you don't get rich acquiring things acquiring money epic TAA says it's not about having many things it's about having few wants if you have everything you need then you are very rich would it also be nice to pair that with having a Lot of money
sure but you could also have very little and feel like enough feel good get to a place where you feel like you have enough then you are rich when you pair your wants down when you don't need anything from anyone or anything outside your control that to the stugs is true wealth if you haven't read hundreds of books you are functionally illiterate that's the great line from General Mattis he talks about this in his great book call sign chaos But it calls to mind for me another famous line tributed in some cases to Mark Twain
it was this idea he said that there was no difference between a person who does not read and a person who cannot read the wisest people who ever lived have written books some of the greatest people who have ever lived have books written about them some of the worst people who have ever lived have books written about them why would you not learn from this why would you not Avail yourself of this knowledge when epicus says you cannot learn that which you think you already know he talking about how conceit how disinterest is the enemy
of knowledge you have this Great Brain there is so much great knowledge out there why would you not Avail yourself of it why would you not soak it in why would you not add as senica said all the wisdom and knowledge of the past into your own life that's what we're trying to do here that's what stoicism Is about you're not being harmed you're not being screwed over you're not being challenged you're being epic to said paired with a strong sparring partner life is helping you life is making you better life is teaching you life
is making you stronger you want to wrestle with this you pick hard sparring partners you pick people who you get better for wrestling with when you're running it happens all the time somebody passes you or you pass someone and then They start speeding up one of the things you realize or you have to realize is that the race you're running is not against other people the race you're running is against yourself epic pet said enter races where winning is up to you if you're racing against yourself if you're racing against your own potential if you're
staying on the course that you are on then you will always win and it doesn't matter what other people are doing you focus on what you are doing It's not important that you read epic Tia says what matters is what you read right his point was that wasting time on bad books reading the books that you think will impress other people none of this matters it matters what you're reading right are you reading good books books that push you books that challenge you books that make you think books that make you better I would add
to this it also matters how you read are you taking notes are you highlighting are you Really thinking about are you talking to other people about what you're finding in this book are you putting that stuff into use so it's not that you read that counts it's what you read and it's not what you read it's how you read That's the secret to being a smart person get after it it's not things that upset us epic tetus reminds us it's our opinion about things the event is objective it just is the other person just is
what they're doing just is the market doesn't Care about you the pandemic doesn't care about you traffic doesn't care about you none of these things are trying to upset you none of these things know you exist at all it's not the thing that upsets us it's not the thing that's the problem it's our opinion about that thing it's the telling ourselves that it's unfair that it sucks that it's somebody else's fault that will never recover cover from it that we've been injured by it the Stokes would say when we choose not to Feel harmed by
something when we choose not to tell ourselves that something has ruined us Mark says in meditations then we haven't been harmed it's not the thing that upsets us it's our opinion about that thing it isn't just that ego is obnoxious it isn't just that it's arrogant that it's rude that it's self-centered that it's entitled that it's all these unpleasant ugly things it's that ego makes you worse epicas says remember it is it's impossible to Learn that which you think you already know that's the problem with ego if you think you're perfect if you think you
know everything in a sense you're right because you cannot be improved and you cannot learn anything else so a humble person Socrates focuses on what he doesn't know a person who focuses on where they can get better a person who focuses on all the areas they have for improvement that too becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and you do get Better because there are opportunities cuz you can take advantage of those opportunities and then on top of that you're much more pleasant to be around why do we do hard things the sto would say we have to
undergo a hard winter training we have to push ourselves we have to seek out places of resistance of challenges so that when life challenges us when we find ourselves in difficult situations as epic said we needed to be able to say ah this is what I train for That's why we do the work that's why we go to the gym that's why we get up early that's why we seek out difficult situations we're training ourselves so that when that moment comes we're ready as epic cheetah says if you live with a lame man you will
start to limp you become like the things that you put in your body you become like the things that you consume that you read about that you watch that you surround yourself with you have to think about Your information diet you have to think about the proximity effect what are you putting in what are you surrounding yourself with cuz that will determine who you are epicus is a slave in ancient Rome and he realizes that slavery is the legal status but it's also a state of mind in the girl who would be free which is
my sort of fictional kids book about epicus I actually Rend her as a girl for bunch of whatever reasons I have epic titus's father say that we have to worry About controlling the Empire between our ears there's all this stuff that epic tetus doesn't control other people do what other people say what he's allowed to do and say but no one can control his thoughts so the girl who would be free is really about that finding Freedom within captivity finding fre Freedom inside constraint usually when I sign this one I'll write amorti cuz sort of
a theme in the book it's about finding what you love about your situation what You can do inside your situation who you can be inside your situation and I think ultimately that's what stoicism itself is about and I wanted to write a kids book to help kids with that very idea like I also did in the boy who would be king what I love about what you do the daily stoic stoicism in general is how it applies to so many different aspects of life I was listening to your conversation with Gary vanderchuck and also your
conversation with Matt Choy Yeah and how it applies to your ability to be the fact you're complicit when somebody else says something and you're like I take offense to that or like I'm so annoyed right now if you were able to actually accept that that is true that you are complicit in those situations do you know how much stress you would relieve from yourself in Corporate America on a day andto dayout basis it's nuts that's like a 90% lift of weight off of your shoulders and that's just One example of all of these things that
seem to span Corporate America running entrepreneurship writing a book being a parent like that's what I've loved in like as I was connecting the dots for this conversation I was like man there's so much that applies here both in the nitty-gritty of like hardcore Corporate America but then also why do you run every day you know incessantly and you know feel like you can't get away from it almost the corporate I think of the Of being offended where we're complicit in it what the Stokes would talk about is to me the quintessential example is like
you get an email M and then you're offended by the tone but the tone doesn't exist you decided that three periods meant something or you decided that K meant something verse okay or yes right look obviously as human beings one of the our skills is we're good at noticing little things we're incredibly perceptive animals But we're so perceptive that we can often perceive things where it doesn't exist and I think that's one of the things you learn when you get in a position of leadership or you become a boss is now suddenly you're hearing from
people how they interpreted things that you did and you're like I was busy yeah I said K because it was the fastest response that I had and I was running between two meetings I meant literally nothing but and I've had employees where It almost just ultimately came to a place where it didn't work because of what they brought to the table they were so sensitive and I don't mean in a snowflake way but they were just often intuiting or interpreting things as being negative about them and it's like I'm literally not thinking about you at
all like I I was busy and that's why I didn't notice you in the hall what right so like our ability to take an objective thing or a thing that's not about us and Make it about us or make it hurtful or rude or you know do they not think I'm a valuable member of the team anymore are they getting ready to move on for me like we you get in this whole thing you realize you've had a whole conversation with yourself about someone who has 50 of you that they're working with and you're just
not as significant as your ego is making you out to be and th torturing yourself yeah there's such a Small percentage that I've seen percentage of people that have that awareness that I found the team operated best when I understood that that was something that I had to carry for them yes that especially in a you know the difference between a place where khakis may not be you know that's like the only thing you could wear when you show up on campus and 100,000 person company lots of rules and regulations not a lot of Personality
I've had to be fully okay With the fact that how I said good morning the tone in which I would say good morning could have an impact on someone's entire day yes and especially getting into a larger role at 35 like that kind of [ __ ] me up in the head but I would say in a good way where I would start to carry that I need to be super cognizant of the fact that my number one responsibility is for people to go home at the end of the day and say today was a
good day yeah because if They can do that on a consistent basis all the complicated [ __ ] that goes along with corporate America and all the other policy and other stuff will start to sort itself out like our keep I and like our goals will be easier to hit if they're okay with that and it did mean probably an unbalanced burden of that understanding that as much as I want to be like okay fine in this moment that person is going to potentially read it eight different ways and then I might Have to deal
with whatever those ramifications are because they're going to spiral and this is going to be their next decision and then they're going to go to somebody else and waste 10 minutes being like hey is Tim mad at me about this and I do think that there's in corporate because of how much impact our jobs Corporate America has on Mental Health I do think bosses especially when it comes to like higher level and the CEOs in the space need to be cognizant Of the fact that what we're discussing now is not a strong skill set across
the board to be able to understand that like I don't need to overanalyze everything yeah well no that's the tension right so you as the individual following the advice from The Stokes have to go look if somebody says something I'm choosing to be offended I control my emotions I'm responsible for my feelings and then you have to flip it when you're in the position of leadership or responsibility Even though you don't actually control how other people interpret what you say and it's their fault if they you know take it this way versus that way you
still have to expend an immense amount of effort anticipating how things are going to be interpreted so it's like I go through the world trying not to be offended yeah and I also go through the world knowing that like look I'm not going to please everyone and some people are going to be offended by what I say But it's still my obligation as both a boss who's trying to just get things done and then a human being who's trying to be decent to think about the weight of the words that I'm choosing and make sure
that I'm not unnecessarily offending someone and if hey knowing this person can handle you know uh no [ __ ] straight talk and this person you got to sandwich it with a bunch of compliments and this person like if it's not in writing they're not going to be Able to handle you know understanding that you have a lot of not control but you you have to get you have to dial it just right or you're going to needlessly hurt people or just not be effective if you're not thinking about the consequences of your words and
actions on other people again even though at the end of the day it's their responsibility and they don't and you don't control it yeah sounds a lot like parenting as well totally yes yeah it's just just thinking About like yeah how you deliver the message what is the message what's the vibe of the message just it's a it's much more complicated than I think sometimes you can read the STS and it seems very straightforward like say what's true and it's like okay but uh sometimes that's going to blow up in your face that's not to
say you lie but you have to figure out how the best way to deliver that truth so it's actually heard by the flawed person you're Delivering it yeah and that your outcome oriented as well right like if my objective here is to Simply get the broccoli to get eaten and to have there not be a lot of drama around that what is the best way to make that happen yes and then you know and whether that's hey we need a revision to this PowerPoint deck and the person's going to freak out because it's 4:45 and
whatever day but like here the you know things that are happening the make that a need right now Sure and then thinking about okay if I want the person to Not freak out I still need the thing to get done then I think that that kind of starts to Encompass plus the understanding that they may interpret this in a certain way and be like oh you're just doing this to be mean because you don't like whatever about me and that's why I have to eat the broccoli or you know I'm in trouble because I messed
up this PowerPoint deck uh those are the variables that you know Sometimes we got to bring into our head and then well every every every person needs a different message like one and one of my sons is like to get something through to him not saying you yell cuz he doesn't respond to yelling but it's like you really have to overd deliver this message and you have to deliver it multiple times for it to pierce whatever the sort of defensive bubble slash not paying attention slash you know just like determination of him and then it
Wasn't until my youngest started to get to the age where he was doing some of the things that we have struggled with my oldest with a bunch and then you're like you can't do that like you cannot bite people I don't know how to communicate this to you you can't bite people and then watching that just like Crush my youngest and you realize oh you're much more sensitive than your brother so I have for the first eight years of this person's life been Calibrating a severity and an intensity of message so it can be received
by this one person who not wants to hear it and this one over here is on a totally different frequency and so if I only have one way of delivering messages it's still not going to get through over here and it's going to crush this one over here and so yeah with kids you sort of learn how to dial in the message just right there there's some line I think from confucious you know this student Comes to him and and he's like you should do this and then another student comes to him and he's like
you should do this and then this other student says but you g just gave them very different messages know one he told it to like zoom in and the other he told them to zoom out and the and and the the student the third student is sort of perplexed by this but that's life right that's what the confusious says it's like some students need to hear this and some Students need to hear that and I think that's that's how it goes for people like the message can be the same but the angle at which it's
delivered or how it's how it's explained can have an enormous impact as far as how it's received if you don't get the daily stoic email you should it's one piece of stoic inspired wisdom takes just a couple minutes to read every single morning it goes out it's totally free you can Unsubscribe at any time and you can grab it at Daily stoic.com or just click the link below [Music]
