the idea of of responding to everything in real time to being on top of everything in real time not only is this not a recipe for productivity it's a recipe for misery too [Music] summarizing all of stoic philosophy epictetus says it comes down to persisting and resisting meaning there's some stuff you should start doing you should keep doing that you should do and then there's other stuff that you should stop doing you should resist doing i'm ryan holliday i've written about stoke philosophy now for almost 15 years talked about it everywhere from the nba to
the nfl special forces sitting senators and i've done a lot of videos on what a stoic should do you can check all those out but in today's episode i wanted to talk about things that stoics should not do things that stoics don't do that you should stop doing so here we go things stoics don't do generally stoics aren't trying not to be afraid of things but of all the things a stoic tries specifically not to fear it's change mark cerita says all things are born from change right everything good that ever happened to you in
your life came from change a stoic doesn't fear change because they're prepared for stuff because they know they can handle anything marx surrealists in meditation says what am i going to do about tomorrow he says i'm going to meet it with the same weapons that i met today right knowing what you're capable of knowing what you can handle means you don't have to fear change you don't need to cling to make everything the same and part of the stoic idea of indifference doesn't mean you don't care but it means you're good either way so because
the preparation a stoic does they don't need things to be a certain way stoic doesn't have to have a preference about how things are going to go tomorrow whether it's going to be rainy or beautiful whether it's going to be hot or cold whether people are going to love them or hate them they know what they're supposed to do they can handle anything so stoke doesn't fear change doesn't have preferences right because we don't need to we can handle anything that life throws at us a lot of stuff happens every day every minute but here's
the thing most of it doesn't matter right marcus really says you're better off not giving small things more attention than they're worth basically don't sweat the small stuff right the stuff that's not up to you the stuff that doesn't move you closer to where you want to get in life the stuff that distracts you from what you actually should be doing you have to tune it out we talked about this in one of the other videos the idea that you don't have to have an opinion about this it doesn't even have to register with you
you can ignore it you can stay focused on what matters you can ask yourself is this essential does it matter and if it doesn't what do you do you ignore it [Music] when someone criticizes me i do this exercise for marcus you realize that he says think about this person think about what they just submitted to think about who they are think about what they're addicted to think about what they've ever accomplished and what you realize is that this person whose opinion you were about to let supersede your own evaluation of yourself in your work
is actually worse than meaningless they're like the opposite of who you're trying to be so it's good that they don't like what you're doing you don't want their approval focus on what you think focus on who you want to be as he says we love ourselves more than other people but then for some reason we care about other people's opinions more than our own that's insanity you got to focus on who you are on your own internal scorecard on your sense of self that's what you measure yourself against not the nonsense of other people not
the worthless opinions these people who quite frankly you don't respect anyone a stoic doesn't need to get even marcus aurelius is the best revenge it's to not be like that and this is a person who experienced coups who was lied about who was attacked constantly right said the best revenge is to not be like the person who wronged you seneca says that we we get angry about things but how ridiculous that is he says you never return a kick to a mule or a bite to a dog right a stoic understands that by nature of
what we do who we are we're going to get attacked we're going to get criticized people suck they're going to hurt us they're going to do things but what a stoic doesn't do what you have to stop doing is need to get revenge need to get even need to get your pound of flesh because someone did something to you you're fine you weren't harmed by it you're gonna be all right and you can let it go people wake up and that what's the first thing they do they check their text messages they check their email
they basically make themselves an item on someone else's to-do list the quality of their day is determined about what so and so tweeted or what message came in or what the the latest breaking piece of news is and that's no way to live marx really says you have to stop being jerked around like a puppet you have to slow down you want to be in control of your morning you want to be in control of the inputs that are coming into you you don't want to be starting the day from behind you don't want to
be starting from this place of freneticness you want to be in control so i think it's really important that you start the morning off right that you start your day off right now you don't let things coming in determine the quality of your day the quality of your life [Music] there's a great story about napoleon who famously wouldn't read his mail until three weeks after it arrived he knew that most problems will resolve themselves but if you're checking constantly if you're so reachable you'll be inserting yourself into things that you don't need to be inserted
on you'll be spending time on things that will resolve themselves you can imagine marcus realists doing a similar strategy epictetus or seneca the idea of of responding to everything in real time to being on top of everything in real time not only is this not a recipe for productivity it's a recipe for misery too you have to be willing not to know every single thing that's going on to not be so reachable that anyone can interrupt you in your concentration anytime follow napoleon's advice sleep with your phone in the other room leave your phone in
the other room and you're going to do something important don't be so reachable you don't have to let this get to you marcus screeley says you don't have to let it upset you you always have the option to have no opinion he says you can just let it go you can let it drift by like clouds as the buddhists talk about when they talk about thoughts you don't have to let it sink in don't have to let it harm you you don't have to let it get you riled up you don't have to get worked
up you don't have to respond you can just let it go i want you to know that don't have to let this get to you you can just let it go epictetus says that when you look outside yourself for approval you have settled you've handed over your happiness or your autonomy meaning and this is such a critical stoic idea when we talk about what's in our control what's not in our control how you should judge yourself whether you're getting better whether you're a success whether you're rich whether you're whatever it is it can't be determined
by other people what you've done is hand over your life on a platter to other people obviously this is wonderful when people are celebrating you and saying they're awesome but what happens when that turns or right what happens if the crowd is wrong what happens if the times that you're in are valuing the wrong things so epictetus is saying that you want to look inward you want to create your own standards your own scorecard for what's important to you so a stoic doesn't look to outside sources outside people outside benchmarks for their success for their
happiness for the self-worth you find that internally epictetus said that philosophy wasn't this dry abstract thing it was a thing he said you should be talking about writing down reading about exploring with other people all the time he said constantly have it at hand that's how i think about philosophy and it's weird for the last five years every single day i've been writing this free email about stoic philosophy it's been not just cool to meet all these fellow practitioners of stone philosophy but in writing about it talking about it reading it for our podcast i
have got to internalize these ideas in a way that i never would have been able to under any other circumstances that's the idea philosophy is something you're supposed to engage in not keeping these dusty old books or read once and be done with it's a constant process and i think that's why the email has worked so well for the people reading about it and sharing it and talking about it all of that as well so i'd love to have you join us on this email you can sign up at dailystoke.com daily email it's totally free
no spam you can unsubscribe whatever you want i've basically given away a book for free every single year for five years and i'm going to keep on doing it until i drop dead check it out dailystoke.com daily email
