The Daily Stoic - 10 Timeless Meditations From Stoic Philosophy

Episode Date: April 17, 2022

We hope this video helps you find the serenity, self-knowledge, and resilience you need to live well. Where can you find joy? What's the true measure of success? How should we manage an...ger? Find meaning? Conquer grief? These 10 timeless meditations from Stoic philosophy will help you answer questions and more.The Daily Stoic is a wise, calming, page-a-day guide to living a good life, offering inspirational daily doses of classic wisdom. Each page features a powerful quotation from the likes of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, the playwright Seneca, or philosopher Epictetus, as well as historical anecdotes and thought-provoking commentary to help you tackle any problem, approach any goal and live a better life.Watch the video: https://youtu.be/46rTnZg_99g Novo is the #1 Business Banking App - because it’s built from the ground up to be powerfully simple and free business banking that Money Magazine called the Best Business Checking Account of 2021. This year, get your FREE business banking account in just 10 minutes at bank novo.com/STOICKiwiCo is a subscription service that delivers everything your kids will need to make, create and play. Get 50% off your first month plus FREE shipping on ANY crate line with code STOIC at kiwico.com.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemailCheck out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookFollow Chuck Klosterman: Website, TwitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic. Each weekday, we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, something to help you live up to those four Stoic virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. And then here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview Stoic philosophers, we explore at length how these Stoic ideas can be applied to our actual lives and the challenging issues of our time. Here on the weekend, when you have a little bit more space when things have slowed down, be sure to take some time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with your journal, and most
Starting point is 00:00:57 importantly to prepare for what the week ahead may bring. Obviously, I am a fan of Page a Day books. I have Tolstoy's calendar of wisdom here on my desk. I was lucky enough to work on Robert Green's The Daily Laws. These are two books I try to read on a daily basis. I have a book over there. I'm seeing from the corner of my desk a year with Roki. I love these daily books. When my agent first came to me to talk about doing the daily
Starting point is 00:01:27 stoke, I was like, I hadn't really read a book like that. So I, he was like, trust me, these books, they're magic. They just, it just becomes a part of people's life. He's like, it'll be the best-selling book you've ever written. And just so you know that's, that's not the reason that I wrote the daily stoke for the proof is I didn't believe him. I thought that sounded crazy. There's no way that book would sell better than real books like books that you read cover to cover like not chronologically, but just until you're done because 99.9% of books I'd ever written and read in my life up to that point
Starting point is 00:02:03 had not been that way. He's like, trust me, think about it. And I was like, yeah, this, because it was hard, like, where do you start with stilicism, right? And so I ended up cobbling together like a bunch of, all my favorite quotes, the Stokes, and then my breakdown of them, Steve, Hanselman, my friend, and agent did the translation. That became the daily stoke. You've heard some of those on the podcast that one day a week, we excerpt a quote from the book. But in today's episode, I wanted to bring you
Starting point is 00:02:32 just 10 of my favorite meditations from the daily stoke. Stuff on how to find joy, how to measure success, how to conquer your temper, find meaning, conquer grief. I want to talk about some timeless meditations from stoke philosophy. If you haven't read the daily Stoke, if you're just enjoying this podcast, more power to you, but here's an insight into what's in the book and some quotes and passages and meditations from me, on those meditations from the Stokes, that I think you will enjoy. And you can check out the Daily Stoke anywhere books are sold. There's an audio book. And you can check out the Daily Stoke or anywhere books are sold.
Starting point is 00:03:05 There's an audiobook version. You can get a sign print version from the painting porch. We even have like a premium leather edition that we sell at the Daily Stoke Store, as well as on Amazon. That's as much of a pitch I'm gonna give you in the book. Let's just get into these 10 meditations and what they mean from the Stokes,
Starting point is 00:03:20 from my book, The Daily Stoic, and enjoy. God laid down this law saying, if you want some good, get it or yourself. I mean, what I think this is saying is there's one way to guarantee that you have a good day today. It's that you do good, right? You can always do that. It's always in your control. Doesn't depend on other people. doesn't depend on things going right. If you want to feel good, do good. It's as simple as that. Whatever anyone does or says my part is to be good. In the same way that an emerald or gold or
Starting point is 00:04:00 purple must always claim what anyone else does or says, I must be what I am and show my true colors. The stokes believe that we all have a purpose, we all have a task, we all have something we were uniquely fitted to do. And I think our job is to not only do that well, but to be good in the world, to be a positive difference maker. Marcus says in the meditations of my favorite quote, he said, you have to remain a person
Starting point is 00:04:25 that philosophy tried to make you have to be good, whatever anyone says or does, whatever other people's jobs are, however well or poor they do with them, your job is to be good and do good. This is epictetus. He says, you can bind up my leg, but not even Zeus has the power break my freedom of choice. And this happens to Epic Titus. His leg is broken by his slave master. He walks with a limp his whole life. And I think what he's saying is that those
Starting point is 00:04:59 things can't happen to you. Life can literally break you. It can take things from you. But nothing can affect the power you have of your own choices about your thoughts, about your opinions, about the story you tell yourself about things. And I think he's literally doing that there. He's deciding to tell himself a story that says, yes, he's been deprived of one thing, but he still maintains even in Roman slavery, which is a horrible institution. Even within that, he still has control over so much his power of choice, and you have that power today.
Starting point is 00:05:30 [♪ Music playing in background, meditate often on the swiftness, which all that exists is coming into being swept by us and carried away. Substance, he says, is like a river's unending flow. It's constantly changing and causes infinite shifting and so that nothing stands still. I think the Stokes is over and over again
Starting point is 00:05:52 that the one constant in life is changed. You try to keep everything as it is. Not only you act in contrary to nature what the Stokes say, is it not right? You are preventing good things from coming into being as well. Borrowing from Heracletus, Marcus, says that we never step in the same river twice. The river is changing and also we are changing, right? Even this book, you read the Daily Stoic one or two or three times,
Starting point is 00:06:14 you come back to the entries, you are different. Even though the words are exactly the same, the world is different. I am different as the person who wrote them. And so we have to remember that everything has changed. All is changed. Life is changed. Every good thing in your life has come from change. Don't fight it, accept it. Bend with it. Be flexible about it. Embrace it. And flow alongside the river. Ah, the Bahamas. What if you could live in a penthouse above the crystal clear ocean working during the day and partying at night with your best friends and have it be 100% paid for.
Starting point is 00:06:47 FTX Founder's Sam Bankman Freed lived that dream life, but it was all funded with other people's money, but he allegedly stole. Many thought Sam Bankman Freed was changing the game as he graced the pages of Forbes and Vanity Fair. Some involved in crypto saw him as a breath of fresh air from the usual Wall Street buffs with his casual dress and ability to play League of Legends during boardroom meetings. But in less than a year, his exchange would collapse. An SPF would find himself in a jail cell, with tens of thousands of investors blaming him
Starting point is 00:07:17 for their crypto losses. From Bloomberg and Wondering comes Spellcaster, a new six-part docu-series about the meteoric rise and spectacular fall of FTX and its founder, Sam Beckman Freed. Follow Spellcaster wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, prime members, you can listen to episodes Add Free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. It's spring here in Texas and one of the great things about spring is doing outdoor projects with my kids. One of the best Kiwi co-kits that I've done with my kids, they built this stomp rocket
Starting point is 00:07:54 and we just spent hours out in the yard shooting it up in the air, tracking it down, shooting it up in the air, tracking it down. They just had an amazing time. If you're looking to have some outside, non- time play hands-on science-based work with your hands projects, Kiwi Co is it. Kids can discover the engineering and mechanics behind every day. Objects, the science and chemistry of cooking, geography and culture, brand new art and design techniques, all through these fun hands-on projects that you can do together. I strongly suggest you check it out.
Starting point is 00:08:29 Step into spring and celebrate the season of Discovery with KiwiCo subscription. Get 30% off your first month plus free shipping on any crate line with code Stoic at KiwiCo.com. That's 30% off your first month. KiwiCo.com promo code Stoic. Silence is a lesson learned from the many sufferings of life. My favorite quote is actually from Robert Green. It's one of the laws of power. It says always say less than necessary.
Starting point is 00:09:01 The more you say, the more likely you are to say something foolish. What we learned by messing up by saying too much, saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, is that we are better to shut up. And that's why Zeno said two years and one mouth for a reason. Who is invincible, he said, the one who cannot be upset by anything outside their reasoned choice. So as we said, the job of the philosophers to distinguish what's in my control, that's not in my control, and then to tune out all those things, the person who can't be upset by things that are not up to them, that only measure themselves by what is up to them, that person to the Stoics is invincible. And you are invincible in the sense that you are impervious to the things that are happening
Starting point is 00:09:46 in the outside world, but other people are saying what other people are doing, the random bad news that just got tweeted out, the thing that your phone is buzzing about, all that matters is what's up to you, what you're doing, what's in your control. And if you focus on that, you become in a sense invincible. That which isn't good for the hive, isn't good for the hive isn't good for the bee. You know, Mark's really talks in meditations more than 80 times about the common good. He said, the fruit of this life is good character and acts for the common good. The still-ex believe that we are all interconnected. There was a kind of mutual interdependence of all of us.
Starting point is 00:10:22 We were woven together. We were put here for each other. And to do something that's good for you at the expense of everyone else is not only not right, it is ultimately a punishment of yourself. The Stokes believed in this connectedness, a guided way they participated in public life, and it should guide you, and it should be something to think about today. What isn't good for the hive, isn't good for the bee, what isn't good for the hole, isn't good for me. Don't let your reflection on the sweep of life crush. You don't think about all the bad things that might happen. Stay focused on the present situation.
Starting point is 00:10:58 Ask yourself why it's unbearable and can't be survived. He says, you will find that it can be. It's a great line from the writer Chuck Palney up that I like. He says, the trick to forgetting the big picture is to look at it up close. Sometimes, yeah, we have to zoom way out and see the big picture, but sometimes we have to zoom way in because the big picture is overwhelming and scary and quite frankly more than we can bear. Zoom way in to focus on a small piece. You're crossing a tight rope. You don't think about how high up you are. There's a great Hebrew saying about how the world is a narrow bridge. Don't look down. Don't be afraid. Zoom in on the next step you have to take.
Starting point is 00:11:38 Philosophy calls for simple living, but not for pennants. It's quite possible to be simple without being crew. I love this because Seneca was, I think, the most worldly and practical of all the Stokes. He's wealthy, he has these parties, his friends. It's important that we don't see Stokes as a self-flagelation or needless deprivation. Stokes say if it's there, enjoy it. Just don't need it. And in fact, the Stokes are sort of a rejection of the cynical idea that nothing matters. Diogenes sort of walks around and up arrow is very uncouth. The Stokes are saying, no, you should be a part of the world. You should figure out how the world works.
Starting point is 00:12:12 You just don't be addicted to it. You just don't be dependent on it. Often injustice lies in what you aren't doing, not only what you are doing. This goes to that that famous quote that's now sort of a common expression that the only thing that evil needs to triumph is for good men to do nothing, right? Yes, other people might be committing the injustice, but if you don't say anything, if you don't try to stop it, if you just go along with it, then you are complicit in it happening.
Starting point is 00:12:43 So we talked about this before, but Santa says that one of the ways to get to wisdom are complicit in it happening. So we talked about this before, but Seneca says that one of the ways to get to wisdom is by like finding one thing a day, one thing to chew on each day that makes you better, his exchange of letters with his friend Lucilius, that's what they're doing. Thanks so much for listening to the Daily Stoke podcast. If you don't know this,
Starting point is 00:13:04 you can get these delivered to you via email every day, check it out at dailystoke.com slash email. Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoke early and add free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and add free with Wondery Plus in Apple podcasts. Celebrity feuds are high stakes. You never know if you're just going to end up on page six or Du Moir or in court. I'm Matt Bellesai. And I'm Sydney Battle,
Starting point is 00:13:37 and we're the host of Wondery's new podcast, Disantel, where each episode we unpack a different iconic celebrity feud from the buildup, why it happened, and the repercussions. What does our obsession with these feuds say about us? The first season is packed with some pretty messy pop culture drama, but none is drawn out in personal as Britney and Jamie Lynn Spears. When Britney's fans form the free Britney movement dedicated to fraying her from the infamous
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