The Daily Stoic - All That Matters Is How We Respond | No Pain No Gain

Episode Date: September 22, 2022

It was the great Athenian leader, Pericles, who said that there was nothing wrong with poverty. It could be caused by so many things—a business failure, the sudden loss of a family’s breadwinner, theft, even just plain old back luck. Like the Stoics, he knew that Fortune could swoop in, and, in the blink of an eye, undo years of hard work and careful planning.📕Pre-order Ryan Holiday's new book "Discipline Is Destiny" and get exclusive pre-order bonuses at https://dailystoic.com/preorder ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoke Podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoke Podcast. On Thursdays, we do double duty, not just reading our daily meditation, but also reading a passage from the book, The Daily Stoic, 365 meditations on wisdom, perseverance in the art of living, which I wrote with my wonderful co-author

and collaborator, Steve Enhancelman. And so today we'll give you a quick meditation from one of the Stoics, from Epictetus Marks, Relius, Seneca, then some analysis for me. And then we send you out into the world to do your best to turn these words into works. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wonderree's podcast business wars. And in our new season, Walmart must fight off target, the new discounter that's both

savvy and fashion forward. Listen to Business Wars on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. It was the great Athenian leader, Paracles, who said that there was nothing wrong with poverty. It could be caused by so many things, a business failure, the sudden loss, a family's breadwinner, theft, even just plain old bad luck. Like the Stoics, he knew that fortune could swoop in and in the blink of an eye, undue years of hard work and careful planning. But Paracles would not have said, as religious leaders and populist demagogues have tried to argue for thousands of years since, that

there was anything special or holy about poverty. While it wasn't necessarily someone's fault that they were poor, and so they shouldn't be judged for it," Parachle said. There was, quote, "...we ashamed in not taking steps to escape it." This too matches with the Stoic attitude, both about poverty and any fate fortune might throw at us. Stuff is going to happen. We are going to experience setbacks. Some of us are going to experience major setbacks

in terms of where we were born, what our parents were like, how other people see members of our race or gender, and none of that is fair or says anything about who we are as people. How could it? We didn't have anything to do with it happening. But how we respond to those situations, be it poverty or disability or bad upbringing, how we act as individuals, what we do in our own life, how we respond

to it is what says everything about who we are. And we can take those steps right now, right this morning, big or small. No pain, no gain. This is today's entry in the Daily Stoic. 366 days of writing and reflection on the art of living by yours truly and my co-writer and translator, Stephen Hanselman. I actually do this journal every single day. There's a question in the morning, a question in the afternoon, and then there's these sort of weekly meditations. As Epictetus says, every day and night, we keep thoughts like this at hand, write them, read them aloud, and talk to yourself and others about them. You can check out the Daily Stoke Journal anywhere at Books or Sold and also get a signed personalized copy for me in the Daily Stoke store at store.dailystoke.com.

Difficulties show a person's character. Epictetus tells us in Discoursees 124. So when a challenge confronts you, remember that God is matching you with a younger sparring partner as would a physical trainer. Coming in Olympian, it takes sweat. I think no one has a better challenge than yours if only you would use it like an athlete would a younger sparring partner. This dog's loved metaphors from the Olympics, especially wrestling. Like us, they saw sports as both a fun pastime as well as a training ground to practice for the challenges one will inevitably

face in the course of living. As General Douglas MacArthur once said in words engraved at the gymnasium at West Point, upon the fields of friendly strife or so in the seeds that, upon other fields on other days, will bear the fruits of victory. Everyone has found themselves outmatched by an opponent frustrated by some skill or attribute that they have that we don't height speed vision, whatever, how we choose to respond to that struggle tells us about who we are as athletes and who will be as people. Do we see it as a chance to learn and get stronger? Do we get frustrated and complain or worse, do we call it off and find an easier game to play

when that makes us feel good instead of challenged? The greats don't avoid these tests of their abilities. They seek them out because they are not just a measure of greatness, they are the pathways to it. You know, Marcus Relis loved the box and to wrestle, hunt. These physical activities, his love of competition and the outdoors, it was cultivating, as MacArthur said, the seeds that upon other fields and on other days will

bear the fruits of victory or bear stoicism or bear the fruits of virtue, Mark's really, as Mark said, sports are a way to practice, to cultivate, to get after it in a safe space that hopefully you build some virtues that are transferable, right? Even the metaphor here of epictetus is that you're matched with a strong sparring partner. If you've ever wrestled, if you've ever played against someone just better than you, you realize, hey, this is making me better. I'm getting my ass kicked, but it's making me better. You seek that out. But how rarely we do that in life. We want things to be easy, we want them to become, we hate that challenge in boss. We hate that rival or that peer, right? We hate the adversity that life is dealing us.

We want it to go away. We can plan that it happened to us. Now, it's good. It's chosen for you. It's chosen for you by a trainer or a coach that wants to get the best out of you. If you can come to think about it that way, you can come to relish it almost for that reason. You'll be able to use it. You'll be able to grow.

Becoming an Olympian takes sweat, and Patee says, no one has a better challenge than yours, he says. But only if you choose to treat it the way an athlete would treat their sparring partner, someone to learn from, someone to get stronger from someone to

Work out their issues on and with Right teammate collaborator even though they're also an opponent even though they're also punching you in the head or Dunkin on you literally or figuratively right? That's why we do this work or dunking on you, literally or figuratively, right? That's why we do this work. Competition makes you better, resistance makes you stronger, you have to understand this metaphor. And there's no way, better way to understand that metaphor, then by literally doing those things on the field,

it's cultivating strong body and a strong mind. And that's the message, no pain, no gain, it's good that it's hard. It's good that they're challenging you. It's good that you're getting your ass kicked because you're gonna use it and be better so that when the real fight happens, when you're on the other field, as my Carthler said,

you can bring your best. You can do your best to win. You can win. It's not that life is short, Seneca says. It's that we waste a lot of it. The practice of Memento Mori, the meditation on death, is one of the most powerful and eye-opening things that there is. We built this Memento Mori calendar for Dio Stoke to illustrate that exact idea, that your

life in the best case scenario is 4,000 weeks. Are you going to let those weeks slip by or are you going to seize them? The act of unrolling this calendar, putting it on your wall, and every single week that bubble is filled in, that black mark is marking it off forever. Have something to show, not just for your years, but for every single dot that you filled in that you really lived that week, that you made something of it. You can check it out at dailystoke.com slash M-M calendar. Hey, Prime Members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic 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. Raising kids can be one of the greatest rewards of a parent's life. But come on, someday, parenting is unbearable. I love my kid, but is a new parenting podcast from Wondry that shares a refreshingly honest and insightful take on parenting. Hosted by myself, Megan Galey, Chris Garcia, and Kurt Brown all are, we will be your resident not so expert experts.

Each week we'll share a parenting story that'll have you laughing, nodding, and thinking. Oh yeah, I have absolutely been there. We'll talk about what went right and wrong. What would we do differently? And the next time you step on yet another stray Lego in the middle of the night, you'll feel less alone. So if you like to laugh with us as we talk about the hardest job in the world, listen to, I love my kid, but wherever you get your podcasts.

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