The Daily Stoic - Ask Daily Stoic: Dec 21, 2019

Episode Date: December 21, 2019

In each of the Ask Daily Stoic Q&A episodes, Ryan will answer questions from fans about Stoicism. You can also find these videos on the Daily Stoic YouTube channel.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 the Daily Stoke. For each day, we read a short passage designed to help you cultivate the strength, insight, wisdom necessary for living good life. insight, wisdom necessary for living good life. Each one of these passages is based on the 2000 year old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. For more, you can visit us at dailystoic.com. Welcome to Ask Daily Stoic. So the question we're starting with today is one we get a lot,

which is like, how does a stoic deal with failure? How do we deal with setbacks? And this kind of hard question to answer because I think it's like, this is the core of what stoicism is, right? A stoic is all about bouncing back and rebounding from the things that life throws at us, right? So when Mark really says like, you know, the impediment to action advances action, what stands in the way it becomes the way that to action advances action, what stands and the way he comes away, that to me is like the core of stoicism.

It's deciding to see all the things that happen to you in life as opportunities. So I'm going through something now. I'm in the middle of this transaction that's going, hey, why are you and I don't like it? And I wish that it had gone swimmingly and smoothly, but it didn't, right? And it might end up sort of going completely perishing or completely upside down. So what I've been trying to remind myself through it is like, what can I learn from this experience? How can I be better for it?

What can I do inside of it that will make me better? So it's that having incomparable conversations. OK, well, I'm going to have practice now in doing that. Is it being firm or drawing a line in a place where naturally I'd like to just not do that, right? Is it learning and analyzing and thinking about the mistakes I made that contributed to that? That's how A Stoic thinks about failure. And so A Stoic walks your life, and again, we're all humans, so we don't do it perfectly, but what A Stoic tries to do is walk through life

and see everything as an opportunity to practice virtue, right? So a failure is a chance to get familiar with failure, right? To learn from it. A business issue is a chance to manage your temper or teach something with someone. Traffic is a chance to learn patience and except things that are outside of our control. A rude person, a bad friend, of a trail is a chance to do the right thing even though you don't want to. It's a chance to do the right thing even though you don't want to. It's a chance to practice forgiveness. That's what the Stoics do. That's how we see failure.

You know, in my book, I just shorten markers as quote to like the obstacle is the way. And so to me, that's how the Stoics see failure as the way forward. And then if you're not failing, you're not trying enough, you're not doing enough, you're not putting yourself out there enough. And as a result, you're not growing and getting as good as you can be. All right, someone's asking like, how does a stoic respond to pain? And so I think it's important that we don't confuse

uppercase stoicism and lowercase stoicism. Soicism, lowercase stoicism, I think would posit that the stoics don't feel pain, that they're invincible, that they never get sad, whatever, that's that the stokes don't feel pain, that they're invincible, that they never get sad, whatever. That's not true. Stoke does feel pain. What a stoke tries to do is what we do after. Right?

So, Seneca talks about, look, if I punch you in the arm that's going to hurt, if I dump freezing cold water on you, that's going to shiver, you have these involuntary reactions, what do you do after? Right? So, yes, there is a certain amount of endurance in this. Marcus really is saying whenever you suffer pain, keep in mind that it's nothing to be ashamed of and then it can't damage your intelligence and will keep you from acting rationally for the common good.

He quotes Epicuracy, he says, pain is never unbearable or unending. But what about chronic pain? Well eventually it does end. Marcus really was a But what about chronic pain? Well, eventually it does end, right? That Marcus really was a sufferer of chronic pain and what he would try to tell himself is like, look, my death will bring an end to this pain and that seems dark, but the point was not to believe that there was no light at the end of the tunnel, that there was no end to this. So he says, when they start to get you down, tell yourself that you are giving in to pain.

So it's about having an attitude of cheerfulness that perseveres through the pain. And in Daily Stoke, I tell this story about Winston Churchill, he's walking across the street in New York City. He's about to engage in a lecture tour that he desperately needs for the money and in the room. He gets struck by a taxi. And it's extremely painfully, very nearly dies. But he somehow manages to use his experience

in the sort of perfect Winston Churchill way to get better. He starts writing articles about it in the newspaper. He loves the publicity. He uses it to catch up on a bunch of writing he's put off. He says, nature is merciful and does not try her children man or beast beyond their compass. He says, it is only where the cruelty of man intervenes that hellish torments appear. For the rest, live dangerously, take things as they come, dread nothing and all will be

well. And I think that's the kind of attitude. You can't go through life trying to avoid pain. You can't go through life in fear of pain. You just have to keep going. Bill Bradley says there's never been a great athlete who did not know what pain is. It's beautiful.

There's no human, great human who has not experienced pain and lost, but we've got to remember that the things we do in response to that pain, whether it's getting angry, it's blaming others, it's taking pills, et cetera, this outlast hurt. That was, that was sent because then anger outlast hurt. So does a lot of the things we try to do to escape pain. And so again, as always, the stoic saw pain,

suffering, difficulty as opportunity. He said, most misfortune is virtue's opportunity. You know, the military says embrace the suck, lean into it, let it make you better. Every painful moment, every struggle, every missed chance, every foul up, it's a moment you can practice. The virtues of stoicism, you can practice calmness and strength and fortitude and resilience. You can practice virtue, you can be good, you can be patient, you can be forgiving, you

can think about other people because other people are in pain too. So I hope you feel better. I hope this is in serious pain, but I think there's a lot in the Stoics that can help guide you on this journey. So today's question comes from someone who I can certainly relate to, they're saying, I'm insanely competitive, but I want the film in my life.

How do I, how does Stoicism help me balance those things? And I think that balance between ambition and Stoicism is a core one, right? If you've seen the movie Gladiator, this is what Communist talks about, talks to his dad about. He says, can't ambition be a virtue? Sanika was clearly ambitious. Marcus Realis would have been emperor if he didn't have at least some ambition. So how can these stokes who are successful, how would they also balance contentment, happiness, the feeling of enough. And in stillness, I have that amazing story from Joseph Heller.

He's sort of like, what does it feel like that this billionaire you're with made more money this week than you'll make in your life? And it says, I have something he doesn't have. I have enough. And so I think at the core of stoicism is this idea of realizing that you can be ambitious and simultaneously be very grateful and appreciative for what's in front of you. I think at the core of stoicism is this idea of realizing that you can be ambitious and simultaneously be very grateful and appreciative for what's in front of you. And in fact, the way you achieve greatness and do great work is not to be distracted or

motivated by some distant thing in the future, but to give everything you have to this present moment, right? So Marcus Reales was trying always, you know, not to be seduced by his legacy by history, and they just tried to instead focus on doing the right thing right now. I love John Wooden's idea of like an inner of an inner scorecard, right? Like he says like winning or losing is not what makes a team of winning team or losing team. Like the box office score is not what makes a team a winning team or losing team. Like the box office score is not what matters. What matters is like did the team do what we were supposed to do, what we practiced to do? We're in Buffett, same thing as this is a living your life by an inner score card, not

an outer score card. But again, still extremely successful, right? So I think what it is is about having standards that you hold yourself to that are not as dependent on external events, but are more about having standards that you hold yourself to that are not as dependent on external events, but are more about process driven, that are more about being present, that are more about giving your absolute best, and not being focused so much on what other people think, and whether it goes down in your favor. So, like when I think about someone like Nick Sabin, and he's talked about this, like,

why he doesn't seem happy on the sidelines, it's that he has a love of the game and how he wants us to play that's more important than whatever the score is. But I think this also sustains him when they lose, when it doesn't go his way, because he's like, I'm getting to do this thing. I love, we're playing great, we're putting in the work, he's thinking in a bigger picture than just the win-loss record and the immediate thing. And so, too often I think people's ambition leads them to take shortcuts, leads them to cut corners, leads them to do things that are illegal or illicit. And a person who's instead said, I have enough, I am enough.

These external results don't change who I am. That's a person, that's like sort of the difference between the tortoise and the hare, right? It's steadier, it's more sustainable. It's ultimately a better way to live and be. So I don't think stoicism and ambition are incompatible, but it's about rooting your ambition and the right thing. So Mark's really saying like, insanity is tying your ambition to other people. Sanity is tying it to what you say and do. So I want to be ambitious about my own capacity, my own capability, the work that I put in, the creativity I bring to my work, what my ambition is not about, my competition is not about, my competition is with myself, my competition is with

myself. It's not with the other people on the New York Times bestseller list, right? It's not in who's selling the most books this year. It's who's doing the best work. And that's something much more rooted in my philosophy, much more rooted in me personally. And that's where I think the best place to put here, interest in in is going to be. 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.

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