The Daily Stoic - Ask Daily Stoic: How Do I Deal With Long Term Problems?

Episode Date: February 1, 2020

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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. 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 dailystowic.com. Hey there, it's... Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another Saturday edition of Daily Stoic. This is where we do longer episodes. We have the Ask Daily Stoic series. I give you a little update on what's

going on with Daily Stoic, what's going on with me. So one of the things that's new and exciting, I guess for us is that I last week turned in the draft of what will be the next book for Daily Stoic. It's called Lives of the Stoics. I've been working on it for the last year or so. It's been, you know, I gotta be honest. It's been exhausting. I feel like I am just going from one book to the other, but I love it, so I don't stop. But, you know, this book is, there's actually sort of based on a Christian book,

there's a book called Lies of the Saints, meaning that you probably wouldn't read a biography of all the different saints, but put together, there's all sorts of things you can and might be surprised to learn about these people. And so I wanted to make a book that was a biography of all the major stilloks from the ancient world. And so for the last year or so, Steve and I have been sleeping away on this thing, Steve being my translator and co-writer on the daily book. So this book won't be out for a year.

So it's not an ad for this or anything. I'm just sort of telling you about how it's gone. But I spent most of Christmas break finalizing the book, did a lot of editing. There's just all sorts of people, like honestly, I mean, I've been writing about this for a long time, and I didn't know who a lot of these people were. Definitely didn't know even how to pronounce some of their names. For instance, Chrysipus, or Aristophanateus, or Positonius.

Again, these are people that you're probably not dying to read about in the abstract or think maybe only fit in a Wikipedia page, but leave these sort of fascinating, complicated, and of course, very stoic lives. So we've been researching all the things they did, all the things they wrote, all the people they met, finding all the interesting anecdotes and stories about them, and trying to sort of bring them to life. You know, like, I think what I love about stoicism is, it's not a philosophy about what people say.

It's primarily a philosophy about what people do. And so this is a book about what did the people who said things about stoicism? How did they actually live? What were their lives like? Where did they fall short? What did they do right? What did they do wrong?

How did they die? Where were they born? What sort of adversity or difficulties did they experience? And so that's what that book is. So basically, the way it works is the first manuscript is in, and now it's with my editor, Nikki Papadopoulos. She's the one that edited all my other books, including the Daily Stoic, and the Ops goes away,

and he goes to the enemy, and everything you've read for me. But so she's now got it. And this is kind of actually the hardest part for an author, because it's now in and now I know It's in somebody else's hands and they're just like tearing it to shreds and it's like I did everything I thought I needed to do I worked like hell on this thing and I know that What she's gonna she's never once come back and said it's perfect. You don't have to do any more work Let's just not how it goes.

What she's gonna say is she's gonna hand me a big document filled with red lines and comment bubbles and suggestions and criticisms. So I'm kind of stealing myself in advance for how tough that's gonna be. And then usually I get it and I don't read it for a couple of days and I kind of glance at it with only one of my eyes open and I sigh and I get serious and I sit down and I just start working and I chip away at the notes until it's as good as I think it can be and then it goes back for another round and another round and you touch these manuscripts

dozens of times and then eventually at some point as Churchill said, you fling it to the public and hope that they like it. And so you'll get to see that soon, but that's sort of what's going on with Daily Stove these days. That's what's next for me. And I actually have my next series of books that I have to start writing immediately after that. I like to go from project to project as exhausting as that is.

So soon as this is finished, I'm already researching and thinking about the next project and that will come soon. So that's what's coming from us. I'm really liking doing these weekend episodes. It's so cool to hear how many people are listening to these podcasts. And if you have suggestions for things we should do,

if you have questions for Ask Daily Stoke, you can send those in to info at dailystoic.com. We love hearing from you and we will talk next week. So let's get going. Also in today's episode, I thought I would read the February 1st entry for the Daily Stoic. I didn't read the audiobook, so I thought you might like to hear some from me.

The day's headline is, for the hot headed man, and the quote comes to us from Marcus Aurelius. He said, keep this thought handy when you feel a fit of rage coming on. It isn't manly to be enraged. Rather, gentleness and civility are more human and therefore manlier. A real man doesn't give way to anger and discontent.

And such a person has strength, courage and endurance, unlike the angry and complaining. The nearer a man comes to a calm mind, the closer he is to strength. And then the story for the day or the discussion that goes as follows, it says, why do athletes talk trash to each other? Why do they deliberately say offensive and nasty things to their competitors when the refs aren't looking? To provoke a reaction?

Distracting and angering opponents is an easy way to knock them off their game. Try to remember that when you find yourself getting mad. Anger is not impressive or tough, it's a mistake. It's weakness. Depending on what you're doing, it might even be a trap that someone laid for you.

Fans and opponents called Boxer Joe Lewis, the ring robot, because he was utterly unemotional. His cold, calm demeanor was far more terrifying than any crazed look or emotional outburst would have been. Strength is the ability to maintain a hold of oneself. It's being the person who never gets mad, who cannot be rattled, because they are in control of their passions, rather than controlled by their passions.

Hey there listeners, while we take a little break here, I want to tell you about another podcast that I think you'll like. It's called How I Built This, where host Guy Razz talks to founders behind some of the world's biggest and most innovative companies, to learn how they built them from the ground up. Guy has sat down with hundreds of founders behind well-known companies like Headspace, Manduke Yoga Mats, Soul Cycle, and Kodopaxi, as well as entrepreneurs working to solve some of

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promo code Stoic. That's Macwellden.com. Enter promo code Stoic. Welcome to another episode of Ask Daily Stoic. You send me, Ryan Holiday, your questions about Stoicism, about the Stoics, about life. I try to answer. We put it on YouTube. We put it on the podcast. Thanks for listening. And if you want to send us some questions, you can send those in at infoatdailystoic.com. All right, our first question, how should I react or embrace a continuous problem? For example, my roommate does not pick up around the house. This is not an issue that I could simply let go or embrace. I'm forcibly put into a situation I don't want to be in.

Another example is that I'm working at a job. I don't want to work at. This is a situation I don't want to be in. Quitting is a gamble in my future, even granting that it was my own ignorance that brought this situation. A bad job is not something you intend, but what do I do? So I think this is a good question. So first off, this dox would go like,

let's say there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. So you have to endure it. Is it really so bad that you have to endure some mess around the house, you know, Marcus Realis goes like endure it and it can't go on forever because you'll die or they'll die.

And so there's kind of a glibness to that, but I think it's true. It's just a reminder that like, look, this is not cancer, right? And but sometimes because we don't have other problems going on, we, or because we do have other problems going on, we fixate on these minor things

or we fixate on what other people are doing. So the second thing the Stokes would talk about would be that, right? What can you do around your house that might influence the situation, right? Instead of just hoping your roommate will change their behavior instead of yelling at them to change their behavior instead of focusing on them, which you don't control, what do you control? Right? And maybe it's having a conversation, maybe it's setting up systems, maybe it's cleaning up your stuff.

Maybe if you really hate it, it's just cleaning up their stuff, right? There's lots of options inside that. And then the third thing the Stokes would go is like, okay, if you really don't like this, if you're really unhappy with it, what are you willing to trade to get out of it, right? Can you move? Can you sublet out your unit? Like just get out of it, right? Like if it's really making you as miserable

as you feel like it's making you, and Stokes would say it's probably not, but let's say it is, can you get out of it? I think about this with jobs. Like there's been plenty of jobs that I've had that I haven't liked. So I say, okay, I'm gonna leave this job. I'm about this with jobs. There's been plenty of jobs that I've had that I haven't liked. So I say, okay, I'm going to leave this job. I'm going to do something else. In the meantime, though, let's say I can't leave until I save up enough money to do acts, or there's this project I

have to finish, I go, now that I know that there is an end date to this thing that's causing me discomfort or misery, what can I learn in the interim period? What can I do in the interim period? And I think this is a similar thing with your roommate. So you've got three months left on your lease. Okay, can you practice putting up with this for three months? Can you practice being more direct if you're a non-confrontational person with your roommate for the next three months?

Can you practice being more organized and helpful? And what is the opportunity, if you cannot change the situation, if you simply have to put up with it, what can you do with that fact that makes you better that presents you an opportunity to improve? But all of this, I think, is under the larger umbrella, which is they sound like some first-world problems. So not to belittle it, but they sound like some first-world problems.

So I'd keep that in perspective as well. All right. The next question, would you recommend a work of any modern philosopher who is stoic or influence by stoicism? I absolutely can. It's a great question. And I happen to have this book in front of me because I was talking about it in an earlier question.

This is Pierre Hadot. He's a French philosopher. He wrote a fantastic book about Marcus Aurelius called the Inter-Cittadel, the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. There's another book, philosophy as a way of life by Pierre Hadoe. Also, very good influence sort of about stoicism, but not just about stoicism. Don Robertson's book, How to Think Like a Roman Emperor, came out recently. Very good. He's a great thinker about stoicism, very thoughtful guy. A Launday baton has written some interesting things sort of inspired by about Stoicism. We did an interview with Darren Brown. He's a British magician, but he's also written books on happiness that are largely influenced by Stoicism. I think he's really great. We've got a bunch of resources on the Daily Stoke website,

but I would say two other books if I was thinking philosophy that's influenced by stoicism. Victor Frankl's book, Man Search for Meaning, very good sort of driven by stoicism in a lot of ways. You know, I think Mark Manson, if I was going to really pop really sort of accessible recent modern, I think Mark Manson stuff, which is a little more zen Buddhist than Stoic, but it's sort of considered him a fellow traveler. He's a great guy. Check out his

books as well. All right. Next question. I have a small problem reconciling my atheism with my stoicism. Can one be both? I'm sure the answer is yes, but I would love to hear it discussed. I mean, look, I don't think you have to reconcile your atheism with stoicism. To me, stoicism is a philosophy and religion is separate. So there's this great quote from Flobar where he talks about how there was this moment in history between Cicero and Marcus Realis, he says, where man stood alone in the universe. So Marcus Realis and Christianity do not go well together actually. So it's the opposite of the reconciliation and the Christians probably have more work to do. But Rousticus who introduces Marcus Reles to Stoicism, persecutes and executes just in martyr.

You know, Seneca's brother is actually adjudicates a case involving St. Paul. So, for many, many years of Stoicism's sort of heyday in Rome, it was outwardly hostile to Christianity. And I'm writing about this a little bit in my next book so you can stay tuned for that. But Stoicism definitely believed that there was a God or God's, but more in the Roman sense. So, God's were these sort of rituals, these sort of official deities. It wasn't the same as as the sort of Christianity, sort of modern religious sense that we have now, there's a recent translation of an essay by Cicero that sort of focuses on stilicism and spirituality, it's by Princeton University Press, I think it's called How to Think About God, or What to Think

About God, or something like that, but I might check that out, it's sort of an interesting dialogue, but I think there's plenty in stoicism that makes it compatible with religion, the idea of the logos or fate, the word and the way, both that's logos in Latin, that's there, but at the same time, the stoics are talking about, I think a much more logical reason

for doing the things that they do. So like, Jesus and Seneca are born in the same year. And whereas Jesus is saying, like, follow me, obey the law of God, or you'll go to hell, or, you know, like, you won't have an afterlife. I think what Seneca is saying at the very same time, the very same empire is like, don't be a bad person because you'll be unhappy, right? It will make you miserable. So I think really the Stokes are saying a lot of similar things to the Christians, but they're saying them for very different reasons. And there

were plenty of Christians, actually the interesting thing about Justin Martyr is that he studied a Stoke philosopher before he can under a stoke philosopher before you converted to Christianity. So I don't think there is unreconcilable as you think, but they are also quite easily reconciled. Christianity and stosism, or atheism and stosism, I think primarily what the stokes would tell you to do is just focus on what is making you a better, more virtuous person, not what solves some metaphysical explanation in the universe. Focus on yourself improvement, not these big abstract questions. Anyways, that's what I try to do. So thanks guys, there's been another episode of Ask Daily Stoke.

Keep asking questions. You can send an info at dailystoke.com and I'll keep answering them. Thanks. If you're liking this podcast, we would love for you to subscribe. Please leave us a review on iTunes or any of your favorite podcast listening apps. It really helps and tell a friend. Hey, Prime Members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic early and ad free on Amazon music. Download the Amazon music app today, or you can listen early and ad free with Wondery Plus in Apple podcasts.

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