The Daily Stoic - Bring Love To Every Situation You Face | A New Way To Pray

Episode Date: September 11, 2023

On this day 22 years ago, Brian Sweeney was a passenger trapped on hijacked United Airlines Flight 175. He knew something was wrong, but he could not have fully understood that he and so many others were about to be murdered in one of the most hateful and deranged acts of terrorism in history.But in those final few short minutes of his life, he managed to leave a beautiful message on his wife’s voicemail.---And in today's reading from the Daily Stoic Journal, Ryan explains why the Stoics valued having a plan and relying on the strength of their own thoughts and actions over praying for things that were not in their control.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We can't see tomorrow, but we can hear it. And it sounds like a renewable natural gas bus replacing conventional fleets. We're bridging to a sustainable energy future, working today to ensure tomorrow is on. Enbridge, life takes energy. Hello, I'm Hannah. And I'm Suryte.

And we are the hosts of a Red Handed, a weekly true crime podcast. Every week on Red Handed, we get stuck into the most talked about cases. But we also dig into those you might not have heard of, like the Nepali's Royal Massacre and the Nithory Child Sacrifices. Whatever the case, we want to know what pushes people to the extremes of human behaviour. Find, download, and binge Red Handed wherever you listen to your podcasts. Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast.

Each day we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, illustrated with stories from history, current events, and literature to help you be better at what you do. And at the beginning of the week, we try to do a deeper dive setting a kind of stoic intention for the week something to meditate on something to think on something to leave you with to journal about whatever it is you happen to be doing so let's get into it. This is the antidote. On this day, 22 years ago, Brian Swini was a passenger trapped on hijacked United Airlines flight 175.

He knew something was wrong, but he could not have fully understood that he and so many others were about to be murdered in one of the most hateful and deranged acts of terrorism in history. But in those final few short minutes of his life, he managed to leave a beautiful message on his wife's voicemail. That thing is so low. I'm going to go, I just want you to know, I have to be fucking, I want you to be good, I don't have to be fine. Same to my parents and everybody.

And I just, I totally love you. And I'll be away from death there. Hi, babe. I'll call you. In book one of Meditations where Marcus Reeles catalogs the most important things he learned throughout his life, he said that he learned from a teacher named Sextus to be free of passion, yet full of love. Imagine the terror of that moment.

Yet when you hear Brian's voice coming through the phone, there's not a trace of fear. It's free of passion, free of anger, free of despair, free of everything, yet full of love. Because everything else has been stripped away, rendered irrelevant and insignificant. Pure love, Seneca said, careless of all other things, kindles the soul, makes us selfless, it emboldens us, makes us courageous, inspires us to be strong, instills us with purpose. It doesn't always win, as Sweeney's tragic death reminds us, but it is an antidote to terror and cruelty and evil. It is the thing

that keeps going that lives on after us, that brings meaning and comfort even in the worst of situations. So today on the anniversary of 9-11, let us, as Marcus really has said, and Sweeney was, let us be full of love. Let us tell those we love that we totally love them. Let us bring love to every situation we face. Indeed, there is almost no situation in which passion helps, but almost every situation is made better when it is full of love. A new way to pray. We often pray for things we desire and in the process, excuse ourselves from the equation. We're hoping that the heavens

will magically gift us with the outcome we want, whether it's for a promotion or a speedy recovery of a loved one. The stokes would urge you to stop doing this. Marcus Aurelius reminded himself not to present the gods with the list of demands for pleasures or comforts, but instead ask for help not needing those things. In a sense, then he was really asking for inner strength. He was, in a sense, asking himself, so think about all the things you want that you're praying or hoping for and try turning them around like this. See what you come up with instead. Try praying differently, Marcus writes in Meditations 940, see what happens. Instead of asking for a way to sleep with her, try asking for a way to stop desiring to sleep with her. Instead of asking for a way to get rid of him, try asking for a way not to crave his demise. Instead of

a way not to lose my child, try asking for a way to lose my fear of it." And then Epic Titus and Discourses says, we cry to God Almighty, how can we escape this agony? Don't you have hands? Or could it be that God forgot to give you a pair? Sit and pray your nose. Does it run? Or rather just wipe your own nose and stop seeking the scapegoat. And then Epic Titus in Discourse is for one. He says, but I haven't at any time been hindered in my will and were forced against it. How is that possible? I have bound up my choice to act with the will of God. God, wills that I be sick, such as my will. He wills that I should choose something. So do I. He wills that I reach for something

or something be given to me. I wish for the same. What God doesn't will, I will not wish for. It's the idea of blowing your own nose. That's a great expression from Epipotetus that I love. I think what the stokes are talking about here is self-sufficiency. I was just reading a great little biography

of Musashi, the samurai swordsman, and I wrote down a line in my commonplace, but for me, he says, you know, he says, worship the gods and Buddha, but do not rely on them, right? He didn't want to go into a sword fight, hoping that Buddha would bless him. He trained for it to make that irrelevant, right? He wanted to rely on his sword and His actions. Remember the Stokes talk about what's in our control. What's not in our control? I think what the Stokes are talking about is Don't pray for things that are not in your control that are not up to you Don't make yourself dependent on getting lucky on being blessed on your dreams coming true on everything going right focus on on getting lucky, on being blessed on your dreams coming true, on everything going right. Focus on having a plan that, as the Stokes say, is indifferent to all that, right?

There's another great line from Epictetus where he says, you know, a student's like, how should I do this? He says, you're asking me to show you what to do it. And he says, wouldn't it be better to ask to be adaptable to all circumstances? And so this is really where we're trying to get a place where there isn't anything we pray for. I take some pride, you know, every year in my wife will go, what do you want for your birthday? And I go, I don't, nothing, I don't want anything. There's nothing I need.

There's nothing I want. It's not because I'm a billionaire. It's that I, I spent more that I spent more time just getting the things that I did need, the tools I need for my life, for my happiness. And then for the most part, being indifferent to all the other things and not needing to wait for my birthday or Christmas

or a check to come in to be able to afford this thing. It's better to not want it in the first place. And I think this is true for all the kinds of luck or cool experiences or things that we think we want or need. Now, either get it for yourself if it's possible or write it off. You know, I think that's what the third quote from, that third quote, the final quote from my particular saying is like, look, I'll just align my likes with what happens.

If God wants me to have it, or the God's want me to have it, or the logos, or whatever, Stokes obviously had complicated somewhat contradictory views on religion. But what will be, what I get is what I get, I won't throw a fit, right? That's where we're trying to get a Stoics trying to get to this place of self-sufficiency where we blow our own nose where we're good whatever happens and I wish that for you. It's not easy. It doesn't just happen. You got to work for it

But that's what we're doing here These meditations and I hope this helps and I'll talk to you soon. 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. We can't see tomorrow, but we can hear it. Tomorrow sounds like hydrogen being added to natural gas to make it more sustainable. It sounds like solar panels generating thousands of megawatts. And it sounds like carbon being captured and stored, keeping it out of our atmosphere.

We've been bridging to a sustainable energy future for more than 20 years. Because what we do today helps ensure tomorrow is on. And bridge. Life takes energy. more than 20 years. Because what we do today helps ensure tomorrow is on. Enbridge. Life takes energy.