The Daily Stoic - Don’t Be a Power Slave | What Are You So Afraid Of Losing

Episode Date: December 23, 2021

Ryan talks about the nature of power and using it for the common good, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast.→ We hope you join us in the 2022 New Year New You Challenge. It kicks off in a little over a week. It’s 3 weeks of actionable challenges, presented in an email per day, built around the best, most timeless wisdom in Stoic philosophy. Just go to https://dailystoic.com/challenge to sign up before sign ups end on January 1st!Eight Sleep is the most advanced solution on the market for thermoregulation. It pairs dynamic cooling and heating with biometric tracking. This holiday season, give yourself or a loved one a gift that keeps getting better night after night. Right in time for the holidays, give the gift of better sleep and a present that will keep giving back, everyday of the year. Go to eightsleep.com/dailystoic for exclusive holiday savings. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/emailFollow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and FacebookSee 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 Stoic Podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. On Thursdays, we do double duty, not just reading our daily meditation, but also reading a passage from the book, The Daily Stoic, 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance in the Art of Living, which I wrote with my wonderful co-author and collaborator, Stephen Hanselman. And so today we'll give you a quick meditation from one of the Stoics, from Epititus Markis, really a 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 Wundery'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. Don't be a power slave. You wonder why people don't stand up and do something. The CEO of a large company, the elected official, the general, the athlete. Aren't these powerful people, they hold office,

they have millions of dollars, they have large platforms. Yet they stand silent, they look the other way, they hold their fire. It's because they don't see themselves as powerful Not yet anyway. The Congresswoman has an eye on a Senate seat. So she's waiting the CEO thinks that after their options vest Then they'll be in a better position. The millionaire is trying to become a billionaire first The athlete says after they sign their long-term deal, the general, once they retire, then, then they'll do something. The great Iron Maiden song and album Power Slive

is all about what happens when one becomes addicted to power. It's like a drug. Your first experience is utterly intoxicating. But from that moment forward, you will never feel like you have enough. You will never want to risk losing what you have. So you're constantly chasing while simultaneously trying not to be caught out. You're not in charge. It is. Marcus really has fought all his life against succumbing to this addiction. In fact, meditations was really his treatment plan. Over and over again, he warns himself, do the right thing to not consider the consequences for his career. He tells himself to wait to be good today rather than choose tomorrow for when he's older. He refused to be a slave to power and instead used the power he did have to do things for other people.

We all have to fight things for other people. We all have to fight this battle, whatever our station in life is. We have to fight it now because there are things that need doing now, not later. What are you so afraid of leaving? What are you so afraid of losing? And I'm reading to you today from the Daily Stoke 366 meditations on wisdom, perseverance, and the art of living by yours truly. My co-author and translator, Steve Enhancelman, you can get signed copies by the way.

In the Daily Stoke store, over a million copies of the Daily Stoke and print now, it's been just such a lovely experience to watch it. It's been more than 250 weeks, consecutive weeks on the best cellist. It's just an awesome experience. But I hope you check it out. We have a premium leather edition at store.dailystoke.com as well. But let's get on with today's reading. You're afraid of dying, Senika says, in moral letters, but come now. How is this life of yours? Anything but death. And Senka tells us an amazing story about an obscenely wealthy Roman who was carried around by slaves on a litter. On one occasion, after being lifted out of a bath, the Roman asked,

my sitting down yet. Senka's point was essentially this, what kind of sad, pathetic life is it? If you're so disconnected from the world around you that you don't even know whether you're on the ground or not. And how did that man even know then if he was really alive at all? Most of us are afraid of dying, but sometimes this fear begs the question, protect what exactly? For a lot of people the answer is hours and hours of television,

gossiping, gorging, wasting potential, reporting to a boring job, and on and on and on. Except in the strictest, most literal sense, can one say that this is actually life at all? Is this worth gripping so tightly and being afraid of losing? It doesn't sound that way. Is this worth gripping so tightly and being afraid of losing? It doesn't sound that way. That's actually one of my favorite passages, my sort of favorite callouts for markets and meditations you do. You're afraid of death because you won't be able to do this anymore. And this point is that we just do so much pointless stuff. We waste so much time and then we're afraid of losing time

as if that isn't like our day-to-day existence. And his point wasn't nihilism that life is worthless like, hey, you're in traffic, what's even the point of being alive. His point was, why do you waste so much time? Why do you do these things voluntarily? Remember Mark's this question about, is about like, is this essential, right? Because most of what we do, and say is not essential. Right? Most of us

live these sort of sheltered, meaningless, wasteful lives. Unnecessarily, right? No one has a gun to our head. We just, we just go along with the flow. We go along to get along. We don't want to question. We don't want to be uncomfortable. we don't want to push outside our boundaries. And we don't see what a contradiction this is with our professed love of life for, you know, desire to maintain that life. It's like you say you love and respect someone, but then look at your actions. Are you are you really proving that day to day? Right? So you say that life, you love your life that life is important to you that you would be mad if someone took it from you.

But how do you treat that same life? That to me is the sort of the haunting rhetoricalical question that Marcus and Sennaq are both stumbling on. You're afraid of dying. Come now. How is this life you're living? Anything but death. Man, that's hard. But you have the power we all do to change that. We should be able to say, what are you talking about? Look at this, look at this, look at this, look at this. And I feel like I can say that to a certain degree. I have a family that I love and cherish and don't take for granted. I have work that I'm proud of that I think makes a difference that I pour myself into

that also I enjoy for its own sake, not just the results. I don't take my time for granted. I don't agree to things that I don't want to do. I feel good about my contributions to society. I don't think I'm part of the problem, part of some problems, but for the most part, right? I feel like I I'm leaving the place better than I found it. I feel like I served the common good as Marcus says all those are a good answer to that question But I could see very easily if I'd made different choices if I drifted a certain way if I'd been a little less strict with myself

How that could end up very different and maybe that's where you are right now the point of this reminder, this idea from the Stokes, is to catch yourself before it's too late to change, right? Mark Sereo's talks about how some of us are like this animal at the games, just sort of torn up, chewed up, just begging to be brought back tomorrow, right? And he's like, no, get out of the Coliseum man. Do it differently

do it differently and We chose this entry put it you know right towards the the end of the year for a reason and I hope it leaves you something to chew on to think about today You're afraid of dying But how how is this life, if you're as anything but death? Don't just leave that question hanging there, although that does some of the work. Give me an answer, right? Think about your answer.

Think about what you have to show for it, right? Think about why it's better for you to be alive than not, right? Think about positive contributions you could for you to be alive than not, right? Think about Positive contributions you could be making and go make them, right? Think about the things that you waste your time with that you shouldn't be wasting your time with and stop doing it That's your prescription for today. I hope you're spending some time with family It's a good answer to this question, right? I hope you're spending some time with family. It's a good answer to this question, right? Hope you're spending a little time reflecting

and enjoying stillness of the winter here. And I hope you're doing well. And for both Lucky, I'm looking forward to another year of the Daily Stoke, all of you. We'll talk soon. The man, more of yourself in 2022. And one of the ways you can do that is by joining us in the Daily Stoic New Year New You Challenge.

All you have to do is go to dailystoic.com slash challenge to sign up. Remember daily stoic life members get this challenge and all our challenges for free. But sign up seriously. Think about what one positive change, one good new habit is worth to you. Think about what could be possible if you handed yourself over to a little bit of a program. We all pushed ourselves together. That's what we're gonna do in the challenge.

I'm gonna be doing it. I do the challenges. All of them, alongside everyone else, I'm looking forward to connecting with everyone in the Discord challenge, all the other bonuses. Anyways, check it out, New Year, New Year, the Daily Stoke Challenge. Sign up at dailystoke.com slash challenge.

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