The Daily Stoic - Don’t Be So Tough | Always Ask Yourself This Question

Episode Date: August 15, 2022

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Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic Podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. 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. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wunderree'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 so tough. There's no question that the Stoics were tough. Marcus Aurelius lived with chronic pain. Epic Titus did too, after having made not so much as a sound when his master cruelly

broke his leg. Both Sennaka, who suffered asthma, his whole life and Kato, bravely faced painful deaths. And countless other Stoics endured exile and loss and injury. So yes, the Stoics were tough. But people get this philosophy wrong when they think that to feel pain or want to avoid pain is weak. The writer Derek Thompson responded to a certain masculine antipathy towards COVID safety protocols early on in the pandemic called this COVID stoicism now we happen to be conflating stoicism the philosophy and stoicism the word that's sort of the point lots of still looks to this too They don't want to look stupid so they won't wear a helmet. They don't want to acknowledge trauma or emotion

So they stuff it down. They don't want to be vulnerable so they close their hearts to other people. They don't want to admit they made a mistake so they keep on making it. It's ironic. A fear of looking weak ends up making them very weak. We all do some version of this. We're too tough for our own good, too tough to change, too tough to protect ourselves, too tough to get help, too tough to learn, too tough to grow, too tough to be strong. And so we inevitably grow weaker as a result. Maybe not so weak that we become vulnerable to the whims of fate, but certainly enough that we risk never achieving our full potential and doing the things we were put on this earth to do. Always ask yourself this question.

Much of what we do and say during the course of a week is completely unnecessary. Meetings, material possessions, confrontations, pursuits, pointless distractions and problems. They take us away from tranquility and purpose. And a stowed cuts through these temptations and obligations by asking a simple question, a question that should lead you in your journal and in thinking this week. It is this. Before speaking and acting, we're buying something. Just ask, is this a necessary thing? This is from today's entry in the Daily Stoic journal 366 days of writing and reflection on the art of living by yours truly

Ryan Holiday you can get it anywhere books or sold I do it every single morning including this morning and You can also buy a signed copy in the Daily Stoic store, but today's quotes We have one long quote from Mark's real is in one short one from Santa Cout Mark's real is it is said that if you want to have peace of mind busy yourself with little, but wouldn't a better saying be do what you must and as required of a rational being created for public life?

For this brings not only the peace of mind of doing few things, but the greater peace of doing them well since the vast majority of our words and actions are unnecessary, corralling them will create an abundance of leisure and tranquility. As a result, we shouldn't forget at each moment to ask, is this one of the unnecessary things?

But we must corrall not only unnecessary actions, but unnecessary thoughts too. So needless acts don't tag along after them. That's our translation from the Daily Stoke, and the Daily Stoke Journal. Let me give you Gregory Hayes, which I also really like. He says, if you seek tranquility, do less or more accurately do what is essential, what the logos of a social being requires and in the requisite way,

which brings a double satisfaction to do less better. Because most of what we do and say, and it's not essential. If you can eliminate this, you'll have more time and more tranquility. Ask yourself at every moment, is this necessary? But we need to eliminate unnecessary assumptions as well to eliminate the unnecessary actions that follow. And then our second quote from Seneca is, I was shipwrecked before I even boarded. The journey showed me this, but how much of what we have is unnecessary.

And how easily we can decide to rid ourselves of these things whenever it's necessary, and that's never suffering to loss. That's moral letters 87.1. So, to me, the pandemic has been a masterful teacher in this regard. How much of the things we thought were unchangeable parts of the job fixed obligations due to this profession or school or whatever it was that the pandemic said, nope, all of it's flexible. Most of it doesn't need to be done at all. And most of the way that it is done can be done differently. And I feel like it's been this massive, you know, shared lifestyle experiment,

and I found that so much of what I was doing was one of the unnecessary things, so much of what I was doing and saying and thinking and being a part of, was not one of the essential things. So you really need to stop and ask yourself this question, is what I'm doing necessary? Why am I doing?

Is it just the way people have always done it? Again, most of what we do and say and think is not necessary, it's not even particularly effective or well thought out. And so the question, this is really important. And it's not just like, oh, you're privileged, you don't, you have a choice, that's why you're not doing. It's actually not about privilege at all. In fact, it's the privileged people who can afford to do more unnecessary things, more pointless

things, right? It's actually at this point in my career, I have the luxury of taking a lot of time off to, let's say, do press for a book. It was actually earlier in my career that the costs of agreeing to this point, the stuff were much higher, but I wasn't aware of it. I wasn't fully understanding of the opportunity cost. How much this was taking me away from writing. How much this was taking me away from relationships. How much of this was just taking me away from recovering and refreshing so I could go back to my work

from a fresher point of view. And this is what I wanted to leave you with today. Take a minute, stop, ask yourself, is what I'm doing necessary? How much of what I wanted to leave you with today. Take a minute, stop, ask yourself, is what I'm doing necessary? How much of what I'm doing is unnecessary? And how can I eliminate some of that stuff so I can do the essential things better, right? I'm doing less, but I'm doing all my stuff better now. And that's part of the new normal that I'm trying to protect coming out of the pandemic.

And I hope that's true for you as well. Thanks so much for listening to the DailyStow podcast. If you don't know this, you can get these delivered to you via email every day, check it out at dailystowke.com slash email. 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. Hey there listeners! Listen early and add free with Wondery Plus in Apple podcasts. from the ground up. Guy has sat down with hundreds of founders behind well-known companies like Headspace, Manduke Yoga Mats, Soul Cycle, and Codopaxi, as well as entrepreneurs working

to solve some of the biggest problems of our time, like developing technology that pulls energy from the ground to heat in cool homes, or even figuring out how to make drinking water from air and sunlight. Together, they discussed their entire journey from day one, and all the skills they had to learn along the way, like confronting big challenges, and how to lead through uncertainty. So if you want to get inspired and learn how to think like an entrepreneur, check out how I built this, wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and add free on the Amazon or Wonder yet. You can listen early and add free on the Amazon or Wondariac.