The Daily Stoic - Don’t Boo, Do This | How To Overcome Your Depression (Marcus Aurelius' Morning Motivation)

Episode Date: September 10, 2024

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Don't boo, do this. They are frustrating and awful and in some cases, absolutely vile. The situation is corrupt, the results unacceptable. You're upset, you have every right to be. We deserve better. Our children deserve better. Better politics, better government, better policy. In the last couple election cycles, a curious thing has happened

as former President Barack Obama laid out the very real and in many cases non-partisan frustrations that people have with their government these days. When he would do it, the crowd would start booing. Not booing him, but booing the situation. Each time he has replied by stopping them. Don't boo, he says, vote. The Stoics have been involved in politics since the days of ancient Greece, and almost certainly

as they observed this timeless tendency. People will complain, people will get angry, but you know what they can't be bothered to do their most basic civil obligation. They'll chatter about politics. They'll talk about how they'd like things to be, how they should be, but they won't vote. Today, roughly 50% of eligible Americans vote, just half. The task of the philosopher Epictetus said was to focus on what we control.

We don't control much, but we do control whether we register to vote and whether we bother to show up. Will our vote be decisive? Will the politicians listen? That's not up to us really. And even if it was, it doesn't matter until after we vote. Don't boo, don't complain, be an adult. Go read up on the candidates,

watch the debates tonight if you're in America, check them for the virtues necessary in a leader, examine their platform for bullshit and demagoguery, understand that no one will check every box, but pick the one that you can best trust with Go do your job. Vote. The world is better for you being in it. You have so much to offer and give. Your duty asks a lot of you. If you're coming to Stoicism thinking that it's telling you that nothing matters and that people suck, you're getting it wrong. Marcus Aurelius and the rest of the Stoics who were not that dissimilar

are obviously depressed and dark, right? I say no. My argument is that if that's your perception of Stoicism, you are missing the whole philosophy. First off, let's just look at Marcus Aurelius' life. It was dark. This is a guy who buries multiple children. This is a guy who experiences a plague

and war and health issues. It was one disaster after another. And yet, Marcus Aurelius persevered through it. I'll give you my favorite passage in meditation. In book five, Marcus Aurelius says, "'At. I'll give you my favorite passage in meditation. In book five, Marcus Aurelius says, "'At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, "'tell yourself I have to go to work as a human being. "'What do I have to complain of

"'if I'm gonna go do what I was born for, "'the things I was brought into this world to do? "'I wasn't put here to huddle under the covers "'and be warm,' he writes. "'Don't you see the plants and the birds "'and the ants and the spiders "'all going about their individual tasks, and be warm, he writes. Don't you see the plants and the birds and the ants and the spiders all going about their individual tasks,

putting the world in order as best they can. He chides himself for not loving himself enough. He says, you gotta love your nature too and what it demands of you. He says, you have to help people. He clearly cherished the people around him. And what did he learn from them? He learned to take care of himself.

He learned to enjoy the good things in life. He learned to be of service to others. And he learned most of all, the importance and the power of love and kindness and compassion. This is hardly the emotionless, dark, depressing philosophy that Stoicism is made out to be. In fact, it's the opposite of that in almost every way.

Something like 80 times in meditations, Marcus Riehlis talks about serving the common good. He's saying, stop thinking about your own problems. Stop thinking about what you're going through. Stop focusing on yourself. He says, don't even be overheard complaining to yourself. Think about what your duty and your obligations to others are, which is one of the best ways

to get out of your own head and to stop obsessing about your problems as sort of woe is me. One of the ways to get out of your own head and to stop obsessing about your problems, this sort of woe is me. One of the ways we get out of that is for one, by taking the big picture view, but two, by focusing on someone else's problems. So much of our modern understanding of happiness is inseparable from pleasure, from things being the way we want them to be, going the way we want them to be. I think Marcus Rulis and the Stokes would have seen happiness as something closer to how Aristotle saw way we want them to be. I think Marcus Aurelius and the Stoics would have seen happiness as something closer to how Aristotle saw it,

as human flourishing, as eliminating the things that cause unhappiness, right? Selfishness, irresponsibility, recklessness, ill discipline. The Stoics understood, as Victor Frankl said, that happiness isn't something you pursue, it's something that ensues. So Mark Cirillus was able to find happiness despite what was happening around him.

Because he said, look, it's always there, it's inside you, right? It's there, he says, there's this bubble of goodness inside each of us that's bubbling up. Was it always wonderful and amazing? No, because life is not always wonderful and amazing. It's not always going to go the way that you want it to go. It just isn't. If we only saw what was awful, if we only saw the worst in people, if we were delusional and naive and we expected everything to be wonderful and amazing all the

time, we're going to get our asses kicked. But if our glasses were negative, if our tint on everything was negative and terrible, well then things were going to be terrible and negative. Marcus Aurelius believed that our life was died by the color of our thoughts. So part of this core exercise of stoicism, understanding that you have different handles that you can grab things on, as Epictetus said,

allows you to see the good in a situation versus the bad in a situation, right? It allows you to see what you can do here. It allows you to see what you get to do here. And in many ways, this is probably why Mark Cirillis is writing meditations to begin with. He's trying to cope with the fact that things aren't easy, that things aren't going the way that he wanted them to be,

that life is tough, that suffering is inevitable, but the degree to which he suffers and what he suffers over, that's a choice he has. And so the stoic practice of journaling, we should understand that Marcus is turning to the pages in meditations for help, so that he doesn't give in to the darkness, so that he keeps going,

so that he can see a different lens. Stoicism was, in the ancient world, an exercise, a practice. It's not just this thing you knew about that you learned in class. It was a thing you were engaging in. If your version of stoicism is you stuff it all down, you pretend it doesn't exist,

you tell yourself you're invulnerable and invincible. When life does overwhelm you, you're gonna feel that very deeply. And by the way, Mark Struis wasn't afraid to ask for help either. That's one of my favorite passages in meditations. He says, you're like a soldier storming a wall. So what if you have to reach up

and ask a comrade for help? That's where today's sponsor comes in, BetterHelp. You can go to their site right now. You can use my link, betterhelp.com slash daily stoic. You just answer a few questions and BetterHelp matches you with a licensed therapist who's well suited to helping you with whatever it is that you're going through. These are professionals who have years experience treating people who are going through what you're going through. These are professionals who have years experience treating people who are going through what you're going through. With BetterHelp, you get matched with a therapist,

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So what if you need help? Marcus Aurelius needed it too. I've needed it. I'm sure you might as well. That's betterhelp.com slash daily stoic. So let's go to that somewhat controversial example that sometimes people hold up as proof that the stoics were dark and depressing.

Marcus Aurelius opens meditations. He says, when you awake in the morning, tell yourself that the people hold up as proof that the stoics were dark and depressing. Marcus Rulis opens meditations. He says, when you awake in the morning, tell yourself that the people I deal with today will be meddling and ungrateful and arrogant and dishonest and jealous and surly. So yeah, on the one hand, it feels like Marcus is just listing how life sucks. And I think we've all woken up and just thought,

is this what I'm gonna have to deal with today? But Marcus isn't saying like, don't get out of bed because people suck. No, he's saying, look, this is how people are going to be. So first off, let's not be surprised by it. But Marcus is trying to remind himself why. He says, look, they don't know any better. He says, I can't let them implicate me in their ugliness.

I can't let them drag me down. And he says, I can't forget why I'm here, why they're here. We're all meant to work together. We're all doing this together. And he's trying to work himself up and through this. So again, what seems like a dark passage in meditations is actually a pretty cheerful one. But most of all, Marcus Aurelius drew on Stoicism

to get through all this difficulty. He said, it's disgraceful for the soul to give up when the body is still going strong. Actually, Stoicism is this empowering philosophy. It's a joyful philosophy. It's a encouraging philosophy. It's a philosophy that believes in your agency and your worth and your meaning,

and it believes that you can make a difference. Maybe I'll leave you with this quote at the back of meditations, because I think to me, it describes Marcus Aurelius' realistic view of why he was here and what a good life was. He said, concentrate on what you have to do. Fix your eyes on it. Remind yourself that your task is to be a good human being.

Remind yourself what nature demands of people. Then do it without hesitation and speak the truth as you see it, but with kindness, with humility, without hypocrisy. Every day, totally free, we send out the daily Stoic email. It's the largest community of Stoics ever assembled in human history. And just one Stoic idea, one ancient lesson to chew on every single day. I'd love to have you join us. If you like our videos, I think you'll like the email.

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