The Daily Stoic - Don’t Join The Mob | Ask Daily Stoic - Habits

Episode Date: January 6, 2023

In today's Ask Daily Stoic, Ryan discusses how he cultivates better habits, people with habits that he admires, and books that you can read to help improve your routine. If you want to develop better habits in your own life, check out the Daily Stoic Habits Challenge at dailystoic.com/habits.📙 For a limited time, you can purchase The Daily Stoic ebook for only $1.99 on Kindle✉️ 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.

Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we read a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you in your everyday life. But on Fridays, we not only read this daily meditation, but I try to answer some questions from listeners and fellow stoics who are trying to apply this philosophy, whatever it is they happen to do. Sometimes these are from talks. Sometimes these are people who come up to talk to me on the street. Sometimes these are written in or emailed from listeners. But I hope in answering their questions, I can answer your questions, give a little more guidance

on this philosophy we're all trying to follow. to follow. Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoke Podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wonderree'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 join the mob.

We can trace so many of our institutions back to ancient Rome. In Rome, they had senators and a Senate which stood on Capitol Line Hill. Here in America, all these thousands of years later, we have senators and a Senate that conducts business in the Capitol, which sits at the center of Capitol Hill. There's also another institution in Rome's day, one that loomed large in public life that has stayed with us, the maw, the rabble, the riotous mass. The insurrectionists that stormed the capital on January 6, 2021, smearing the temple of democracy with feces in blood, wearing clothes that celebrated the Holocaust, waving the Confederate flag as they rushed to thwart the peaceful transfer of power.

as they rushed to thwart the peaceful transfer of power. They were not an aberration. They were not an anomaly in the history of democracy. No, they were part of a tragic tradition that the Stoics have been warning about for centuries. As Mike Duncan writes in his riveting book, The Storm Before the Storm, and he also talks about the Senate podcast episode we did together, many events in the decades leading up to the fall of the Roman Republic mirrored this. There was a crisis in 133 BC over a land redistribution bill, which escalated into an armed attack

in the first political murder in the Republic's history. In 100 BC, when it became clear that one politician was going to lose an election, his supporters stormed Capitoline Hill, murdered the man who won the consular vote, and barricaded themselves inside its chambers. Then in the 80s, BC, troops formed factions in Rome's first civil war broke out. The mob then to the Romans symbolized the breakdown of their political system. Political violence was something to be abhorred, to be feared, never to be tolerated. Cicero's greatest moment as a statesman came when he stared down the catalyzed conspiracy.

We have a great podcast episode about this with Professor Josiah Osquit. Just as 1800 years later, two of George Washington's greatest moments were when he nipped the new bird conspiracy in the bud and then put down Shay's rebellion. Lincoln would give one of his best speeches before the Civil War, warning against the rise of the mobocratic spirit, which had infected both the South and the North alike. It should have been no surprise then to anyone paying attention at least, that Lincoln had no tolerance for the slave owners who having lost a legitimate election attempted to overthrow the US government by force and violence.

Chrysipus and early Stoic said that the whole point of being a philosopher was to separate yourself from the mob. It was to be above chaos and destruction, to appeal to and demonstrate, as Lincoln said, the better angels of our rational and civic nature. Cato worshiped even dying, protecting the so-called old ways of Rome, the traditions and institutions of the Republic. These were what were so fractured in the decades leading up to Julius Caesar's rise. The institutions whose brittness and precariousness was easily exploited as the republic crumbled and tumbled into empire.

Today all of us are threatened by this mob. Just weeks ago more than two dozen people in Germany were arrested for plotting to storm the Reichstag, Germany's Parliament building, where they would seize power from what they deemed to be an illegitimate government. Much of the language they used to explain their motivation echoed directly the delusional and conspiratorial pronouncements of that same mob that perpetrated the events that unfolded in this country two years ago to this day. The events of January 6, 2021 were not kabuki. They were not the simple exercise of free speech that got out of hand. They were not an aberration. They were not an abstraction. They were very real.

And they cannot be dismissed with what aboutism or conspiracy theories. Here's one way to make them real if you have yet to accept the gravity of what occurred on that day. One former Daily Stoke podcast guest and a friend of mine, Congressman and former Marine Mike Gallagher, was trapped in his office when the mob of insurrectionists broke through the barricades. The threat was real enough. Conflict was imminent enough that he prepared to use his ceremonial marine sword to defend his staff.

He had broadcast live on social media, a plea to the then president of the United States Donald Trump to call his goons off. And as we know, the former president declined to do so for hours because he hoped desperately, pathetically, that the mob might win and restore him to power. The old ways that Cato fought for, the ones that ground us in a set of common laws and shared values, they must remain sacred always and everywhere. The peaceful transition of political power

is today both the most important of those old ways and the most under threat by the mob. As philosophers and citizens and politicians, it is our job to stand for the former and beat back the mob. As philosophers and citizens and politicians, it is our job to stand for the former and beat back the latter. As citizens, as decent human beings, as lovers of justice, we cannot tolerate, rationalize, excuse or accept any form of political violence.

We cannot cater to or join with the mob. And anyone that violates this or any of its related principles deserves the most ancient of civil punishments, not cancellation, but permanent exile. And by the way, today's entry upsets you in any way if you feel the need to disagree with what I'm talking about anyway. Stoomy a favor, don't send me a note, just click the unsubscribe button, and don't need you, don't send me a note. Just click the unsubscribe button.

Don't need you. Don't want you. Bye. Hey there. Another episode of Ask Daily. Stoic, you send in your questions. I answer them. Sometimes we do themes.

Sometimes we do guests. I'm excited to talk about this. We've been working on this habits challenge. I thought I'd answer some questions that you guys have about habits. The first habit I have is what is a habit that you've learned from the Stoics? I've talked about this before, but the waking up early is one that I learned from Marcus Realis when I was 19 years old.

I read Meditations for the first time. The passage in book five, it's one of my favorites, Marcus Realis says, you know, at dawn when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself you were born to do the work of a human being, not to huddle under the covers and stay warm. You gotta get up, you gotta get moving. And I just love that so much that I actually typed it up and I put it on my wall in my dorm. It was my dorm, it was a college apartment, but I've thought about that quote for many, many years. And I've gone through periods, I remember when I sort of first started to be successful in working for myself.

I was like, oh, I can make my own hours, I can do whatever I wanted. And I sort of got away from waking up early. And I just found that that wasn't conducive to me doing my best work. My best work comes when I wake up early, when I get, when I tackle the important task of the day before anything else. And I learned this from Marcus Aurelius. I think if you look at successful people, almost all of them are early risers. And there's a reason for that. As I say in stillness, when everyone had reason on something, there's usually something on a habit, let's say, there's usually something to it.

And so I think the stokes were notorious. Early risers, for a reason, there's a lot of good in it. And that's probably where I'd start as far as habits go. The stoics, the next habit, of course, would be journaling and reading. And then maybe some memento more. But what I do love about stoicism is that it's not this thing you read.

It is habits, it's practices. And the more you do them, the more you understand the sort of wisdom. And almost the habit becomes routine, which becomes a kind of a ritual. And then the next question is what's a habit that I'm working on cutting out of my life? So for me, social media has always been sort of a bane and a boon of my existence. I probably wouldn't be here without social media.

Certainly my businesses have succeeded because of social media. Certainly I see a lot of value in it, but I have a lot of trouble serve compulsive actions. Like they sort of go, there's people who are addicts, people who are not addicts. I definitely have an addictive personality. Which by the way is one reason I don't drink, I don't drink, I don't do drugs, is just generally whenever

I do anything, I tend to do it compulsively. And so I try to just steer clear of things that sort of trigger that compulsiveness in me. But for me with social media, it's this sort of constant battle. And I feel like every time I sort of knock one of the networks down, the other one pops up in significance for me. So Twitter was the one, you know, in 2016, and during the presidential election, sort of spiraled out of control.

So I stopped that one, and I very rarely check it, and I don't keep it on my phone. But I do find myself occasionally drawn back into it. I rationalized, oh, I'm just gonna check my app replies, I'm just gonna check my messages. And then rationalized, oh, I'm just going to check my app replies I'm just going to check my messages and then here I oh, I'm just going to check this you know sort of trending topic and then here I am So sort of having a really clear boundary in borderline with that one has been good Facebook I quit about two years ago Now a year and a half ago

Which was great. I was found that it it's not that the activity It's not the site itself that was triggering the compulsive activity, but it was triggering some compulsive thoughts for me. Having built my account over the years, it was filled with lots of people who do similar work to me, who are in peer groups with me. And I found that what it was triggering

was sort of envy, status anxiety, am I doing enough? Am I making enough? Why is this person doing this anxiety, am I doing enough, am I making enough? Why is this person doing this? Why am I not doing that? And checking out a Facebook really made it easier for me to stay in my own lane, to focus on what's important to me. There's this quote I love from Bruce Dickinson

where he said, we're farming our own field, what the other farmers are growing, so it doesn't matter to us. But I really found that Facebook made it harder for me to do that because I was constantly being seeing what other people were doing. Instagram is similar to me, similar in that way, so I don't have Instagram on my phone. I actually have it on my wife's phone. So for instance, I just got an email, we put up something and someone was asking me how that post it and it's like, I'm going to have to go home and get my wife's phone to be

able to look at it. And so that delay makes it much harder for me to compulsively check it, which has been good. And I try to think about how much time that habit has saved me. In the way that sort of, you know, someone trying to quit cigarettes might look at what these cigarettes are costing them. At an annual basis, how much they save by not smoking. I try to think about it in terms of time

and where might I spend that time? Creating the, you know, really using that surplus of time is important to me. But I find now sort of being here at sort of home on lockdown, I am grabbing my wife's phone more, and I know it frustrates her as well. So, you know, these services are designed to be compulsive. They, the smartest sort of data scientists and psychologists

and behavioral economics economists have figured out how to make them very impossible to resist. So, understandably, they're irresistible. Two books I'd recommend if this is a habit you struggle with count newports, digital minimalism, very good, and then near E.O.L's book, indistractable, also very good on the topic. So, that's a habit I struggle with, not perfect at it, definitely relapsed from time to time, but like what I try to measure, what I try to look at with habits or things like that is something Epicurus talk to guys is, what is this actually getting you? Even though we think of the Epicurians as sort of pleasure seekers, he's talking about

how often pleasure is its own punishment. And so yeah, there's a dope of me and hit. There's a rush or there's, you know, some mindless fun and doing it. But in the end, I noticed it decreases my overall sort of day-to-day happiness. And that's what I'm trying to optimize for. So I'm not going to use things that challenge that happiness. So I'm not going to use things that challenge that happiness. The next questioner, who is someone who's habits I admire or that I think we can learn from? So as a writer, obviously, I've always looked up to Robert Green. And there's two quick Robert Green stories that I think to me, I sort of see as examples

of the power of great habits, the power of discipline, the power of self-control. You might not see them that way, but I definitely do. So I'll give you one. When Robert is writing, if you call him, he does not answer the phone. And I struggle with that. And if the phone rings, I'm like, oh, I want the distraction. So I answer. But Robert has this sort of iron ability to just stay on past. So I might call Robert and not get a phone call returned for like a week, because he is busy.

And when he's writing, that's the most important thing that his routine is the most important thing, his relationship with his girlfriend and wife is the same thing. You know, his life is important and then all the other things come second. I've always sort of really respected his kind of monk-like discipline, but I'll give you another example. So obviously, we don't see each other that much. He was in LA. I live in Austin and my trips to LA are often sort of a bit of a surprise or I don't have a ton of notice. So last time I was in LA, I called Robert and I said,

hey, I'm here. I texted him, I think I said, hey, I'm here. And he said, I'd like to see you when you're going to be here. And I was like, Robert, I'm actually, I think it was like, why are you calling me the morning when you figure out your plans? And so I called in that morning, I was like, hey, Robert, I'm in Glendale, I have to drive to Hollywood. So literally, I am going to drive on the boulevard

that your house is two blocks off. I was like, I will be driving by your house in an hour and a half, if you want to see each other, let's see each other. And we talked and I could tell that he wanted to see me. So it wasn't like a kiss off, but he said, you know, that's going to be like 10.30 and I'll have just gotten in the zone writing. I think we should not do it. and I'll have just gotten in the zone writing, I think we should not do it.

And like I am someone who, I'm a pretty anti-social person myself. I'm so that, so I usually, I usually, I'm an introvert, so I'm not always seeking out, I'm drained by social activity, but I do also welcome distraction. And so I was just the discipline that that took to me was just incredibly impressive. And it's something I try to think about. And it's hard to say no, right? It's hard to, you know, to do that. And he's able to do it because he's able to prioritize it. We're talking

to the phone, we'll see each other soon. But he's able to go like, no, I committed to myself, I'm going to do X. It might seem weird. It might hurt someone's feelings a little bit, but I'm going to insist on maintaining this. And I just respect that about Robert so much and I admire it. And in the habits challenge, we talk about the power of relationships and investing in relationships. So I don't think it's about ignoring other people, but it's about making sure that you are organizing and structuring your life and your relationships in a way that it allows you to do what you want to do. And one of the things that having kids has been good for me is that it has forced me to get more serious about that.

When someone says, oh, hey, can you come do this thing? It requires you driving across town. It requires this commitment. I know I'm telling you, it's only going to take 15 minutes, but actually it's going to take two hours, blah, blah, blah. I think for a good chunk of my career, I was so ambitious that I would accept any of that. Now I realize, oh, wait, no, I'm stealing this time from a kid or I'm stealing this time from my work or I'm stealing this time from myself. When we talk to Stephen Pressfield, you know, he talked about how sometimes you just want to look out the window and think and that this is important to his happiness and

his creativity, well, that is the truth. And so even knowing that I'm stealing that from myself is really important. So those are just a couple thoughts on habits that I hope are valuable. You know, as far as some recommendations about habit stuff, I really like James Clear's book on habit. It's great. Called Atomic Habits. I'd also highly recommend the book, Daily Routines by Mason Curry.

Also great insight into some people's habits. Benjamin Spall has a book called My Morning routine, which can give you some ideas on routine. There's also a website called Morning routine. We have a website that we've run for a while called mine, sorry, called writing routines. It's writing routines.net. You can check that out. Obviously, I have a chapter on routines and the power of routines in stillness is the key, so you can check that out. But look, I think we, as James Clear says, we rise to the level of our habits and we fall to the level of our systems.

And so the habits you make, the way you think about habits, the practices you build in your life, this has enormous, enormous impact. For like, I think people think with me, because I'm productive, because I write a lot, because I'm young, that I must sort of always be, that it must be excruciating. Actually, it's just the function of some pretty basic,

clear habits that I follow day in and day out. And that's really what we're talking about in the habits challenge. That's why I love answering questions about habits. So if you want to check out the habits challenge, you can do that. It's dailystoke.com slash habits. I think it's one of the best things we've done a long time. It's a good opportunity to invest in yourself right now if you're stuck at home. It's six weeks, a really dedicated rigorous

course about habits and I think it will make you better. So check it out and I will talk to you next week. 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 add free with Wondery Plus in Apple podcasts. Is this thing all? Check one, two, one, two. Hey y'all, I'm Kiki Palmer. I'm an actress, a singer, an entrepreneur, and a Virgo. I'm just the name of you. Now I've held so many occupations over the years that my fans lovingly nicknamed me Kiki

Keep a Bag Palmer. And trust me, I keep a bag love. But if you ask me, I'm just getting started and there's so much I still want to do. So I decided I wanna be a podcast host. I'm proud to introduce you to the Baby Mrs. Kiki Palmer podcast. I'm putting my friends, family, and some of the dopest

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These are the questions that keep me up at night. But I'm taking these questions out of my head, and I'm bringing them to you. Because on Baby This Is Kiki Palmer, no topic is off limits. Follow Baby This Is Kiki Palmer, whatever you get your podcast. Hey, prime members, you can listen early and add free on Amazon music. Download the Amazon music app today. You can listen early and app-free on Amazon Music.

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