The Daily Stoic - How To Achieve Things | Reduce Wants, Increase Happiness

Episode Date: February 20, 2023

It’s always been difficult to concentrate. In one of his letters, Seneca talks about trying to write while Rome resounds beneath him with cacophony. There are street sellers and protestors and a fight and blacksmiths screaming and yelling and hammering down below. Now add to those typical sounds of the outside world, the chaos of our personal world–a buzzing iPhone, an overflowing inbox and endless Zoom meetings–and you get our daily nightmare.But if we wish to succeed, as Seneca did, we must find a way to tune this all out.---And in today's reading from the Daily Stoic Journal, Ryan dissecting three quotes from Epictetus in order to illustrate the Stoic idea of cultivating happiness in our lives by reducing the destructive habit of wanting more.📔 Check out The Painted Porch to get your signed copy of Stillness is the Key.✉️ 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.

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 Wondery'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. on music or wherever you get 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. How to achieve things. It's always been difficult to concentrate. In one of his letters, Seneca talks about trying to write while Rome resounds beneath him with noise.

There are street sellers and protesters in a fight in blacksmiths screaming and yelling and hammering down below. Now, add to those typical sounds of the outside world, the chaos of our personal world, the buzzing iPhone and overflowing inbox and endless Zoom meetings, and you get a daily nightmare. But if we wish to succeed as Senaqa did, we must find a way to tune this all out. But if we want to achieve great things

in our chosen fields, we must figure out this puzzle just as every great man and woman has in their own pursuit of greatness. Using a hunting metaphor, Oliver Wendo-Homes once explained, if you want to hit a bird on the wing, you must have all your will and focus. You must not be thinking about yourself and equally, you must not be thinking about your neighbor, you must be living in your eye on that bird. Every achievement, he said, is a bird on the wing. Writing a letter that is still relevant 2000 years later, as Santa Cudid, that's a bird

on the wing. Being a good spouse or a parent, that's a bird on the wing, making a breakthrough in science or business or founding a new philosophical school, Azino did, that's a bird on the wing. Being a great emperor, that's a bird on the wing. Being a great emperor, that's a bird on the wing. That's why Marcus really said that we had to concentrate like a Roman. We must put all our will in focus. We can't be thinking of ourselves or others or anything at all except the task in front of us, which is to say we must be able to shut out the world if we are to be able to do something great, to change is it. It's one of the hardest things in the world to do, but it's a prerequisite for doing

any other hard thing in this world. That's what it's doing. That's how it goes. Stillness is the key. Focus is everything. You must seek it, capture it, live in it. As I say in the book, stillness is the key. It was one of the books I needed most in my life as I live in it. As I say, in the book Stillness is the key. It was one of the books I needed most in my life as I was writing it.

It's a book that changed me and writing it. It's been lovely to hear from all the people who were changed by reading it. It debuted at number one on the New York Times list. I can't wait for you to read it if you haven't yet. And you can get sign copies at store.dailysteal.com or pick it up in audio, e-book, physical, any format you want, any where books are sold. Stillness is key. I hope you check it out. Reduce wants, increase happiness. The Stoics knew that wanting less increases gratitude just as wanting more obliterates it. Epic Titus focused much of his teachings on helping his students reduce this destructive habit

of wanting more. In it, he saw the key to a happy life and to relationships by practicing the art of wanting less and being grateful for the portion that we already have before us. We are hopping off the so-called hedonic treadmill and taking a real step on the path to a life of real contentment. That's what we're journaling about this week in the Daily Stoke Journal. That's where this little meditation comes from. We've got three quotes from Epicetus. He says, remember to conduct yourself in life as if at a banquet, as something is being passed around and comes to you, reach your hand out and take only a moderate helping. Does it pass you by? Don't stop it. It hasn't yet come. Don't burn and desire for it, but wait

until it arrives in front of you. Act this way with children, espouse towards position with wealth. One day it will make you worthy of a banquet with the gods. That's epictetus is in chirodian. When children stick their hand down a narrow goodie jar they can't get their full fist out and start crying. Drop a few treats and you will get it out. Curve your desire. Don't set your heart on so many things and you will get what you need. That's epictetus's discourse is 39. Freedom isn't secured by filling up your heart's desire by removing your desire. Epictetus's discourses. It's not that the stokes didn't like

stuff. I mean, they did. They enjoyed life. But they also knew that there is such thing as too much of a good thing. And they tried to enjoy what they had, well, they had it, but also not be dependent on it, and also more importantly, not desire and achieve and acquire so much that it becomes its own burden. And I think that's something we miss, for instance, even about the Epicurians. We think the Epicurians were these sort of pleasure lovers

and to a sense they were. but it was the simple pleasures. It was the right amount that brought them pleasure, and too much becomes not only not a pleasure, but a punishment. There's a joke I like. Someone attended one of Aristotle's dinners, and they said, Aristotle, you know what I love about your dinners? I don't regret them the following morning. So this idea of moderation is so essential. And it's the key to happiness. The right amount, I remember Steve, my editor and collaborator on the day of Stokeman, the day of Stokeman, journal, said to me once he said, moderation in all things and some things not at all. And I thought that was beautifully expressed. And that's kind of how I try to live my life.

You know, Santa Cappable took it too far in one direction, maybe Epictetus took it too far in the other direction. And maybe Marcus Aurelius is right there in the Aristotelian mean enough, but not too much. There's two beautiful metaphors there from Epictetus that I think are worth pausing on. He talks about the kid sticking their hand in the candy jar that get too much. They let some of it go. They could get it. But since they can't let it go, they get none

of it. That's a beautiful image. But this other one that we're life at a banquet. And I don't know about you, but whenever I met a buffet or a banquet, I tend to eat too much. And then it's unhappy. It's unpleasurable. As Aristotle said, you regret it the next day. But if you can find a way to enjoy it, that the food is not really the point. The food is extra. The point is the conversation, the company, the experience. And to take too much, to take more than you're shared,

to be distracted, oh, who that's coming over here. I want seconds of this. This is to take yourself out of the present moment in a sense that it ultimately ends up sort of punishing you and it takes the fun and the joy out of it. So moderation in all things. He's saying, he's being explicit. This banquet thing is a metaphor. He's just act this way with children, a spouse towards position with wealth. And one day it will make you worthy of a banquet with the gods. The less you need, the less you want, the freer you are, the happier you are, and the more you enjoy what you do have, that idea of enough, that idea of the right amount is key.

And that's what I'd love for you guys to spend some time thinking about this week. What is enough? Do you have it? Do you really need what you think you need? Or do you just want it? What would happen if you actually got it? Would it really fulfill the desire of the way you think it? Do you really need what you think you need? Do you just want it? What would happen if you actually got it? Would it really fulfill the desire the way you think it would? Maybe not. Be well, be moderate, you can listen to the Daily Stoic early and ad-free on Amazon Music,

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