The Daily Stoic - It’s Really That Simple | Ask DS

Episode Date: June 29, 2023

Sometimes we are so stuck, so in our own heads, so down on our luck that improvement–let alone a full recovery–seems impossible. Our business has been slowing down. We’re not throwing the ball like we used to. Our significant other walked out after 20 years of marriage.What do we do? Well, first thing is we don’t despair.---And in today's Ask Daily Stoic, Ryan answers questions about the Stoics of modern times who he admires, whether or not we should try to reconcile the flaws of the Stoics, how to exercise your Stoicism on a daily basis, and more.✉️ 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 Stoic podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the Daily Stoic podcast where each day we read a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you in your everyday life. Well on Thursdays we not only read the daily meditation, but we answer some questions from listeners and fellow Stoics. We're trying to apply this philosophy just as you are.

Some of these come from my talks. Some of these come from Zoom sessions that we do with daily Stoic Life members or as part of the challenges. Some of them are from interactions I have on the street when there happen to be someone there recording. But thank you for listening. And we hope this is of use to you.

What is your most important thing? It's really that simple. Sometimes we are so stuck, so in our own heads, so down on our own luck that improvement let alone a full recovery seems impossible. Our business has been slowing down. We're not throwing the ball like we used to. Our significant other walked out after 20 years of

marriage. What do we do? Well, first thing is that we don't despair. There's a lot of things we don't control in life, but our attitude is something that is up to us. Giving up is up to us. attitude is something that is up to us. Giving up is up to us. And then next we do what Superbowl winning NFL coach Sean Peyton is getting ready to do in Denver. The Broncos had an absolutely terrible year last year, especially at the quarterback position, which is held by future Hall of Fame and Russell Wilson. Number one job for us coaches, he explained in his first press conference, is evaluating players in what are the things they do well, and let's try to put them in those positions, highlight their strengths, and minimize their weaknesses. We discussed this very approach on the Daily Stoke Podcast recently with Chicago Cubs

Golden Glove Left Fielder, E&HAP. It seems almost too simple that at a high level, a coach would just look at what's working well and what isn't, and then design an offense that does more of the former and less of the latter. But that's really it. That's what champions do. It's what turnaround consultancies and businesses do. It's how Epic Tidus boiled down the entirety of his philosophy. It was as simple as two words. He said, persist and resist. That is, keep doing the stuff that's good and

stop doing the stuff that's bad. Last year might have been in a visible season. Your sales might be in the tank. You might feel like your relationship is falling apart. Don't despair. Look at what is working. Look at what isn't. Explore why it's working and figure out how to get more consistent with it. Go towards your strengths. And then when you're operating from a position of strength, apply that energy towards improving your weaknesses. Life can get you down. I'm no stranger to that. When I find things are piling up, I'm struggling to deal with something. Obviously, I use my journal, obviously, I turn to stochism, but I also turn to my therapist, which I've had for a long time and has helped me through a bunch of stuff. And because I'm so busy and I live out in the country, I do therapy

remote, so I don't have to drive somewhere. And that's where today's sponsor comes in. Talkspace makes it easy to find a therapist that you like. It's convenient, it's affordable. By doing everything online, Talkspace makes getting the help you want easy and affordable. So why wait? And Talkspace can help with any specific challenge you might be facing. That's why it's the number one online therapy platform with license therapists and over 40 specialties.

It's secure and private and in network with most major insurers. As a listener of this podcast, you can get 80 bucks off your first month with Talkspace when you go to Talkspace.com.sashtoic. To match with a license therapist today, go to Talkspace.com.sashtoic to get 80 bucks off your first month and show your support for the daily stoic. That's Talkspace.com slash Stoic. and show your support for the Daily Stoic, that's talkspace.com slash Stoic. There's an interesting question, Ryan, in 2022, who do you say is the best example of the Stoic? Yeah, look, I wish I could give you a long list of Stoics, and I think part of the reason we're in the mess that we're in is that there aren't nearly enough examples. So that's why I tend to look to the past, certainly less controversial, a little less politically

charged. But I did just read Katie Martin's biography of Annelay Merkel. Again, I don't know enough about German politics to have too much of a strong opinion. But I found there to be some very, very stoic ideas running through Merkel's career right down to a little paperweight she has on her desk that just says, calmness is strength. And I found that to be a very stoic idea that unfortunately a lot of our leaders these days don't describe to.

Certainly, an example of a great leader, for sure. Here's another interesting question. How do we reconcile the persecution Christians during the reign of Marcus Relius? Is understanding the justice? Yeah, I don't think we do. The stoic persecution of the Christians is an abomination. It's a shameful thing, just as the many of their wars of conquest and the widespread

acceptance of slavery is. It's particularly bad. Mark's really his philosophy teacher, Junius Rousticus, who he makes effectively the mayor of Rome, is the one who adjudicates mayor of Rome, is the one who adjudicates and then sentences to death and persecution just in martyr. So even the concept of martyrdom comes to us from the Stoic persecutions. Now I guess we could we could look at the fact that the Stoics themselves were persecuted under many of the prior and previous emperors, we could say that it was a misunderstanding, that it was a clash of religions and understandings. I think it's just inexplicable, it was wrong. But again, I think my impulse is not to go, how are the Stoics hypocrites because of this example or that example, and I try to go, how can I reconcile my understanding of Stoicism and these socks that I'm wearing and where they

were probably produced? And so I try ultimately to just try to get a little bit better in my life, And so I try ultimately to just try to get a little bit better in my life, try to become a little bit more ethical, try to practice justice as best I can in my own decisions and actions. And I think we shouldn't be afraid to question or criticize or indict entirely the mistakes of the past. I think one of the things we're reckoning with in the United States is our inability to look at things that this country has done and go, I don't like that that was wrong from not just learning from it and rectifying those wrongs, but also I think makes it more likely that we'll do those things again in the future. Some say that ancient enlightenment began as a result of the moral and philosophical

implications of the industrial revolution. How can we find ways in our current society to help guide people towards focusing on the socialism instead of public and division during such times of uncertainty and view? You know, that question might be a little bit above my pay grade. I'm not sure I have a good answer. I think the simplest stoic action, and I have a quote on my wall from Mark's Reel, as he says, let us waste no more time talking about what a good person is like just be one. You know, I think the very simplest, basic level, what's most in our control is what behaviors, values, and ideas are remodeling in our own day-to-day life, particularly in front of our children,

or the people who work for and with us, or live near us, to me that's where we probably will have the most impact evangelizing or spreading these ideas that we're talking about. This one's an interesting one. While a more potty encourages our indifference and acceptance of events and outcomes outside of our control, how did the stoics approach crepencing preferences in the sense of preferring versus dispreferring differences? Yeah, this gets a little into the weeds about Stoics, but the Stoics talk about the idea of being indifferent. Like, don't care except whatever it is.

But then, Seneca and some of the other Stoics come up with a little semantic twist, they say, but there are also preferred indifference. So that's indifference with a T preferred indifference, meaning it's probably better to be rich than poor, he says. It's not being rich or poor, that it doesn't say anything about you, but if you had to choose, you'd probably choose to have more resources

than less resources. Just as he said, you know, you'd probably prefer to be tall than short to have both your eyes than only one eye or, you know, both all your working limbs compared to only one working limb. So I think for the Stoics, the idea is like, in difference means I'm good, whatever the cards are, right?

I'm gonna play whatever the hand on dealt is, but still if you had to choose, or if you're sitting there hoping, you wanna be dealt a good hand, or you wanna be dealt a hand with the most options. And I think that's the idea with strategy, right? Or any sort of position, in any sort of leadership position,

which is that you're probably not gonna get to choose, but you wanna choose the path with the most optionality as possible, right? Your job is there's all the constraints of the situation you're in, but you know, you want to choose optionality where you have it. So that's kind of how I think about that. We have two similar questions. So, the end relate to you personally. Okay. What are the exercises or personal, what you do in your personal life to make your more reasonable self more accessible and time to stress. So you're less reactive, what tools do you use?

To me, the biggest one, and I think the most stoic sort of practical philosophical exercise is journaling. Meditations, remarks, really, is effectively a journal. But, you know, paper, as they say, is more patient than people. I like to put my thoughts down, have a little distance from them, have reflective quiet time, whether it's in the morning or the evening, where I sit down and I just just think and I get it all out on the page So I'm not carrying it around so I'm not vomiting it on other people So I'm working through the ideas. I'm reminding myself of what I believe like something like a gratitude journal

What's so effective about that is You're just by forcing you to say, I am grateful for this. You are reminding yourself explicitly that that's a thing to feel good about and that you feel grateful for it. And just the process of doing that, repeating it, reminding it to yourself kind of like a mantra or just working it out is just really beneficial.

So if I had one philosophical practice to leave you with, it would be journaling. I know that doesn't, you with, it would be journaling. I know that doesn't, you know, it's probably not as magical as meditation, but it is a meditative experience for me and it's helped me through a lot of difficult times. Thank you.

I think that's something that's accessible to most folks. Here's the tough one that closes out. All right. Okay. Do you need, do do not need an objective and preferably true source of what constitutes right and just? If not, is not everything

than relative and justice simply boils down to eat to eat our own opinions in ways just. Yeah. I think I don't know. I don't know what that source would be. I gather from the question that they probably do have a sense of what that source is. But I think sometimes we can overthink these things and end up almost in a place of like nihilism, like how do you know?

What about this? What about that? When really what I think society needs more of is those sort of basic, almost cliche and humanity and honesty, charity, kindness, you know. So, you know, what is the source of that? What makes it good? How do you know? Yeah, look, it gets really complicated.

We could sit here and talk about the trolley problem and work our twist ourselves into knots and not know what's good or bad or right or wrong. But I also think we, and I think this is a stoic idea, there is like an inherently, so talk about a coordinate living in accordance with nature. I think there is a natural sense of goodness and justice in us, the problem is stuff gets in the way. We always have our reasons, we always have the ability to overthink it, we always have our self-interest.

But if we can just get a little bit closer to that, I think it would make a difference in the world. I think it, and it's an interesting line of inquiry. And if we're trying to keep in mind the nature, maybe looking towards stuff like evolutionary psychology or behavior primates and that sort of thing might help us point towards some of those answers. I think that's right. It's definitely interesting and I don't think there's any short answers that we can get

to in three minutes. I don't even think. Do you think you understand the story you are living in, your personal myth? Oh, that's a good question. I try not to think of life in terms of story or narrative because I find it to be a little misleading or disorienting. You know, if you, if you, one of my favorite novels is The Movie goer, one of my favorite books about Los Angeles

is this book, Ask the Dust by John Fonte. The people who believe they're living in some epic movie or novel tend to be very often preposterously delusional or silly. It's sort of in a grandizing, over-dramatic, grandiose way of living. I try to live more in the moment. I try to live day to day. I try to live sort of objectively. I try to strip things of all of that narrative and just sort of see them for what they are. I don't think that means that nothing matters and it's all meaningless.

I think it's the opposite of that. But I do try to generally resist that kind of idea of my life as a story or something like that. I just try to do what I need to do day to day. 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 ad free with Wondery Plus in Apple podcasts. Raising kids can be one of the greatest rewards of a parent's life.

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