The Daily Stoic - Just Do This Daily | 8 Stoic Strategies For Controlling Your Anger

Episode Date: March 29, 2023

A successful day for a Stoic is simple. It’s not about making more money. Or getting more famous, or dazzling more people with your accomplishments. It’s whether or not you got better.Specifically, it’s whether you get better at life—more prepared for the troubles, for the temptations, for the opportunities that lay ahead. As Seneca wrote to Lucilius, the prescription for this philosophy is simple:“Each day acquire something that will fortify you against poverty, against death, indeed against other misfortunes, as well and after you have run over many thoughts, select one to be thoroughly digested that day.”---And today, Ryan presents eight Stoic inspired strategies that can help you keep a cool head.✉️ 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. On Tuesdays, we take a closer look at these stoic ideas, how we can apply them in our actual lives. Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy. Just do this thing daily. A successful day for a stoic is simple. It's not about making more money or getting more famous or dazzling more people with your accomplishments.

It's whether or not you got better. Specifically, it's whether you get better at life, more prepared for the troubles, for the temptations, for the opportunities that lay ahead. As Seneca wrote to Lucilius, the prescription for this philosophy is simple. Each day acquires something that will fortify you against poverty, against death, indeed against other misfortunes as well. day acquire something that will fortify you against poverty, against death, indeed against other misfortunes as well. After you have run over many thoughts, select one to be thoroughly digested that day.

It's interesting how quick we are to apply this line of thinking to our professional pursuits, always trying to add something to our game to get a little bit better. But what about the personal? As Marcus really is, we'd write in meditations, are you trying to be a better wrestler, but not a better person, a better forgive or a faults, a better friend in tight places?

What about being a better parent, a better grandparent? Is that something you're working as hard at as you are making more money or maintaining your figure? The answer to this question is rarely the right one. Even Marcus struggled with it as his conflict with his only surviving son,

Comedist showed. And this prompts the next question, why? Why not? We say that family is the most important thing but act a nonverbal, deeds are better than words. It's time to make our priority, our priority. I've been trying to find that thing that Seneca talked about in his letter, finding one thing on a daily basis. As it relates to parenting, how can I find one thing that makes me a better parent

every day? And one of the ways I've become a better parent every day is by writing the daily dad email. And now, I'm very, very, very, very excited to tell you that there's a new book, The Daily Dad 366 Meditations on Parenting Love and Raising Great Kids, which you can pre-order right now at dailydadbook.com. There's a bunch of signed numbered first editions for the first people to grab them. And there's a bunch of other amazing pre-order bonuses. I've been spending the last week and a half recording the audio book. And it's been so exciting to go back over this thing

that I've been working on basically every day for the last six or seven years since my wife and I decided to have kids. It's a journey I'm on. It's a journey I know that many of you are on. And if you wanna get better at it, if you wanna find one thing to digest each day, that's what the Daily Dad emails about, which is totally free. Get that at daily.com. But it would mean so much to me if you could

support the book by pre-ordering it. It's out on May 2nd, but the earlier the pre-orders come in, the more the publisher gets behind the book, the more the retailers get behind the book. And it just, it makes a huge difference as far as moving the needle goes. So you could check that out, if you could pre-order it, the daily dad, 366 meditations on parenting, I love it and raising great kids. It's basically the sequel to the Daily Stoic,

which I know so many of you have read. You could pre-order that right now at dailydad.com. Any format, there's tons of bonuses, it's gonna be awesome, Check it out. Thanks, everyone. The Dell Technologies Black Friday in July event is on with limited quantity deals on top business PCs with Windows 11 Pro. Save on select Vostro laptops with built-in OS recovery fingerprint readers and antivirus protections. Plus, you can save on select latitude laptops with a wide range of built-in OS recovery fingerprint readers and antivirus protections. Plus, you can save on select latitude laptops with a wide range of built-in privacy, collaboration, and connectivity features.

Enjoy unmatched productivity and connectivity with incredible savings on our best tech. Get free shipping and special financing with Dell Business Credit. Dell Technologies recommends Windows 11 Pro for business. Find the right tech for your needs by calling a Dell Technologies Advisor at 877-Ask Dell. That's 877-Ask Dell offered to business customers by Web Bank who determines qualifications for in terms of credit. I don't think I've ever lost my temper and then been glad after the fact, right? I'm never so glad I got angry, I got upset lost my temper and then been glad after the fact, right?

I'm never so glad I got angry, I got upset. It never makes things better. That's what the Stokes believe that anger always makes stuff worse. And Seneca points out how totally irrational this is to get angry is like to return a kick to a mule or a bite to a dog. He writes this whole incredible essay on anger to Nero.

He says, the emperor can't afford to get angry. They have to be calm, they have to be rational, they have to think things through. Sports coach might get angry on purpose to rally the team, but an NBA coach who's not in control of their temper is just gonna rack up technical files and make the team worse. So we control our temper,

it's not that we don't feel the anger, it's there, we know it's there, but we don't act on it. We try not to act on it because it always makes things worse. We regret it afterwards. The fact that we have that hangover is a really important sign that it's not an emotion or impulse that we want to give into. Yeah, people suck, people are annoying. But Marcus really is the emperor of Rome, dealt with his share of difficult people. He says, is a world without these people possible. A certain percentage of people are gonna be like that, he says.

So when you understand that, when you accept it, and then you bump into a rude, difficult, shameless, crappy person, you're not surprised. You go, this is one of those numbers. And he says, it helps you understand them, it helps you deal with them. And most of all, helps you not be caught off guard by them. But I think more importantly, it allows you to not take it personally.

They're not like this on purpose. Somebody has to be this way and they're that person's. So you might as well put up with them, rush it off and go do what you need to do. What do you do when somebody else makes a mistake? Mark really says other people's mistakes leave them to their makers. Meaning what other people say and do, they screw stuff up, that's their problem. Actually, no, it's not that it's their problem. It's that it's not up to you. But what is up to you is learning from your own mistakes, avoiding error in your own life.

So that's where the stoic focuses. Not on what other people are saying or doing. Not on where someone is wrong. Have you seen that famous comic? I can't go to bed, honey. Someone is wrong on the internet. No, stoic focuses on their own actions, their own views, their own opinions on what they control. We leave other people's mistakes to them.

And as Mark says, we try to be strict with ourselves, tolerant with others. Because again, that's the only part of this that's up to us. So, Mark's really didn't like people. I mean, you can't read meditations and not see this. He opens meditations with a meditation on how frustrating and obnoxious other people are. And even this idea, this idea of the obstacle is the way that quote is him talking about

other people, about how people get in our way, how people present obstacles, but he says that in that obstacle, there's an opportunity to actually practice this philosophy that you say you believe, to be good in spite of other people, to be just in the face of injustice, to be temperate, in the face of intemperance that's being rewarded, to be courageous when everyone else is being cowardly and being rewarded for it. So for the Stoics, people are frustrating, people are an obstacle, but like all obstacles, they're also the way, there's something that's a challenge we can rise to meet, we can be better for wrestling with other people's difficulties. So don't resent people.

Use them to become better. You don't have to let this get you, Mark Spielis. You don't have to let it upset you. You always have the option to have no opinion. He says you can just let it go. You can let it drift by like clouds as the Buddhist talk about when they talk about thoughts. You don't have to let it sink in. Don't have to let it harm you. You don't have to let it get you riled up. You don't have to get

worked up. You don't have to respond. You can just let it go. I want you to know that. You don't have to let this get to you, you can just let it go. The best revenge is to not be like that, the Stokes would say. And if you think about it, yes, people can hurt you, but when you look at those people who they are, why they do what they do, it doesn't actually feel like they're getting away with anything, they hear their own worst enemy, it sucks to be them. So the Stokes say, you give up on revenge, you give up on getting even because you already won. You are already better by not being that person. The best revenge Mark's really says is to not be like that. Everyone's concerned about someone doing violence to them, doing something harmful to them. But Mark's to really reminds us that we do violence

to our souls when we give in to bad urges, when we give in to our temper, when we betray our standards. We do violence to ourselves, to our soul, when we're not the person that we're capable of being. We let those standards lapse. We let ourselves be overwhelmed by destructive emotions or urges when our ego comes into play. Of course, you have to protect yourself from other people from outside things from externals. But to a larger degree, you don't control most of that. Most empires collapse from within.

Most people's failures are self-inflicted. Most shame is heaped upon ourselves by our own choices and actions. So protect yourself. That's what you control. Don't do violence to yourself, the Stoic say. And that's how you lead a good life. Stoicism is really, really simple. It's that while we don't control what happens to us, we control how we respond to what happens to us. The Stokes would say, yes, stuff goes wrong, stuff goes sideways, but we always have this opportunity to practice the four virtues, courage, temperance, justice, wisdom. Except that there's nothing bad in the world, there's nothing frustrating in the world, there's not stuff we wouldn't want to happen. But when it does happen, it is nevertheless

an opportunity to step up with courage, to be self-disciplined, to do something for other people to practice, to learn, to experience wisdom. That's the idea of stoicism. We don't control what happens. We control how we respond to what happens. Hey, Prime Members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic, Early and Add Free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today,

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