The Daily Stoic - Money Isn’t Rare | Learn, Practice, Train

Episode Date: May 19, 2023

It’s interesting how infrequently money comes up in Meditations. Here was a guy who had incredible wealth, whose predecessors obsessed over it and found it to be a source of both pleasure and conflict, and yet in his private meditations, it hardly comes up at all.In his actions, we see Marcus was conscious of money, but primarily as a means to an end not as an end to itself. He was more interested in what it could do for other people. He declined gifts and inheritances. He gave liberally to the poor. He sold off palace furnishings at Rome’s lowest point.But perhaps these attitudes are related.---And in today's excerpt reading from The Daily Stoic, Ryan discusses the vital importance of actually training yourself for something rather than simply knowing about it, especially with philosophical ideas.✉️ 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. On Friday, we do double duty, not just reading our daily meditation, but also reading a passage from the Daily Stoic. My book, 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance in the Heart of Living, which I wrote with my wonderful collaborator, translator, and a literary agent, Stephen Hanselman. So today, I will give you a quick meditation from the Stokes with some analysis from me, and then we'll send you out into the world to turn

these words into works. It's interesting how infrequently money comes up in meditations. Here was a guy who had incredible wealth, whose predecessors obsessed over it, found it to be the source of both pleasure and conflict, yet in his private meditations, it hardly comes up at all. In his actions we see Marcus was conscious of money though, but primarily as a means to an end, not as an end to itself. He was more interested in what it could do for other people. He declined gifts and inheritances.

He gave liberally to the poor. He sold off palace furnishings at Rome's lowest point. But perhaps these attitudes are related, because Marcus did not think particularly highly of money. He was comfortable in his ability to be generous. At one point, he told the Senate that he did not regard himself in possession of any of his wealth belongs to the people, he said, even the house I live in is not mine.

There can be virtue in frugality. Client these seem to be an incredibly hard worker, a manual laborer, no less, who spent little of what he earned. But frugality and diligence with money can also be a vice. It makes finances loom too large in our lives, makes us throw good time after bed. After all, it's not just enough to earn money, but we have to manage it and make it grow.

We can come to identify with the fruits of our labor and our success, which makes it hard to spend, even unnecessary things, hard to be generous, hard to share. Money isn't rare. There's nothing precious about precious stones. It's all incredibly common. Most of the people who have it are not impressive. Most of the great fortunes are, in fact, the opposite of great. The way to think about money is as a tool. And what did the Stoics use their tools for to do good, to get better, to make the world better? And we can all do the same. It's funny, I talked to lots of people, and a good chunk of those people

haven't been readers for a long time. They've just gotten back into it. And I always love hearing that, and they tell me how they fall in love with reading. They're reading more than ever. And I go, let me guess, you listen audio books, don't you? And it's true. And almost invariably, they listen to them on Audible. And that's because Audible offers an incredible selection of audio books across every genre from bestsellers and new releases to celebrity memoirs. And of course, ancient philosophy, all my books are available on audio, read by me for the most part.

Audible lets you enjoy all your audio entertainment in one app. You'll always find the best of what you love, or something new to discover, and as an audible member, you get to choose one title a month to keep from their entire catalog, including the latest bestsellers and new releases. You'll discover thousands of titles from popular favorites, exclusive new series, exciting new voices in audio. You can check out Stillness is the key, the daily dad. I just recorded so that's up on Audible now.

Coming up on the 10-year anniversary of the obstacle is the way audio books, so all those are available. And new members can try Audible for free for 30 days. Visit audible.com slash daily stoke or text daily stoke to 500-500. That's audible.com slash daily stoke or text daily stoke to 500-500, that's audible.com slash Daily Stoke, or text Daily Stoke to 500-500. Learn Practice Train This is today's entry main 19th from the Daily Stoke. And the first quote comes to us from Epic Titus 219 in the discourses.

That's why philosophers warn us not to be satisfied with mere learning but to add practice and then training, he says. For as time passes, we forget what we learned and end up doing the opposite and hold opinions the opposite of what we should hold. And then we meditate very few people can simply watch an instructional video or hear something explained and then know backward and forward how to do it. Most of us actually have to do something several times in order to truly learn. One of the hallmarks of the

martial arts, military training, athletic training of almost any kind is the hours upon hours of monotonous practice. An athlete at the highest level will train for years to perform movements that can last mere seconds or less. The two-minute joke, how to escape from a chokehold, the perfect jumper, simply knowing isn't enough. It must be absorbed into the muscles and the body. Must become part of us, or we risk losing it the second we experience, stress or difficulty. And this is true with philosophical principles as well. You can't just hear something once and expect to rely on it when the world is crashing down around us. Remember Mark Sirulis wasn't writing his meditations for other

people. He was actively meditating for himself. Even as a successful wise and experienced man, he was until the last days of his life practicing and training to do the right thing. Like the Black Belt, he was still showing up to the Dojo every day to rule. Like a professional athlete, he still showed up to practice each week, even though others thought it was unnecessary. I just, it's funny, I'm recording this shortly after I just got off the podcast with Admiral James Stavridis, his new book to risk it all-night conflicts in the Crucible of Decision, which was a great book I recommend it. I'm not in the Crucible of Decision, which was a great book, I recommend it. I'm not sure if this is coming up before or after the interview, but it doesn't

really matter. One of the things we talked about in that interview was it's sort of framework for responding well to the Crucible of Decision. And he says that you have to prepare in advance, you have to prepare in advance, right? You have to train. You're not, as they say, in the military, you don't rise to the occasion, you sink to the level of your training. You have to meditate on this stuff over and over and over again. He says two big things. He says, one, you have to know what you believe. You have to know your standards. He talks about in his other great book, which I recommend sailing through North. He's basically saying, what's true North? What do you believe? What do you hold important? What are the what's the what's the what are you ascribe to? Right? And that's partly why we study the still to learn what we hold sacred or dear, what the right thing is. And he says,

you also have to know yourself, what you're capable of, what your weaknesses are, what your tendencies are, what your biases are. So then in that moment of stress or difficulty or pressure, you know what you need to think about, what you need to turn to, what you default to. Sanctetitus says that the key of the of Stoicism is so that when life hits you with stuff, you're able to say, this is what I trained for. And I do feel when I think about the pandemic, I mean, it's stressful and difficult and I messed it up in so many ways and there's things I would do differently. But I do feel some gratitude for what stoicism prepared me for, and I feel pride in how I deployed and used that stoicism to keep myself safe, to keep my family safe, to know what to value,

to know what my obligations were, to get through it, how to get through the boredom of it and the difficulty of it and the stress of it, all those things I had prepared for it. Right? And I think epictetus is reminding us though that it's not a single preparation. That if you if you prepare once, the second you stop entropy is working on that preparation. There's an expiration date to it. You have to constantly be updating and reinforcing and adding and reevaluating and going over it over it over it. And that's what medications is to me.

It's Marcus really saying stuff that he already knows. He knows this stuff. He's studied it a bazillion times. He's hurt it a billion times, but he's playing his scales each morning. He's reviewing his note cards before the test each day, right? He's going back over the advice from his father and stepfather and mentors and heroes. He's getting it fresh in his mind. He's reminding himself of who he is, what he needs to do, what true north is, so that in those moments of crisis, in his case, an actual pandemic, a war,

a flood, a coup, all this stuff, he was there. And think about epictetus, right? First off, he studies and learns, stoses, why is this slave? It becomes a philosopher. But then, right, exile comes for him. And he has to go through that again. But if he hadn't been preparing and thinking and talking, keeping these thoughts at hand, that's the other stoke idea to write these things down, talk about them, post them up, you know, get it, go through it over and over and over again, keep it top of mind. That's what this is about.

That's what we're doing here at Daily Stoke. That's why this is a daily practice. That's why I wrote the Daily Book. That's why the're doing here at Daily Stoke. That's why this is a daily practice. That's why I wrote the Daily Book. That's why the journal is there. It's about the daily practice and the daily training of it. And I hope you avail yourself of it. So when that moment comes, when you find yourself in the crucible of decision, you can do what you need to do.

You can meet destiny as it hopes you will. And that's the thought for today. Do you check out Turisket All-Nicts in the Crucible of Decision. It's a great new book by Admiral James DeVritis, carried at the Painted Porch. You can get it anywhere, books are sold. It's probably a great audio book too. And I really appreciated him coming on the podcast.

So stay tuned or look at that interview if you haven't checked it out already. And I'll talk to you soon. 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. 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. Just the name of you. Now, I've held so many occupations over the years that my fans lovingly nicknamed me Kiki

Kiki Pabag Palmer. And trust me, I keep a bad glove. But if you ask me, I'm just getting started. And there's so much I still want to do. So I decided I want to 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 experts in the hot seat to ask them the questions that have been burning in my mind.

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