The Daily Stoic - Stoicism's Simple Secret To Being Happier

Episode Date: January 17, 2021

On today’s podcast, Ryan discusses how he has used Stoic principles to find happiness and stillness in the modern world. Stoicism is a practical philosophy and one of the fundamental tenets is that if you want to be happy, you have to flip the script. You can't try to meet your desires, instead, you should limit them. This episode is brought to you by Manly Bands, the best damn wedding rings period. Freedom for your hand to look like you want it to look. Whether you’re looking for men’s wedding rings or engagement rings, Manly Bands has you covered. Manly Bands has an insane selection of materials: gold, wood, antler, steel, dinosaur bones, meteorite, even wood from whiskey barrels. To order your Manly Band and get 20% off, plus a free silicone ring, go to manlybands.com/stoic and enter promo code STOIC.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow @DailyStoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicSee 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 weekend edition of the Daily Stoic. Each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoic, something that can help you live up to those four Stoic virtues of courage, justice, wisdom, and temperance. And here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview stoic philosophers. We reflect. We prepare. We think deeply about the challenging issues of our time. And we work through this philosophy in a way that's more possible here when we're not rushing to work or to get the kids to school. When we have the time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with our journals, and to prepare

for what the future will bring. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wundery'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. Hey, this is Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another weekend episode with the Daily Stoic. Today's topic is going to be an interesting one. The Stoics talk about

happiness, they don't mean sort of the western definition of happiness, which is like, everything's easy, everything's fun, you're having a great time, you're, you know, we tend to think of happiness in our world as like getting everything you want, everything's going great. To the stoics, it was sort of the absence of the passions. It's getting to that place of adoraxia or apothea that getting to a place of feeling enough, feeling content, I think is really maybe, for the stokes, contentment and, but also excellence,

like getting to that philosophical sweet spot is it. And so in today's episode, we are going to look at how you get there, how do you get to that place of enough? And part of it is me, this is something I recorded when I was in Vancouver, putting out the launch of stillness, and I gave a talk and I sat down and sort of riffing on this idea of enough. Something I was really thinking about as I was putting out the book. And then during the tour for that, I ended up talking about this on Rich Rolls Podcast. So you're a little segment of me talking about this on Rich's Podcast.

And then I also went and talked about it on Aubrey Marcus's podcast. So you'll get a little riff of me talking about it there. We're going to talk about this really key stoke idea of getting to a place of enough. So thanks to Aubrey and thanks to Rich for having me on. And I wish you all much stillness and happiness. Those are actually the same thing. As you'll see in today's clip.

Seneka had an interesting definition of poverty. He said, Poverty isn't having too little. Poverty is wanting more. And so obviously, look, if you don't have enough to live, you don't have shelter, that's what real poverty is. That's not what we're talking about. I think what he meant is that real poverty, really being poor in our times, is the sense that you don't have enough that you need more and more.

But the truth is very little is needed to have a happy life and chances are you have everything you need right now to be happy. And this is something I try to remind myself as I'm putting out a book, I'm just looking around my house. You have everything that you need to be happy, you don't need more. It's the idea of conditional happiness. It fools us. We go, I will be happy when I have a million dollars. I will be happy when I have a million Instagram followers. I will be happy when my parents finally admit they were wrong and apologize. You're never going to get those things. Or really what the Stokes want you to realize is that since those things are not in your control, they're not worth craving after. It'd be nice to have, and hopefully they do fall in your lap, but this wanting, this needing,

is really the source of so much of our misery. So in Marcus' Real, he says, you could be happy today instead you choose tomorrow. I think that's what he means. You're putting off what you could be grateful for today in favor of what you hope to have in the future, what you think will magically fulfill you. The truth is no amount of external possessions will ever make you feel good or feel good

enough. And there's no greater proof of this than looking at some of the richest, most powerful, most famous people in the world, how many of them are miserable, how many of them sadly killed themselves. So the idea that it's going to be different when you get them is just a lie that we tell ourselves. It might be good for the human species, it might move the ball forward, but it ultimately takes us to a kind of place of spiritual and personal bankruptcy. So the, at the core of stoicism is a contentment with this present moment because that's all

you have. And it's a gratitude for the present moment. I don't think it's a coincidence that they call it the present moment. It's a gift. And so you want to learn to be grateful to focus on what you have, not on what you want more of, to make use of what you have,

not to think about all the schemes and work you can put into getting more. So, this idea of being present, this idea of being grateful, this idea of enough, is just so deeply powerful and I think deeply rewarding and it allows you to be good right now. And it allows you to do that based on the things that are in your control, not on the things you have to earn or steal or beg or borrow for. You got to stop worrying about the things you can't control. So the still is the only thing that mattered is what was up to us. An epictetus talks about saying like, what's up to us and what's not up to us.

The things that are not up to us, we can't worry about. And we can't give them control over our happiness. But our actions, our thoughts, our opinions, this is up to us. And so when he says there's only one way to happiness, and that actions, our thoughts, our opinions, this is up to us. And so when he says, there's only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things that are being on our power of will. If we can't impact them, that's other people's opinions, that's the weather, that's how tall we are, that's what our face looks like, it's not worth worrying about.

What is worrying about is the actions that we take, the thoughts that we have, the decisions that we make. Your happiness should only be dependent on things that you control, but so many people, they put their happiness on a platter, and they say, you know, I will be happy when I have X. I will be happy when I get Y. And then these people don't get these things and they're not happy. Hey, it's Ryan. I just wanted to thank you for supporting Daily Stoic. If you want to support us more, please subscribe. Like our videos, comment, share with your friends. Sign up for our email at dailystoic.com slash email. You can also check out dailystoic.com slash store.

That's how we keep these videos high quality and ad-free. If you want to support us by one of our awesome philosophically inspired products. Thank you for all the support. Yeah, Billie Jean King, the tennis creature saying it's like, so what makes you a great athlete is your relentless desire for improvement and never being satisfied with the current state

of your performance. The irony is that that is obviously the attitude you need to become the best, but it is also antithetical to enjoying your life, right? Not only enjoying being the best, but to even acknowledge that you got to the top and you are the best. You know what I mean? Right. Because you're like, you're focusing on how much left you have to do or how bad you feel after that.

You're just never, you're never going to feel good because you have this quirk of your brain that makes you always focus on what's wrong. And you know, like it's when I wanted to be a writer, I like it would have been like, oh, I could have a book that's making it. And then quickly your mind's like, oh, actually, like what if it was a best seller? What if it's all the million copies? Or what if you had a whole bunch of books? Or, you know, what if you won this award?

Or what if, you know, like the idea that even one, like if you told me at the opposite, or the outside of the outside of say obstacle, that one person in professional sports would have read the book, I would have been like done. That's success. All settled for the, I like, I accept your offer. That's it. But then you're like, well, why hasn't so and so read it? Or, you know, like, you know, and there's that other guy over there that sold more books. Totally. And in one hand, that's good. That can one keep you humble. Like, I once asked Steven

Pressfield, I was like, wow, it's like to sell like a million books. And he was like, I mean, he's like unbroken and sold like 10 million copies. And I was like, that is like a good attitude because like, it doesn't, you're not like sitting and look how awesome I am. I know some of those people are like, they're very quick to tell you how many copies they sell. As if it says something. Some of those people are like, they're very quick to tell you how many copies they say as if it says something. And so it keeps you humble, it keeps you hungry, but at the same time, how grateful it also deprives you of being grateful for what you've done. And that gratitude and appreciation you've earned.

So you're depriving yourself of it. Yeah. So the solution lies in falling in love with process. Really. I think so, yeah. I mean, you talk about the word is enough, it comes up in the book a lot. It was a bad call, the word that you were. The e-word that like Tiger and his dad

could never utter out loud, that, you know, believe some, you know, incredibly unhappy as a human being. But then you bring up the example of Heller who, you know, writes this amazing book and then goes on to continue to write books and kind of lets it go and is happy with his circumstances and yet still very productive. Yeah. Yeah. So Joseph Heller is at a party with Kurt Vonnegut at the house of this billionaire and Vonnegut's sort of needling him and he's like, hey, you know, you wrote Catch 22,

but you know, this guy made more money than you, than you will ever make in your life like at work this week, you know, and Heller goes, but I have something he'll never have. And he says, what's that? And he says, the notion that I have enough. And I think we are all deep down, very scared that if we ever say that word, that's the moment we become complacent. And the guy behind us passes us. And in a way, it is, like if you're running a race and you're like, oh, this is fast enough. Like, that's when you get past. So there is that element of it, but at the same time, like, so you're not allowed to be happy with the fact that you wrote one generational defining, like, you know, classic novel that helped millions of people and defined, you know, what that experience was for, for a whole, you know, was for a whole generation.

And my favorite thing from Heller is this reporter goes, like, you've never written anything as good as Catch 22 again. And he says, who has? Right. So like, he is sad. I like that. That's just great. Maybe I won't ever write a book as good as you go or obstacle.

Maybe they won't sell as many copies. Like, but that's not going to prevent me from continuing to write. I don't think, you know, I don't want it to and I don't want. I, I, what I want to do is love the process. Like I want to love sitting down, starting the next one. process. Like I want to love sitting down starting the next one. Most people do not get to extreme success without some irrationality or harm being done. And so it is it is attention. But then you look at someone like Tyrone Woods and you go Tyrone Woods might be great for the game of golf. Elon Musk might be great for humanity. Is it fun to be them?

Just because some athletes insatiable drive for winning is what allows them to win, say, seven championships instead of one championship. Does this actually mean it was worth it? I think Elon Musk even said on Joe Rogan's podcast, like, I don't think you, most people would want to be me. You're said something like along those lines. And you can even argue maybe he doesn't want to be him. That's why he's self-destructive at times. Like, maybe the madness is also sort of a subconscious rebellion

against, you know, maybe I could just burn all this down, start over. Yeah, I think there's, I think there's certainly, certainly that has just burn all this down, start over. Yeah, I think there's, I think there's certainly, certainly that has to be part of Tiger Woods this story. Like, you read about what he's doing, and you're like, you wanted to get caught. In the way that every addict almost wants to hit bottom and either die or get help. Yeah, because they want the release of this constant burning of like not only both ends of the candle, but the

middle of the candle as well. It's just consuming when you're driven by this, insatiable, not enough, insatiable need for more. Yeah. I don't know. I think accomplishment, it's like, drive is good, insatiableness is not. And so like how, at something I just think about in my own life, like, is there some sort of middle class version of success?

You know, like is that the idea that like, if you become the... 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

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Follow Baby This Is Kiki Palmer, whatever you get your podcast. Hey, prime members, you can listen early and app-free on Amazon music. Download the Amazon music app today. The best and the only, you will be happy. We're demonstrably untrue. Do you know what I mean? Oftentimes the sort of penultimate champions are the most miserable, least happy people. Like the richest

man in the world is not, is almost never the happiest man in the world. But does that mean there aren't, Tom Hanks seems to be doing pretty good. Do you know what I mean? There's a lot of people, there's other examples of that. Yeah. For sure. And especially if I look out at the spiritual landscape, which is something that I look at really closely, I can't find personally a more deeply embodied and light and master than Romdos.

Yes. So, and but Romdos, if you look at his, you know, he wrote obviously a book that did very well. Be here now, you know, he wrote, polishing the mirror, he's got a couple books, he's got a couple things, but he's not like, he didn't like splash across the world with it. He's not Tony Robbins in the dog. He's not Tony Robbins, right?

You know, but he's, if you follow his work and you listen to his words even now with his aphasia and his stroke and you hear him talk, it's like, wow. He really found the deepest piece, the deepest stillness, and the deepest joy. But it didn't come with this blazing comet where it roasted him the whole way from the inside. And it's kind of interesting to take a look at that on the spiritual side. It's like, well, maybe that's a little bit more of the model.

It's like, it's just kind of emanating from him in a way that people resonate with and will probably continue to resonate with for a long time. And it may be, like, it could have been that there was a conscious choice that he made at some point where it was like, he writes, be here now, and then for his next book, he could do X, you know, he could choose path A or path B,

path A makes him 10 times more famous, you know, path B maintains the level that he's at. And maybe he consciously chose path B, in which case it'd be super admirable because it's very hard to do. You know, it's like the player who paid man in retiring at the end of the Super Bowl, that must have been extraordinarily difficult to do. Or John L. Wei. Yeah.

So there's that path, or it may have been just, you know, like the flapping of a butterfly's wings, like one tiny change totally outside of his control, you know, like, the New York Times was gonna write a trend story, but then the reporter got sick and so it didn't happen or Oprah was gonna make it her book club book and then she didn't or, you know, something going to happen and then the he just did he got he got plenty of breaks but he didn't get the big break and one way to see that is a terrible tragedy and the other way to see it is as a massive gift yeah and I assume he would see it as a gift but I think about that with my own career because

my books have done well but they haven't done Mark Manson well. You know what I, there's like all my books have probably, all my books cumulatively have not sold as many copies as he's probably sold in some language in some other. You know what I mean? Just because, and he's a great writer and he's a friend of mine, but I'm just saying like, things happen.

Things break different ways. Different bands come out at the same time one slightly before the other one slightly after and it's the difference between being the rolling stones and a pretty good classic rock band. You know, like, there's so many things that. And so I think the problem is, if you're, if you have the tiger woods mentality, which is that it's not just like being good, that's important, but, but dominating everyone else and being merciless in that domination.

And that, to, to let up for even one second is a trail of, you know, who you are as a person or to experience a setback is a massive blow. Not only is that really unfortunate if you never get that, and most people don't, because so much has to go right for you to achieve that. He gets one different interview goes the right or wrong way, or one college coach picks him over another. His whole career could have been different.

Tom Brady gets drafted in the seventh round versus the sixth round, and maybe we've never heard of him or drew blood so it doesn't get hurt. So if you're happiness is dependent on that, you're set up for disappointment. But also, again, I don't even if you do get it, If you're happiness is dependent on that, you're set up for disappointment. But also, again, I don't even if you do get it, the irony is it prevents you from enjoying. Thanks so much for listening.

If you could leave a review for the podcast, we'd really appreciate it. The reviews make a difference, and of course, every nice review from a nice person helps balance out. The crazy people who get triggered and angry anytime we say something they disagree with. So if you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and it would really help the show. We appreciate it and I'll see you next episode. 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.