The Daily Stoic - There Are Dreams That Cannot Be | 9 Habits The Stoics Want You To Stop Doing

Episode Date: April 18, 2023

Marcus Aurelius certainly hoped his reign would be peaceful and prosperous–as the fates had blessed his mentor Antoninus for 23 years. Certainly, he dreamed of growing old with all his children around him. Never would Seneca have asked for exile and loss, for Nero’s descent into cruelty. Epictetus, like every child, would have hoped for a life of fun and lightness. Stockdale, as he left his family for a tour in Vietnam, no doubt envisioned returning home unscathed as soon as it was over.But as the song goes…there are some dreams that cannot be.---And today, Ryan gives you 9 habits that you should stop doing in 2023. You can view the full video here. ✉️ 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. There are dreams that cannot be. Marcus Aurelius certainly hoped his reign would be peaceful and prosperous, as the fates had blessed his mentor Antoninus for 23 years. Certainly he dreamed of growing old with all his children around him. Never

would Seneca have asked for exile and loss, for Nero's descent into cruelty. Epic-Tetus like every child would have hoped for a life of fun and lightness. Stockdale, as he left his family for a tour of Vietnam, no doubt envisioned returning home on scale as soon as possible. But as the song goes, there are some dreams that cannot be. Because fate, the world, it does not care much about what we want. It does not care much about our plans. It does not consider us at all. The pandemic, the economy, the affair that broke up your marriage, the car accident that shattered everything. Life happens.

Painful stuff happens. In an instant, all are well-laid plans, our hopes, what we deserve. We are informed that it cannot be. There are storms we cannot weather, yet weather them we must. We must practice what the Stokes call the art of acquiescence. After ascending, we try, as Stockdale did, to turn this event into something that in retrospect, we would not trade.

That's all we can do. 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 audiobooks, don't you?

And it's true. And almost invariably, they listen to them on Audible. That's because Audible offers an incredible selection of audiobooks 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, and 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. Epic genus once encapsulated all of stoke philosophy and just two words, persist and resist. Meaning there were some things we had to keep doing, but more importantly, there were things we had to stop doing. Habits, practices, vices, but the stoics say you must stop doing. It's the perfect time to start quitting some destructive

habits. Get rid of destructive emotions. Free yourself from the things that are holding you back. I'm Ryan Holiday. I've written these books about stoic philosophy. I've been lucky enough to talk about it to the NBA and the NFL, sitting senators and special forces leaders, and what we're going to talk about in today's episode are not things I tell them to do, but things I tell them they must stop doing, I'm trying to stop doing, and so she can. Don't give in to your anxiety this year, you have to stop letting anxiety rule you. In one of the passages in Meditations, Mark, who says, today I escape anxiety and said, well, we know that's not

right. This is actually, I discarded it. It was within me. The plane, the airport, that's not responsible for your anxiety, your responsible for your feelings, your responsible for the worry that you're projecting at this thing. And it's not helping you, it's not making you better. It's not doing anything about the problem. You're just torturing yourself in anticipation of what might happen or might not happen. I've never been in the thrall of anxiety,

traveling somewhere, and then afterwards, but I'm so glad I was so anxious about that. It did so much know it. It made people around me upset. It made me upset. It made me miserable. It didn't do anything for me, and it's not gonna do anything for you this year.

You have to stop doing less than your best. There's this great story about Jimmy Carter who's being interviewed. He wants to get this job when he's an enable officer. And after Carter has talked about how we did in school, all the grades he got, the tests he passed, the things he learned, the interviewer looks at him and goes, but did you always do your best?

And Carter has to answer him honestly, and he goes, no, I guess I didn't always do my best. And the man looks at him and he says, why not? And he gets up and he leaves the room. And that question haunts Carter for the rest of his life. Why didn't he always do his best? And as you look back in your own life

on last year and the years before, why didn't you always give your best? Why are you doing things that you don't think deserve your best? This year we have to do our best at whatever we're doing. We have to give everything that we have. That is one of the things that we control. We don't control whether we succeed, we don't control whether we win,

we don't control whether we get recognized for what we do, but we do control whether we do our best, whether we give everything we have. And as the great Steve Prefontancel goes, giving less than your best is to cheat the gift. Not just the gift of your talents, I would say, but also the gift of the time in front of you for life you've been given.

The Stokes thing, you have to stop being a slave this year. There's a story I tell in discipline, it's destiny about Richard Feynman. One day it's like 10 o'clock in the morning, he's out for a walk and he feels this pull wants to have a drink. Never saw himself as an alcoholic, had never had this problem with alcoholism.

He was deeply uncomfortable with this drive, this pole to do something. It was coming from a part of him that he didn't control. They still say that's something you have to be really suspicious of. Seneca says slavery isn't just this legal status. He says everyone's a slave. He says someone's a slave to their mistress. Somebody's a slave to money. Someone's a slave to power and attention.

And he said those people might be literally free, they might be powerful, they might be important, they're not in control. And discipline assessing, I also tell the story of Eisenhower, he told by his doctor that he's smoking after, he'd smoked like four packs a day for 40 years. It was hurting his health. I love this, he says, I gave myself an order

to stop smoking, they stopped smoking cold turkey like that. It's gonna be harder for some people, easier for some people, but the point is, you gotta give yourself that order. You have to say, who's in charge? This habit, this addiction, this vice that I have, this thing that I want, where am I in charge? I the boss or is it the boss?

And that's what Feynman was reacting to. That's what Senaika was reacting to. That's what Eisenhower's reacting to. And ultimately, that's what Epic Titus is reacting to in the same court as Senaqa. He looks around and he goes, I'm a slave, but I'm freer than these people because I'm in control of my habits. I decide what I do and what I don't do. And we have to give ourselves that power this year. And one of the beautiful passages in Meditations, Mark Sures, reminds himself, everything in life comes from change.

Good and bad. If I try to keep things the same, not only are you, of course, focused on something that you don't control, but you are preventing yourself from all the wonderful opportunities that exist, that could come your way. We live in a time of disruption, we live in a time of institutions that are falling apart, we live in a time of innovation, new institutions that are being created.

So you can't fear what's going to come of that. Just to say, all you can focus on this here is embracing those things, adapting yourself to change, rather than fighting it, rather than fearing it, rather than resenting it. Because it's going to happen regardless of how you feel about it. So what you should focus on is what you're going to do about it. Mark Suley's talks about justice over and over again in meditations, the things that we have to do, but he reminds himself of us and and remember you can commit an injustice by doing nothing also. JFK and one of his famous speeches thinks he's quoting Dante, he says, hottest places in hell are

those who remain neutral. Dante never says this. We can imagine that he's probably thinking of his own father, Joseph Kennedy, who famously advocates neutrality and eventually appeasement as he's the US ambassador to Britain as World War II is breaking out. Kennedy reacting to the fact that in one of the great moral moments of history, his father turned a blind eye to what was happening. He didn't care. And so we have to understand that history is going to look back at this moment and judge us for the things that we were morally neutral on as well, things that we turned up blind eye towards. Soicism is focused on what we control as individuals. As individuals, there's not a lot of control. And yet, in

yet, if every individual only focused on what they control, we would lose the capacity for what you would call collective action to be able to come together to solve complex big societal global issues. You cannot turn a blind eye this year. You must ask yourself, where am I part of the problem? Where can I be part of the solution? How can I focus on and think about the common good? How can I make sure that I'm not committing an injustice by doing nothing, caring little, saying nothing. Don't look for the third thing this year. In medications, Mark's through this,

says, okay, you did something good. Someone benefit from it. That's one, and two, the third thing he said is asking to be recognized for it, asking to be thanked for it, asking to be paid in return for it. This is no, you have to stop looking for the third thing. We don't control

whether people appreciate it, we don't control whether people understand it, we don't control whether it's liked in its own time, we only control what we do. If you want to have more resources, more happiness, this year, one of the things you can do is stop looking for credit, attention, recognition, compensation, and return, and focus instead on, did you do your best? Did you do a really good job? Did you give everything that you had? Do you think you made a positive contribution to the world, to humanity, to the common good? If so, then you have been paid back. You have been recognized. You did what your nature demanded the stokes would say, you did your job, and that's enough. You have to stop putting stuff on.

My favorite quotes from Mark's to really say, you could be good today instead you choose tomorrow. you job and that's enough. You have to stop putting stuff off. For my favorite quotes from Mark's to Realize, he says, you could be good today instead you choose tomorrow. Sonica says, the one thing that all fools have in common is they're always getting ready to start. They're always putting it off a little bit in the future. My friend Steven Pressfield says, we don't say I'm never gonna do it. You say I'm going to do it tomorrow. You have to stop putting stuff off this year. You have to do it now, not later now. You have to quit holding on to stuff. I don't mean physical possessions, although you should stop hanging on to those two.

The Stokes would say that you have to let go, right? It already happened. It's done. Grudges are helping you. Regrets are helping you. There's a great New Year's tradition where people would write down all the things that they're hanging on to, that they regret that they're mad about and then great New Year's tradition where people would write down all the things that they're hanging on to, that they regret that they're mad about and then on New Year's They would light it on fire and then watch it dissolve into smoke. The Stokes would say that hanging on to stuff torture in yourself regretting things, it's not serving the New, it's not serving the world, and it's not going to make you who you're capable of being this year. So let's start the New Year by letting go of things. We have to quit holding on to things. Senaika says it's not that life is short, it's that we waste a lot of it. We put stuff off, we don't do things urgently

because we think it's not urgent, we think we have an unlimited amount of time. But we don't, death stocks us all. I carry this coin in my pocket, it's his momentum, or on the back, it has a quote from our series, it says you could leave life right now, let that determine what you do and say and think.

Let that determine what you don't do this year, what you stop doing this year. Not just that you stop wasting time, but you stop wasting time being a slave to things. That you stop wasting time chasing other people's approval, having opinions about things that don't matter. That you waste time not demanding the best of and for yourself. You have to stop. You have to take this moment seriously because this moment may be all that you waste time not demanding the best of and for yourself, right? You have to stop. You have to take this moment seriously because this moment may be all that you have. Let's carry that forward with us the rest of the year. 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. I'm just the name of you. Now, I've held so many occupations over the years that my fans lovingly nicknamed me Kiki Keepa Bag Palmer. And trust me, I keep a bag love. 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

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