The Daily Stoic - There Is No Greatness Without This | The Portable Retreat

Episode Date: March 20, 2023

People probably thought Marcus Aurelius was strange. The time he spent alone in his room. The long walks he took by himself. We know they thought it was strange that he was seen reading and writing in the Colosseum, ignoring the carnage of the games below.“The world today does not understand, in either man or woman,” Anne Morrow Lindbergh writes in Gift from the Sea, “the need to be alone.” Perhaps we ourselves don’t understand it. We don’t quite see the point. Or as much as we enjoy it, we don’t see it as much of a priority. As we discussed over at Daily Dad in an email recently, parents will manage to make time for so many things…but quiet time by or for themselves is written off as an impossible indulgence.---And in today's Daily Stoic Journal reading, Ryan examines the importance of cultivating a safe and free place to retreat to inside of your own mind.✉️ 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, including the Stillness Key.📱 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. Each day we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoic's illustrated best stories from history, current events, and literature to help you be better at what you do. And at the beginning of the week, we try to do a deeper dive, setting a kind of stoic intention for the week, something to meditate on, something to think on, something to leave you with, to journal about,

whatever it is you're happy to be doing. So let's get into it. There is no greatness without this. People probably thought Marcus Aurelius was strange. The time he spent alone in his room, the long walks he took by himself, we know they thought it was strange that he was seen reading and writing in the Colosseum, ignoring the carnage of the games below. The world today does not understand an either man or woman, and Maro Lindbergh writes in a gift from the sea. They do not understand the need to be alone.

Perhaps we ourselves don't understand it. We don't quite see the point, or as much as we enjoy it, we don't see it as much of a priority. As I discussed over on the Daily Dad podcast and email recently, parents will manage to make time for so many things, but quiet time for four and by themselves is written off as an impossible indulgence. But actually, Lindberg writes,

these are among the most important times in one's life when one is alone. Certain springs are tapped only when we are alone. The artist knows that he must be alone to create the writer to work out his thoughts, the musician to compose the saint to pray. There would be no meditations without this quiet solitude or more alarming, there would have been no Marcus

Arelius either. He had to take the time to retreat into his own soul, as he said, to rejoice in perfect stillness. He needed to step away. He needed to evaluate and reflect, prepare, and anticipate. He was an extremely busy man with endless amounts of demands on his person and his schedule, but he insisted on stillness because he knew it was the key to his health and happiness and his leadership depended on it. And the same is true for you. That's my keys. And the biggest one on the key ring, which I used to open my office not just a few minutes ago, is my stillness is the key key. A little on the nose by love it. The Daily Stoic Coins started as I wanted a little reminder for myself.

My pockets are full. So I came up with this cool key. It's got this picture of a rock on it. As Marcus said, be like the rock that the waves crash over and eventually the sea falls still around. To me, that's the image of stillness. That's what Adiraxia is all about. Obviously, I wrote a book on it, which I'd love for you to read if you haven't.

And then if you want to check out this key, it's pretty cool. I'll link to it in today's show notes so you can also just go to dailystillock.com slash stillnesskey and check that out. The Dell Technologies Black Friday in July event is on with limited quantity deals on top business PCs with Windows 11 Pro.

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who determines qualifications for and terms of credit. The Portable Retrieve. qualifications for in terms of credit. The portable retreat. It is in the future on a vacation, on your day off. That's when we plan to get out into nature. We think there we'll find peace and release from the crush of the everyday demands of life. If this never seems to really happen as often as we think, does it?

And when we do get that piece, it is difficult to keep it once we go back into the fray. So for a stoic, all this is madness. The true retreat is to the freedom of our own mind and our own soul. To consider the gifts we already have that can be a refuge for all time. If we take the time daily to do so.

That's from the daily stoic weekly meditation in the daily stoke journal, which I hope you check out. We've got some quotes from Marcus Realeus and Epictetus here to round it out. People seek retreat for themselves in the country by the sea or in the mountains. You are very much in the habit of yearning for those same things, but this is entirely the trait of a base person when you can, at any moment, find such a retreat in yourself. For nowhere can you find a more peaceful and less busy retreat than in your own soul. Especially if on close inspection, it is filled with ease, which I say is nothing more than being well-ordered. Treat yourself often to this retreat and be renewed. Marcus Aurelius' meditations, 4.3. Remember that it is not only the desire for wealth and position that debases and subjugates us,

but also the desire for peace, leisure, travel, and learning. It doesn't matter what the external thing is, the value we place on it subjugates us to another, where our heart is set, there are impediment lies. That's Epic Titus' discourse is 4.4. Remember that your ruling reason becomes unconquerable when it rallies and relies on itself, so that it won't do

anything contrary to its own will, even if its position is irrational. How much more unconquerable if its judgments are careful and made rationally. Therefore, the mind-free from passions is an impenetrable fortress, and a person has no more secure place of refuge for all time. That's Marcus Aurelius' Meditations 8.48. It must have been really hard to be Marcus. I mean, we think about sometimes the American media teases presidents for how much they play golf or jet off tomorrow, or log go, or camp David, or any of those sort of retreats.

But the truth is it must be extraordinarily hard to be the head of state. Endless meetings, endless responsibilities, endless criticism, endless pressure. You're trapped in this house. You live at the office, literally. And so leaders need escapes. They need hobbies. Talk about this and stillness is the key. Churchill's hobby of, of, of, of, of brickling and painting, you know, Eisenhower place golf.

All that's important. But what Mark is really just saying is, and I think this is true for all of us, you're not actually able to get away from it all with a hobby, with a trip, with a vacation. And in fact, in my own experience, often I come back to the office from vacation more stressed out. You know, when I had Matt Bernadier on the podcast from the national, we talked about how, you know,

you think, hey, I'm gonna take a couple of week vacation and relax, get down to a lower pace of life, recharge, then when I come back, I'll be better. It probably took me like eight, nine months into the pandemic to really detox from the daily grind of work to adjust to a slower pace of life. So the idea that two weeks or a trip to the beach or a trip to the mountains,

it's gonna help you get away from it all. That seven day meditation retreat is gonna do it for you. It's not, it can help, but it's not a mat, there's no magical solution, there's no pill you can take, there's no trip you can take, there's no dark room in the back of your house, you can go to, there's no beautiful landscape backyard that will do it.

No, you have to be able to turn inward. You have to be able to cultivate that piece in yourself. And that's better too, don't you want it on demand? Vacations are expensive. You got to get on planes or they can be blocked from a pandemic or scrutiny from a whatever. You can't flee. Epicurus has every man flees himself. Emerson has a great essay on travel and he talks about how many of us bring ruins to the ruins we visit. No, you stay put, you do the internal work, you find the retreat, the refuge inside your own mind, inside your own soul, inside your own

principles, inside your own meditation, inside your own journaling, inside the walk that you take, right? You've got to be able to find it and cultivate it on demand. Much better for you. I promise, focus on that. Focus on cultivating the inward retreat as Marcus had to do. You never know, right? A pandemic, a war. Things can block us from the trips, right?

A travel delay, a bad weather. Things can prevent us from having that. But if we have it on the inside, you can feel at peace and serene even as you are sitting in the airport waiting for your delayed from having that. But if we have it on the inside, you can feel at peace and serene even as you are sitting in the airport waiting for your delayed and delayed flight. That's what you want. You can have it even at court, as Marcus really said.

You can have it even when you're president. Good systems, good internal discipline, good thoughts, a good soul. This is the best place of refuge and relaxation. So I hope you give yourself that gift and I hope you put in the work so you can have it when you need it. Hey, Prime Members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic Early and Add Free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and add free with Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts. Hey there listeners, while we take a little break here, I want to tell you about another

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