The Daily Stoic - There Is Nothing Beneath the Philosopher | Suspend Your Opinions

Episode Date: February 8, 2021

“We get it. You’ve worked hard. You’re a good person. You respect yourself. That’s why you’re frustrated to be in this job beneath your talents. It’s why you don’t like that your ideas aren’t getting their due. It’s why you hate wasting your time on all this low-level crap.”Ryan explains why a Stoic excels in everything that they do, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast.This episode is also brought to you by Public Goods, the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients at an affordable price. Everything from coffee to toilet paper & shampoo to pet food. Public Goods is your new everything store, thoughtfully designed for the conscious consumer. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order with no minimum purchase. Just go to publicgoods.com/STOIC or use code STOIC at checkout.***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 Daily Stoic: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 Stood Podcast early and add free on Amazon Music. Download the app today. 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. on music or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast. Each day we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, illustrated with 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 happen to be doing. So let's get into it. We've talked about this a bunch. One of the downsides of the pandemic is you can't really go shopping. You shouldn't be poking your heads into store. There is nothing beneath the philosopher. We get it. You've worked hard. You're a good person. You respect yourself. That's why you're so frustrated to be in this job beneath your talents. It's why you don't like that your ideas aren't getting there due. It's why you hate wasting your time on on this low level crap. Note it. Nobody wants to be sweeping floors, nobody likes untangling other people's messes, nobody should be laughed at or dismissed or underappreciated.

But the fact of the matter is that this is a part of life, fair or unfair. There is a story about Musonius Rufus who is sent into exile by Nero and supposedly subjected to degrading manual labor. A friend came across him far from home, swinging a pickaxe on a chain gang, seeing that his friend was appalled Musonius reassured him, does it pain you, he said, if I dig the isthmus for the sake of Greece? What would you have felt if you had seen me playing music like Nero instead?

Musonius was like Ulysses S. Grant who responded to a similarly disappointed friend who couldn't understand why this West Point grad was selling firewood by the side of the road. I am solving the problem of poverty, Grant replied. Meaning, Aesthoic does what they have to do. They play the hand they were dealt even if it's beneath them, or exhausting. In fact, Aesthoic doesn't believe that any job, any profession or action is beneath them. If that is what life is demanding to the stoic, a dollar earned honestly is a good one to a stoic, a job well done is a good one. Even if they choose otherwise, if given the

opportunity, even if their education entitles them to something else, even if it gets them dirty or wears them out, we do what we have to do. Nothing is beneath or below us because we do everything that we do correctly. Suspend your opinions. Epic teetists would teach that opinions were the cause of a troubled mind. Opinions about the way we think things should be, or need to be. One of the stoic words for opinion is dogma, and the practice of stoicism begins with a relentless attempt to suspend this dogmatic way of living, a cessation of the belief that you can force your opinions and expectations onto the world. We have the power to hold no opinion about a thing and not let it upset

our state of mind for things have no natural power to shape our judgments. It's Marcus Realis and Meditations. Today I escaped from the crush of circumstances or better put I threw them out for the crush wasn't from outside me but in my own assumptions. It's Marcus Realis and Meditations. There are two things that must be rooted out in human beings, arrogant opinion and mistrust. Errogate opinion expects that there is nothing further needed and mistrust assumes, under the torrent of circumstances,

there can be no happiness. That's epictetus's discourses. Throw out your conceded opinions for it as impossible for a person to begin to learn that, which he thinks he already knows from epictetus. This idea of having no opinion is, man, it's so powerful. Epictetus also talks about, you know, can you be content to be seen as glueless or stupid about some things?

I mean, but I don't think ignorance is admirable, but I do think that we often sort of track in real time, a whole bunch of information we don't need. We have too many thoughts or judgments about other people's personal lives, that things our neighbors are doing, you know, life is better when you have fewer opinions, because then it just is. You have fewer expectations, so you're not disappointed. They also don't take things for granted. And so I think for the Stokes is about getting to kind of a zen-like place where you just see things as they are and you don't need them to be different, you don't need them to be otherwise, you didn't expect them to be this way or that way. You just went with the flow of it. And you know when I, I think this is obviously what social media

is designed to make us not do, right? Facebook says, what's on your mind? What do you think it about? What's going on in your life? Twitter says the same things, Snapchat and Instagram say, take a video of this, share it, let other people know. Give your thoughts, react to this. Do you ever feel that much better doing that? Or does it just create new problems for you now? Did anyone like it?

Do people agree? Why is this idiot responding in the comments? Why aren't people understanding? Why aren't they appreciating? Blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, you have the power to have no opinion. That's such a beautiful, freeing idea from Marcus Aurelis. And look, he's not saying don't have an opinion about injustice, don't be involved civically. Of course, that's not what the Stokes think. Their whole lives are a testament to the to the contrary. But I

guess they're just saying it's like, look, if somebody you know is having an affair, that can eat you up inside a can bother you. Why are they doing this? Why do people do this? Why, you know, be disappointed in your human, you know, your fellow humans. And it's like, it's none of your business, man. It's not up to you. You're not doing it. You know why you're not doing it. So let them let them do them. They will face the consequences for that. You don't need to get involved. Not to get too political, but you know, this is the Supreme Court decision after our, you know, crook of a, of an attorney general here in Texas filed a lawsuit that tried to overturn the electoral results in some other states. The Supreme Court was basically saying, focus on your own elections, man.

Texas doesn't have a say in the elections of Pennsylvania or Wisconsin or Georgia. And that's a good rule for life too, the founders are smart. They set up a system where each state does their own thing for the most part. Yeah, they interplay, they interact of course, and there's interdependencies.

But for the most part, do your own thing and have your own opinion. The amount of time I see, again, to extend this, like, liberal friends of mine are so upset that somebody over here did this or somebody over here has this dumb opinion and someone over, it's like, as Mark surrealists has leave other people's mistakes to their makers, you got enough to focus on with you. You got enough that's in your control that you're not focusing on. And so, I mean, you know, going through life in a dogmatic way, trying to project and force your opinions on other people is a miserable way to live. It's also a tyrannical way to live.

And so we've got to practice this sort of, I don't want to call it detachment, but it's looking inward instead of outward. And I think that that creates a happier life, that creates a better flowing life, also gives people the freedom to make their mistakes, to learn their own lessons, to do their own things. Something, you know, I'm learning about with my kids as well, is like, look, I gotta let them,

I can't do this, all this stuff for them, I gotta, I gotta, you do, you do, you, man. And I'm here if you need me. And, and I think that's a good way to live. And so, let's, let's focus on having fewer opinions today. Let's, let's focus on the things that are up to us. Let's leave the things that are not up to us to the other people, to the makers, to the people they are up to. And I think that will all help us get along. It's certainly be happier and certainly have more tranquility. that'll all help us get along. It's certainly be happier and certainly have more tranquility.

So, if you're talking about politics, upset you. It's a great opportunity to practice actually exactly what I'm talking about. Just have no opinion, move on. I don't have an opinion about your opinion. And that's exactly how it should be. All right, have a good week, everyone. And if you wanna hear more about this story

of Musoneus Rufus, it's really a fascinating one. There's a whole chapter about him and the new books, Lives of the Stoics, The Art of Living from Xeno to Mark's Relias. You can check it out anywhere books, or sold. 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 add free with Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts. Raising kids can be one of the greatest rewards of a parent's life.

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