The Daily Stoic - They Punish Themselves First | The Obstacle Is The Way

Episode Date: June 30, 2022

Ryan talks about revenge, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day.Blinkist is the app that gets you fifteen-minute summaries of the best nonfiction books out there. Blinkist lets you get the topline information and the most important points from the most important nonfiction books out there, whether it’s Ryan’s own The Daily Stoic, Yuval Harari’s Sapiens, and more. Go to blinkist.com/stoic, try it free for 7 days, and save 25% off your new subscription, too.MUD WTR is a coffee alternative with 4 adaptogenic mushrooms and ayurvedic herbs with 1/7th the caffeine of a cup of coffee. Go to mudwtr.com/STOIC and use code STOIC to get 15% off your first purchase.✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and 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 Stood Podcast early and add free on Amazon Music. Download the app today. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wondery'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. music or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic podcast. On Thursdays we do double duty not just reading our daily meditation but also reading a passage from the book, The Daily Stoic, 366 meditations on wisdom, perseverance, and the art of living, which I wrote with my wonderful

co-author and collaborator, Stephen Hanselman. And so today, we'll give you a quick meditation from one of the Stoics, from Epititus Markis Relius, Seneca, then some analysis for me, and then we send you out into the world to do your best to turn these words into works. The Stoics talk, of course, about self-improvement a lot. That is the purpose of philosophy in many ways, to get better each and every day. And I think the Stoics were pretty unanimous in their belief that reading is a way to do that. And that's why I love today's sponsor, Blinkist. Blinkist is a way to get better, smarter, and to do it faster

in 2022. Blinkist has takeaways from some of the best books on the topic of self-improvement. Books that were written by friends of mine that have recommended many times. Mark Manson's The Settle Art of Not Giving A Fuck. James Clears, Atomic Habits, Tim Ferris's The Four-Hour Body, and more. They also, of course, have my books as well. When I read a book, what I'm really looking for is like one nugget, one insight, one thing I can take away. And if you don't have time to read as much as I do, Blinkist is a great way to just get that. These sort of 15 minute summaries of these books, interviews

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pushing their work off on their colleagues and then filing bogus lawsuits after they get fired. Unsurprisingly, these people existed in their own way in the ancient world too. In fact, Marcus writes in the opening of meditations about the inevitability of witnessing such things on a daily basis. So how does a stowed respond to these outrageous, big and small then and now? First, with a reminder to themselves that as unacceptable as these behaviors are, the primary victim is, as always, also the perpetrator.

It's not fun to be one of these people. Their avarice is not enjoyable because they are constantly hungry for more. Their ignorance is not bliss because their existence is in the dark. It is daily torture, whether they understand it or not. We have to be wise enough to see the bigger picture even as they hurt others. They are hurting themselves. They can't see it, but we can.

And we have the potential they are depriving themselves of. We can see the hell that they're living in. And the second response is to use these people as a mirror in their behavior and their personalities. Perhaps we can see some of our own traits we don't like. We can be reminded why we have the traits and principles that we have. We can see the mistakes of others and learn not to make them ourselves. Only after we have taken these first two steps, can we begin to think about the third step, which may well not be within our power. Holding them accountable.

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And I'm reading to you today from the Daily Stoic 366 Meditations on Wisdom Perseverance in the Art of Living by yours truly. I'm a co-author and translator, Steve Enhancelman. You can get signed copies, by the way, in the Daily Stoic store, over a million copies of the Daily Stoic in print now. It's been just such a lovely experience to watch it. It's been more than 250 weeks, consecutive weeks on the best cellist. It's just an awesome experience. But I hope you check it out. We have a premium leather edition at store.dailystoke.com as well. But let's get on with today's reading because we have the fuller quote here from Mark Surrealis. This is people don't know this quote that I derived the obstacles away

from. Comes from meditations 520. Mark Surrealists, while it's true that someone can impede our actions, they can't impede our intentions and our attitudes, which have the power of being conditional and adaptable. For the mind adapts and converts any obstacle to its actions into a means of achieving it. That which is an impediment to action, is turned to advance action. The obstacle on the path becomes the way. And I will give you the Hayes translation as well, because I just love it.

I actually think there's a really good translation. I'm a big fan of Pierre Hadoe in his book, The Inter Citadel, which I carried the painted porch roll-ink to in today's episode. But Hadoe does his own translation of meditations, which is not been published, except for the excerpts in the book. And there's a really good one inside The Inner Citadel, which you should read. But here's Haze's rendering of the same passage, Meditations

520. In a sense, people are our proper occupation. Our job is to do them good and to put up with them. But when they obstruct our proper tasks, they become irrelevant to us, like sun, and wind, and animals. Our actions may be impeded by them, but there can be no impeding our intentions or our dispositions. Because we can accommodate and adapt.

The mind adapts and converts to its own purposes, the obstacle to our acting, the impediment to action advances action, what stands in the way becomes the way. I just love that passage and I'll give you what I say in the Daily Stoke. Today things will happen that will be contrary to your plans. If not today, then certainly tomorrow. And as a result of these obstacles, you will not be able to do what you planned. That is not as bad as it seems, because your mind is infinitely elastic and adaptable. You have the power to use the stoic exercise of turning obstacles upside down, which takes

one negative circumstance and uses it as an opportunity to practice an unintended virtue or form of excellence. Something prevents you from getting to your destination on time, then this is a chance to practice patience. If an employee makes an expensive mistake, then this is a chance to teach a valuable lesson. If a computer glitch erases your work, then it is a chance to start over with a clean slate. If someone hurts you, it is a chance to practice forgiveness. If something is hard, it is a chance to practice forgiveness. If something is hard, it is a chance to get stronger.

Try this line of thinking and see if there is a situation in which one could not find some virtue to practice or to arrive some benefit. The truth is there isn't one. Every impediment can advance action in some form or another. I think there are a couple of things here. I'm not saying that some terrible thing, an awful, unfortunate, tragic event that happened, is just wonderful. It's that the nature of that event presents within it opportunities to be great.

It's the last couple of years. No one would choose this. It's tragic, it's unfortunate, it's been ghastly in the Emancity of the destruction with which it has wrought. But, right? I have tried to focus on my family. I have tried to focus on being more community-minded, try to focus on my stillness, I've tried to focus on improving my work habits, I've tried to focus on being present, I'm trying to adjust my news habits, my marriage is better. I open this bookstore. I've improved in innumerable ways.

If you said Ryan, you have to give all that back, but there won't be a pandemic. Of course, I would say, yes, of course, there's other ways to do it, but the thing happened, and it is a chance to step up to grow, to change, to practice different virtues. That's what the obstacle is the way it means. It's not that every negative thing is positive. It's that there is a chance to practice positive traits in response to the things that have happened. But second, if you notice the full quote from Marcus,

and the obstacle is the way, I'm really talking about all forms of obstacles, but Marcus is specifically talking about difficult people. He's saying difficult people are a chance to practice these virtues. That when someone is frustrating or mean or stupid or annoying or dishonest or cruel or aggressive blah blah blah blah. These are opportunities to call from yourself positive virtues, patience, kindness, forgiveness, creativity, etc. You've got to use that situation.

So that's what the obstacle is the way it means to me. That's why I have a tattooed here on my left arm. That's why we make the challenge coin. By the way, I don't know if you know this, but if you like the obstacles the way you want to give it is if we have a leather bound edition which you can check out in the daily store or pick up the painted porch. But the point is this is the philosophy with which I try to live my life. Stuff happens. How do we grow from it?

How do we improve from it? How do we use it as an opportunity to be better? I have this little thing that I actually wrote to myself in 2020. I said, 2020 is a test. What makes you a better person or a worse one? That's the part of it you decide, right? I had no idea that the pandemic would run all the way through 2020 and 2021 and it's we'd be back in in 2022. All I knew was I was going to become a better person as a result of it. Could it kill me? Right? It could not be appreciated. It could be all number of things,

but I controlled what I did in response to it. And that's what you control always. That's what the obstacle is the way means, to what Marcus is saying. And as it happens, there's also a zen expression. The obstacle is the path, the obstacle is the way, the impediment to action advances action with stance and the obstacle is the path, the obstacle is the way, the impediment to action advances action, what stands and the way becomes the way.

Don't forget it. And of course, check out the leather bound at store.dailystore.com and we have a really cool challenge coin that you can carry with you to. Actually, and if I remember correctly, the book comes with a challenge coin, so you can get two from in there. You know, the Stoics in real life met at what was called the Stoa. The Stoa, Pocule, the Painted Porch in ancient Athens. Obviously, we can all get together in one place, because this community is like hundreds of thousands of people, and we couldn't fit in one space.

But we have made a special digital version of the Stoa. We're calling it Daily Stoic one place because this community is like hundreds of thousands of people and we couldn't fit in one space. But we have made a special digital version of the Stowe. We're calling it Daily Stowe Life. It's an awesome community. You could talk about like today's episode. You could talk about the emails, ask questions. That's one of my favorite parts is interacting with all these people who are using Stowe's system to be better in their actual real lives.

You get more Daily Stowe meditations over the weekend, just for the daily stoke life members, quarterly Q&As with me, cloth bound edition of our best of meditations, plus a whole bunch of other stuff, including discounts, and this is the best part, all our daily stoke courses and challenges, totally for free, hundreds of dollars of value every single year, including our new year, new U challenge. We'd love to have you join us. There's a two week trial totally for free. Check it out at DailyStokeLife.com. 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.

Hey there listeners, while we take a little break here, I want to tell you about another podcast that I think you'll like. It's called How I Built This, where host Guy Razz talks to founders behind some of the world's biggest and most innovative companies, to learn how they built them from the ground up. Guy has sat down with hundreds of founders behind well-known companies like Headspace, Manduke Yoga Mats, Soul Cycle, and Cotopaxi, as well as entrepreneurs working to solve some of the biggest problems

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