The Daily Stoic - This is the Mindset For Life | Show, Don’t Tell

Episode Date: May 3, 2021

“You clean and then it gets dirty. You do the dishes and then five minutes later, the sink is full again. You made it through your inbox in the morning and by the time late afternoon strikes, you’re already digging yourself out again.”Ryan explains the nature of continual change, 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 Athletic Greens. Athletic Greens is a custom formulation of 75 vitamins, minerals, and other whole-food sourced ingredients that make it easier for you to maintain nutrition in just a single scoop. It tastes great and gets you the nutrients you need, whether you're working on the go, fueling an active lifestyle, or just maintaining your good health. Visit athleticgreens.com/stoic to get a FREE year supply of Liquid Vitamin D + 5 FREE Travel Packs with subscription. ***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/dailystoicTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@daily_stoic See 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 Stoke Podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the Daily Stoke Podcast. Each day we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stokes illustrative 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 stoke, 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. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wanderer's podcast business wars. And in our new season, Walmart must fight off target, 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. With all the things we've all got going on, trying to work, stay healthy, stay strong, work out, it's hard to get the right mix of nutrients in your diet and athletic greens is a great product. I actually first heard of athletic greens almost 10 years ago. From Chris, the Kiwi, the founder, he and I met through Tim Ferris.

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D plus five free travel packs today. This is the mindset for life. You clean, and then it gets dirty. You do the dishes, and then five minutes later, the sink is full again. You've made it through your inbox in the morning, and by the time late afternoon strikes, you're already digging yourself out again. Literally before you've even finished putting the dogs toys away, they've splaid them out across the floor. Just as you put the finishing touches on that big project,

another is dropped on your lap. You finally organize your kids' clothes, and now they've grown out of all of them. It's can drive you nuts, or you can learn to love it. Intubete Buddhist monks make beautiful mandalas out of sand. They spend hours, even days crafting these complex geometric designs Only to wipe them clean and start over as soon as they're finished And isn't that a way that we might see all the work we do?

Might that be a way to go through life? It's not about cleaning the house or finishing this or that. It's about the mandala an unending ephemeral process that we begin again and again and again In fact, that's what Marcus really has said again and again and again. The universe is nothing but change. Everything is constantly in flux, nothing lasts. Some things are rushing into existence, others out of it, he reminded himself. Some of what now exists is already gone.

Change in flux constantly remake the world just as the incessant progression of time remakes eternity. The dishes, the desk, the dogs, toys, your inbox, the weight you lose and gain and lose. These things are never done or clean or organized or set. No entropy is always at work. You are at work. Your growth is at work.

So we should not feel exasperated or frustrated by it, we should love the flow of it. It's not work we're doing, it's art. Finish, to be finished would mean the end of this, the end of our lives. No, we like that it's a little bit like Groundhog's Day because it means a chance to wake up and live again to do it beautifully, to do it well.

to do it beautifully, to do it well. Show, don't tell. This is this week's entry in the Daily Stoke Journal, 366 days of writing and reflection on the art of living. The art of living isn't a set of teachings or a formula we can memorize. It's a practice that requires constant work. Epic Titus was constantly reminding his students not to pair it back with they learned in the lecture hall or read in books, but to put that work into practice. He knew that progress

you could see was better than any proclaimed. Let your journaling and thinking this week exhibit what you have done and what you are doing, not what you plan to do or think you are. Let it be a catalog of your actions, good actions. As Epictetus says, those who receive the bear theories immediately want to spew them as an upset stomach does with its food. First digest your theories and you won't throw up. Otherwise they will be raw, spoiled, and not nourishing. After you've digested them,

show us the changes in your reasoned choices, like the shoulders of gymnasts who display their diet and training and the craft of artisans show what they have learned. That's Epictetus's Discourses 321. First, practice not letting people know who you are. Keep your philosophy to yourself for a bit. In just the manner that fruit is produced, the seed is buried for a season hidden, growing

gradually, so it may come to full maturity. But if the grain sprouts before the stock is fully developed, it will never ripen. That is the kind of plant you are displaying fruit too soon and the winter will kill you. This is a theme the Stokes talk about quite a bit. The idea of conceit being the impediment to improvement that ego is the enemy. When I look back, I first introduced the Stokes now like 15 or so years ago, I look back at some of my early writings and I'm doing exactly what Epic did is just talking about. I'm just regurgitating things that I'd heard. I mean, that exercise itself was educational, but I didn't even begin to comprehend what I was talking about. It took

time, it took experience, as Plutarch says, it's not that words that give us the meaning of experiences, but experiences that give us meaning of the words. And so I wish I'd taken a bit more time. Now, this is obviously what some of these social media and blogging platforms do. It's a way of thinking out loud, but I actually wish I'd taken more sort of quiet, reflective time to myself.

And I think we do this whenever we discover something. We get some product we like or join them, movement or a cause we like. And suddenly we become this evangelist for it. And I think part of that is out of insecurity, right? We want other people to like it. We're not quite sure what we think of it ourselves. So by bringing other people on,

we feel less insecure. We go see I'm not crazy, other people like it too. But let's just slow down a little bit. If you're listening to this podcast for the first time, if you're new to stoicism, let it stew a little bit. Think about it a little bit. Look at it critically. Find out what's wrong.

Go read more about it, right? Find people who love stoicism, people who hate stoicism, consume it in different mediums. But just explore it. You don't have to convert. You don't have to convert, you don't have to identify yet. Just keep thinking. Let it remain underground, let it germinate, let it solidify there. And then when it comes out, it'll be in better shape and in better form.

And so as you work on your practice, you know, you don't have to put on errors. Epic Titus talks about this. Don't put on errors about yourself improvement. He says, be humble about it. You know, I definitely wish there was things that I hadn't said that I thought about longer, that I took time to think about privately more. And that's probably most of my regrets on any social media platform is I jumped, I leapt out with my opinion instead of sitting on it, doing it, thinking, letting it germinate. And I think that process is just really valuable. So slow down. That's the advice of this week's meditation.

Slow down, think, really mull it over, turn it over in your mind, and the plant will be stronger for it. You will be stronger for it. Your wisdom will be better for it. You will be stronger for it. Your wisdom will be better for it. That's what we're working on. Anyways, stay at it. Keep listening. I'll talk to you again next week.

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. Celebrity feuds are high stakes. You never know if you're just going to end up on Page Six or Du Moir or in court. I'm Matt Bellesai.

And I'm Sydney Battle, and we're the host of Wonder E's new podcast, Diss and Tell, where each episode we unpack a different iconic celebrity feud. From the build-up, why it happened, and the repercussions. What does our obsession with these feud say about us? The first season is packed with some pretty messy pop culture drama, but none is drawn out in personal as Brittany and Jamie Lynn Spears. When Brittany's fans form the free Brittany movement dedicated to fraying her from the infamous conservatorship, Jamie Lynn's lack of public support,

it angered some fans, a lot of them. It's a story of two young women who had their choices taken away from them by their controlling parents, but took their anger out on each other. And it's about a movement to save a superstar, which set its sights upon anyone who failed to fight for Brittany. Follow Disenthal wherever you get your podcasts.

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