The Daily Stoic - This is The Most Expensive Thing | The Best Stoic Insights On Raising Kids

Episode Date: May 30, 2023

Since Stoicism was founded, most of the Stoics have been wealthy…and yet almost to a letter, most of them have warned of the dangers and perils of wealth. No one embodies this paradox more than Seneca. The Stoics have warned again and again about the downsides of abundant wealth. He accumulated a net worth of three hundred million denarii (for context, Judas received thirty denarii to betray Jesus). He famously owned three hundred ivory tables for entertaining. He made so many enormous loans to colonists in Britain, that when the debt was called in around 60 AD, it destabilized the entire region.Yet in Letters From A Stoic, written during the final three years of his life, Seneca would warn again and again about the burdens of becoming rich.---And in today's Daily Stoic video excerpt, Ryan highlights the most important lessons that the Stoics teach us about raising kids.💵 Visit dailystoic.com/wealth to sign up for The Wealthy Stoic wealth management course today.✉️ 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. This is the most expensive thing. Since stoicism was founded, the stoics have warned again and again about the downsides of abundant wealth. Seneca must have been suspicious of those warnings because he found his way to becoming one of the

richest people in the Roman Empire. He accumulated a net worth of what would be hundreds of millions of dollars into today's money. He famously owned 300 ivory tables for entertaining. He made so many enormous loans to colonists in Britain that when the debt was called in in around 60 AD, it set off the Budakamasaka in which tens of thousands of people ultimately died. In letters from Aesthoek written during the final three years of his life, Seneca would warn again and again about the burdens of becoming rich. Very often, he writes the things that cost nothing, cost us the most heavily. Most people think he says in the quest for an acquisition of money that one has much to gain and little

to lose. In a modern context, it would be the sales rep seeing only the increase in pay and status that comes with the promotion, not the decrease in autonomy and the peace of mind that comes with the responsibilities of being a manager of an entire sales force. But if I accept the promotion, I'll have more money. But Seneca anticipates this reply. He says, yes, you will also have more trouble and more people bringing you problems. More things taking up your time. Yes, you will also have more trouble and more people bringing you problems, more things taking up your time, more possessions to worry about, more time wasted thinking about how

to own more and more money. You have to reflect, Seneca writes, not only when it is a question of gain, but also when it is a question of loss. You have to think not only of the upsides but also of the downsides that come with money. You have to think about the time and freedom and happiness rested from your hands and replaced only with money. You have to think about the burdens of becoming rich. You have to think about who you might become in the process of doing so, as Seneca so poignantly and tragically shows.

Well, this is actually something we talk about in our new course, the wealthy stoic, a daily stoic guide to being rich and free and happy. It's not just about how to make money, but how to think about money more holistically, how to earn ethically, but then also acquire responsibly, how to integrate sensibly into your life. It's rooted in the experiences and the writings of the Stoics, and we're going to teach you

about the upsides and the downsides of it all. It's going to take place over the next nine weeks. There's emails every single week. We're going to talk about how epictetus is actually one of the wealthiest of the still eggs, and how Seneca's being one of the richest was in some ways one of the poorest. We're going to talk about how to spend and save what to prize more than money, how to climb out of and recover from setbacks, and a lot more. Every week, there's's gonna be carefully selected resources

and tools that will help you on your path to financial independence or whatever you're after. There's gonna be live video sessions with me. There's gonna be experiences and lessons from my own life, my own entrepreneurial journey and my investing journey and much more. So check out the wealthy stoic, a daily stoic guide to being rich, free and happy. journey and my investing journey and much more. So check out the wealthy stoic, a daily stoic guide

to being rich, free and happy. It's a live course. We'll run an archive of it later, but I'd love to have you join us. Do it together. You can sign up now at dailystoic.com slash wealth. Or if you join daily stoic life at dailystoiclife.com, you get this challenge and all our challenges

for free. I'll see you in there. 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 audio books, don't you? And it's true. And almost invariably, they listen to them on Audible. And that's because Audible offers an incredible selection of audio books across every genre from best sellers to 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 best sellers and new releases. You'll discover thousands of titles from popular favorites exclusive new series 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 audiobooks, 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. Nothing challenges you quite like having kids, like becoming a parent. And the Stoics are no exception to this. First off, most of the Stoics do have children. In fact, the Stoicism is one of the first schools to talk about the importance of raising a family having kids. But the Stoics would have been challenged in every way by having kids just like you and

I are challenged. And not only that, I think some of their best insights come from having kids and specifically address how to be a better parent. And in today's episode, I want to talk about what the still can teach us about our most important job raising great kids, being a great parent. And it turns out there's quite a bit. raising great kids, being a great parent, and it turns out there's quite a bit. To me, this is one of the hardest things in the entire world for a parent to do. It's an exercise from Marcus Aurelius and from Epictetus who are both parents. They say, as you tuck your child into bed at night, say to yourself, they will not

survive to the morning. Imagining your child's mortality, I mean, it's torturous. It's the most painful thing in the world. It's conceiving of the inconceivable, the most awful thing you could do. And yet why did they do it? It wasn't to create distance between them and their kids. It wasn't to not be connected or loving to their kids. It wasn't to write them off.

On the contrary, it's about actually being there, it's about thinking, you don't know how many more of these you get. The Netflix or the email or the book you wanted to read. None of that matters more than this moment you have together right now. We are not very good with time. Senika says, it's not that we don't have enough of it, it's that we waste a whole lot of it. But one of the wonderful things I found about having kids is that it puts this in perspective. Because I'm not wasting my time when I'm over committing,

I'm not taking time for myself. I'm stealing time for my children. I'm stealing time that I promised someone else. And so we have to think about time as our most precious resource. Senaqa says, death is not in the future. Death is happening right now. We're dying every minute when we waste it on social media. When we

waste it in pointless meetings, when we waste it going to things that we don't need to go to, even though we have a million other things to do, we waste our time. But we're not just taking that time from ourselves. We're taking it from our children. We're taking it from the important work that only we can do. We're taking it from our spouse. And of course we are also taking it from ourselves. Stop wasting time. It's your most precious resource and you have to protect it, not just for yourself, but for the people you care about and the people that you don't know how much time you will get with in this life. When my wife was pregnant with our first child, we came here to dinosaur valley state park and we walked in this little river and

used to can stand in these footprints that dinosaurs left like hundreds and millions of years ago. So we just came back. Now we have two kids, one's five, one's two and it struck me there's this surf stoic idea that we never stepped in the same river twice. So here I am stepping in this river that a dinosaur stepped in a hundred million years ago. I stepped in five years ago how much has changed even though everything remains same, right? The footprint is unchanged for 110 million years. But literally everything else is different. I'm different than who I was five years ago. So one of the things we want to seek out as parents is this idea that we never step in the same river twice. You go do the same things over and over again, but you appreciate how much has changed,

how much your kids have learned, how much they've grown. This is why you should reread books, rewatch old movies. You can't step in the same river twice, but you can't experience that same thing in a new way. And that's so powerful and important and humbling and inspiring. And I think it's not just stoic wisdom, but it's really great parenting wisdom. If you haven't done it, you should try it.

One of the best insights I ever heard about parenting is this, that behavior is the language of children. They can't always tell you how they're feeling. They don't always understand what they're going through. They can't articulate things. Sometimes because they're so young, they don't have the words, but maybe they don't have the concepts or the experiences or maybe they're afraid, maybe they don't have the relationship with you that would make it possible for them to translate what they're feeling to. But their behavior speaks volumes. Your kids are telling you that would make it possible for them to translate what they're feeling to you, but their behavior Speaks volumes your kids are telling you that something's not okay by the way they're acting your kids are telling you

They're hungry by the way that they're acting their kids are telling you that they're stressed or depressed or afraid or feel Unloved by the way that they're acting maybe you're one of those parents of whom my kid never talks to me your kid is talking to all that they're acting. Maybe you're one of those parents, but my kid never talks to me. Your kid is talking to all the time. Language is the behavior of children, but you're only going to hear it if you're trying to listen, if you're really looking, if you're paying attention. Behavior is the language of children. The best piece of parenting advice I ever got was that kids do well when they can. What I take that to mean is that when they're well-rested, when the incentives are right, when they've been supported, when they feel good, right? When they've been prepared, when things have been explained, then they succeed.

The problem is we expect our kids to succeed in any and all circumstances, even when the deck is stacked against them, even when we're stacking the deck against them. Your kids having a meltdown, because he's hungry, your daughters having a meltdown, because you skip nap. You're kids struggling in school because they just moved, and they don't know anyone, they don't have friends. Kids do well when they can when they're set up to succeed. So as parents, instead of focusing on criticism, instead of focusing on punishments or rewards, instead of trying to force them to share force of will make them be what we want them to do. Why don't we just ask ourselves, are we setting them up for success? Are we setting them up to be what they're capable of being?

Are we setting them up to do well? Because when they are set up to do well, they will. Kids do well when they can. when they are set up to do well, they will. Kids do well when they can. You don't just like magically become great at parenting, it's the thing you get better at over time, one day at a time, one experience at a time. That's what I'm trying to do as a parent of two young boys, but it's also what I try to do with daily dad.

Every day I write one totally free email that goes at thousands of people all over the world, or just like you parents who are trying to get better at their most important job And I'd love to have you join us. It's totally free. No spam one email a day You can unsubscribe whenever you want and I hope you sign up at dailydad.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. 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. Just the name of you. Now, I've held so many occupations over the years that my fans lovingly nicknamed me Kiki Keep a Bag Palmer. And trust me, I keep a bag, love.

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What happened to sitcoms? It's only fans, only bad. I want to know, so I asked my mom about it. These are the questions that keep me up at night, but I'm taking these questions out of my head and I'm bringing them to you. Because on Baby Mrs. Kiki Palmer, no topic is off limits. Follow Baby This Is Kiki Palmer, whatever you get your podcasts. Hey, Prime members, you can listen early and app-free on Amazon Music.

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