The Daily Stoic - Transcend Your First Impression
Episode Date: December 28, 2022It’s perfectly reasonable to tremble in the face of danger, Donald Robertson writes in his wonderful book, How To Think Like a Roman Emperor, and it was likely that Cato and Marcus Aurelius... were scared on the eve of battle or before an important speech. But we don’t hold that against them, because what mattered is what they did next.🎓 Sign up for the Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge to create better habits in 2023: https://dailystoic.com/challenge✉️ 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 new premium leatherbound edition of Meditations (Gregory Hays translation).📱 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.
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Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a passage of ancient wisdom
designed to help you find strength, insight, and wisdom every day life.
Each one of these passages is based on the 2, 2000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women.
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The Stoics believed that stressful and dangerous situations unfold like this.
Something happens.
We wake up to reports that the stock market has taken a dive.
We get screamed at by our boss, the doctor raises an eyebrow and recommends we go in for further
testing.
And this, of course, provokes a reaction, not a good one, a scared one, or an angry one,
something emotional, or we go the opposite way and we just shut down, paralyzed by events.
The Stonics call these involuntary and immediate impressions that we form in response to bad news or stress,
phantasia. Contrary to what you might think, the Stokes were quite sympathetic to these reactions.
They understood them as natural and largely out of our control. You throw something surprising at someone they're going to be surprised.
That's how it works. That's why it's called surprise.
Stoicism is not a philosophy meant to show you how to stop that. Instead, what Stoicism is about is what to do next.
What to do after the involuntary impression that has been given its moment.
As Donald Robertson writes in his wonderful book,
How to Think like a Roman Emperor, the Stoic tells himself that although the situation may
appear frightening, the truly important thing in life is how he chooses to respond.
It's perfectly reasonable to tremble in the face of danger, he says.
And it was likely that Cato and Marcus Arelius were scared on the eve of battle or before
an important speech, but we don't hold that against them because what mattered is what
they did next.
They led the charge, they gave the speech, they did the right thing anyway.
They transcended those first impressions, They transcended those emotions.
And so must you.
So
so
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