The Daily Stoic - Under Unimaginable Stress, This Has Stood Up | Made For Working Together

Episode Date: July 21, 2022

🎓 Inspired by these last few difficult years, we’ve assembled the best Stoic wisdom into an actionable course—Slay Your Stress: A Daily Stoic Challenge. The new 20-day challenge, which includes 6 new days, is designed to equip you with the strategies and mindsets needed to reclaim your life from the negative effects of stress and anxiety. This will be a live course. Beginning on July 26, all participants will move through the course together at the same pace. Registration is open and will be for five more days. Registration will close on July 25 at MIDNIGHT. Sign up for Slay Your Stress Now.✉️ 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 Stoke Podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoke Podcast. On Thursdays, we do double duty, not just reading our daily meditation, but also reading a passage from the book, The Daily Stokeic, 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance in the Art of Living, which I wrote with my wonderful co-author

and collaborator, Steve Enhancelman. And so today, we'll give you a quick meditation from one of the Stoics, from Epipetitus Marks, 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. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wonderree'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. ["The Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the

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Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire and the Fire Everyone is stressed. According to annual stress surveys, stress levels have reached alarming rates. No surprise, of course they have. The pandemic, the economy, the political landscape, the climate, they're all very concerned. But put the macro events aside, there are still dogs getting sick in the middle of the night, kids getting sick in the middle of the night, neighbors arguing in the middle of the night. There are trips to visit a judgmental in-law, bosses with a pension for chaos, long lines at the grocery store, unpleasant conversations,

bills to pay, difficult decisions to make. Some people are out of work, others are overworked, some people are dealing with awful roommates, others are struggling with the loss of a loved one. Some people can't get any sleep, others can't get the motivation to do anything but sleep. It's so much. Almost every day there's something new, new, but also timeless. Indeed, in the events of just the last few years we have lived like the Stoics through the hallmarks of history. Plagues, Marcus Realis lives through the deadliest plague in Rome's 900-year history. Political violence. Cato was there when the Roman Republic was in its death throes.

Money trouble. Zeno lost everything in a shipwreck. Division in alienation. Seneca and Musoneus Rufus and Epipetus were exiled and witnessed Nero's tyranny and insanity. The later stokes from George Washington to James Stockdale experienced extreme success adversity chaos and dysfunction. When all was lost, William Alexander Percy wrote of Stoicism, it stands fast. Life is tough and it gets tougher.

What did the Stokes do when this happened? They didn't stress. They didn't get scared. They turned to their philosophy and felt back on their training. Because as Senaqa said, that's what it's there for to offer counsel, advice, and perspective. The Stoics found confidence in their preparation. They knew that stressful situations

are like a fire that forges gold. Even more, it's also how gold is tested to know whether it's real or counterfeit. And they knew from the long history of this philosophy that it stands up well, underneath unimaginable stress. That's really the question, like how much time do you lose per day to stress and anxiety? The Stoics want to say, now multiply that by 365, now multiply it by the rest of your life.

Imagine what you could do with those hours, those weeks, those months, those years. And with everything crazy in the world, we redesigned it and are now relaunching our daily stoke, slay your stress challenge. It's gonna be a live course. I'm gonna be doing live video sessions as part of it. Everyone's gonna be going through it at the same time. It's gonna start on July 26th.

So I want you to join us. We've melded in some of the best insights from modern psychiatry and psychology. We look to characters from history and literature. We put together what are a number of invaluable actionable strategies that will help you manage your stress, get perspective, stop sweating the smallest stuff. Feel some peace. Feel good about yourself.

And of course, do what you need to do. And you can check that out, dailystote.com slash stress. [♪ Music playing in background, Made for working together. This is today's entry July 21st. And the quote comes to us from Marcus Aurelius' Meditations 812. And I'm reading to you today from the Daily Stoic 366 meditations on wisdom, perseverance and the art of living by yours truly. My 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 and 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. Whenever you have trouble getting up in the morning,

remind yourself that you've been made by nature for the purpose of working with others, whereas even unthinking animals share sleeping, and it's our own natural purpose that is more fitting and satisfying. If a dog spends all day in bed, you're bed most likely that's fine, it's just being a dog. It doesn't have anywhere to be, no other obligations other than being itself. But according to the Stoics, we have a higher obligation, as humans. Not to the gods, but to each other. What gets us out of bed

each morning, even if we fight it like Marcus sometimes did, is to render works held in common. Civilization in country are great projects we build together and have been building together with our ancestors for millennia. We are made for cooperation with each other. So, if you need an extra boost to get out of bed this morning, if you need something more than caffeine can offer, use this. People are depending on you. Your purpose is to help us render this great work together, and we're waiting, and we're excited for you to show up. Let's look at the Hayes translation of that real quick.

Hayes says as part of eight, 12. So when you have trouble getting out of bed in the morning, remember that you're defining characteristic. What defines a human being is to work with others. Even animals know how to sleep, and it's the characteristic activity that's the more natural one, more innate, and more satisfying. And then let's look at the great Robin Waterfield translation in his annotated edition, which I highly recommend and enjoy quite a bit. If you pull up 812, he says,

whenever you find it difficult to wake up, remind yourself that doing socially useful work is proper to your constitution and your humanity, while sleeping is something you share with irrational animals as well and anything that's proper to an individual's nature has a greater affinity to him and his second nature to him and more over is more refreshing and Love that. I think the idea socially useful work, right?

So when the Stoics talk about politics They don't think they always mean running for office. And when they talk about the common good, I don't think they necessarily always mean charity. They mean socially useful work. Are you contributing to society? Are you making the world a better place? There's a sign over on this track that I like to run on that was put up by Hollywood Henderson. I think I've said this story before, but he put up a sign and says, leave this place better than you found it. I think that's a great rule for life. It's interesting, though, to me. In Marcus talks a lot about struggling to get out of bed in the morning. It's clearly a common theme. And then he also talks a lot about working with

difficult people. So maybe the difficult people are, oh, I gotta go do this again. You know, he was an introvert. He preferred philosophy, preferred ideas to people necessarily. But he knew that it was inescapable, that as a human being, as a philosopher, as a leader, as a politician, his job was to work with these difficult people

to find a way to contribute, to find a way to make them better, to find a way to put them to productive or socially useful ends. And that's what we have to remember today. Obviously you're up or you wouldn't be listening to this. But how are you going to provide socially useful work today? How are you going to make do with difficult people? How are you going to make do with difficult people? How are you going to put up with them, as Mark really says?

We talked about this a couple weeks ago, that even the famous obstacle is the way passage. Is about that. Is about dealing with the people who obstruct us and annoy us and frustrate us, and finding a way to make a positive contribution to the world in spite of, with, through, because of them, for them, that's what we're here for. That's the work that we're here for. That's our purpose. Animals can sleep around. You know, maybe some people aren't going to seize that potential, but that's their call. We're not going to reject the opportunity. We're going to take advantage of it. We're going to make a positive contribution, a socially useful contribution, big or small. You don't have to be Winston Churchill or Gandhi

to make the world a little better, to leave this place a little better than you found it. Be nice to someone, write something, help someone, teach your kids something. Pick up trash that you see by the side of the road vote, right? Contribute to a cause, donate time, whatever it is, do some socially useful work today, make a positive contribution, and realize that this is what you got out of bed for. This is what you were put here for. This is the work of a human being, the Stokes,

it's a go-to, it sees it, love it, appreciate it, fucking crush it, man. That's my message for today. I wish you all the best, Tuxen. You know, the Stokes and 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 Life. It's an awesome community. You can talk about like today's episode. You've talked about the emails, ask questions. That's one of my favorite parts is interacting with all these people who are using stoicism to be better in their actual real lives. You get more daily stoke meditations over the weekend, just for the daily stoke life members, quarterly Q&As with me,

clothbound 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 you 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 add free with Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts. Is this thing all?

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