The Daily Stoic - What Is The Function of Worry? | How Stoicism Can Help You Get Sober (And Stay Sober)

Episode Date: August 1, 2023

One of the most timeless lines in all of the Stoic writings comes from Epictetus, "What upsets people is not things themselves, but their judgements about these things.”It's a powerful idea. And it's made all the more transcendent by the remarkable fact that nearly every other philosophy has come to the exact same conclusion.---And in today's Daily Stoic video excerpt, Ryan presents clips from interviews in which his guests share applications of Stoic wisdom that have used to get sober and stay that way. You can watch the video on the Daily Stoic YouTube channel.🎧 Listen to the full Sam Harris interview here: https://dailystoic.com/sam-harris-on-stoicism-and-mindfulness-practice/ ✉️ 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.

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. What is the function of worry? One of the most timeless lines in all of the stoke writings comes from epictetus. What upsets people is not things themselves, he says, but they're judgments of things. And it's a powerful idea, and it's one made more transcendent by the remarkable fact that nearly every other philosophy has come

to the exact same conclusion. I talked recently to Sam Harris on the Daily Stoke podcast. And while Harris' work is heavily influenced by Eastern philosophical traditions on the podcast, Harris talked about one of the big overlaps between his work and the stillings. Ultimately, with mindfulness, you're not doing anything other than noticing what is happening all by itself.

Everything's arising all by itself, thoughts and stations. And it's in that recognition that you see that the problem that you thought you needed to solve a moment ago isn't even there, right? The problem of your anxiety, the problem of your disappointment, the problem of your, you know, it's always this thought-based delusion that something that's not actually present here is, it needs to be unraveled. You know, I'm not saying that there aren't challenging experiences. present here is, it needs to be unraveled.

I'm not saying that there aren't challenging experiences. Obviously, the things like physical pain, and that doesn't magically go away once you know how to meditate, but so much of our suffering and response to something like physical pain is our psychological contraction around it, and our anxiety about it, and our fear that it won't go away, and our fear of what it means. East, West, North, and South worry is pointless. As Marx really writes in

meditations, today I escaped from anxiety. Or no, he says, I discarded it because it was within me in my own perceptions and not outside. Remember this the next time you get anxious, the next time you're stressed or overwhelmed with worry, these are thought based delusions You can discard them. You can let them go. Don't make these things make you miserable twice over Change your judgment about these things and the interview with Sam was it was a great interview I was so honored to be able to interview him. He's someone I've been a big fan of for a long time You can check that out.

I'll link to it in today's show notes, but it's definitely worth a listen if you haven't heard it yet. of Wonder Woman's podcast business wars. And in our new season, two of the world's leading hotel brands, Hilton and Marriott, stare down family drama and financial disasters. Listen to business wars on Amazon music or wherever you get your podcasts. We're all slaves, Santa Claus.

This has actually shown me someone who isn't a slave. He said, this person to ambition, this one to their mistress, this one to wine. He was talking about how so many of us, even if we're powerful, this one to their mistress, this one to wine. Who's talking about how so many of us, even if we're powerful, even if we're rich, even if we're famous, we're addicted to something. Maybe you can't start your morning without coffee, cigarette, or a drink, or maybe you can't go to bed without doing those things or some other thing, right? We're all have addictive tendencies, but addiction comes when that thing gains full and

complete power over us when we are powerless to not do that thing. I'm Ryan Holiday, I'm the author of a number of books about stoke philosophy. I've spoken about it to the NFL and the NBA, sitting senators, special forces leaders, also a human being with my own addictive tendencies of my own demons that I've battled, workaholism being the darkest and the hardest of one. It's also a reason that I don't drink, don't do drugs. So I know I have that part of me

and I know it's not a part of me that I want to enable. Well, in today's episode, we're gonna talk about what the Stokes teaches about sobriety, about discipline, about getting clean, keeping clean, taking control of ourselves and how we battle these very timeless and very human addictions and what Stoicism can teach us on that day to day journey.

All right, so walk me through how to stoses and help you get over. People think that rehab, people who haven't been, I think they have this preconceived notion that there's like this pill they give you and suddenly it just all goes away. You know, you have to rehab and you come out and things are just fine. And what I realized it was for me is it's a deep dive into why we make the choices we make and why we're so self-destructive. Yeah, well after you start understanding more about what is kind of triggering you on this journey,

the answer to these kind of insecurities is discipline. And it is a structure and people, it's funny. As I've read more, as I get older and the more things I've taught myself, I've realized that a lot of the spiritual practices or a lot of books that I've read are almost saying the same thing in different ways. Sure. Like the theme that I found most important to me is that for lack of a better word discipline is destiny. Yeah. And that has been my way out of the turbulence in my life back in the day. Yeah, I think like if anyone's ever been

to physical therapy or rehab from an injury, you get the sense that it's like, oh, I'm gonna be worked on. I'm gonna go and I'm gonna get massages or just kind of treatment or this medicine. But really, they're like, no, here's the work that you have to do, right? And it's the same for I think the other forms of rehab.

You don't go there and then they're like, here are all the secrets to not drinking or doing this or that anymore, what they're like is, here are the things that you have to do every single day of your life. Like, as they say, they say it works if you work it, right? Like if you do that work, then you'll stay sober. If you don't do that work, you won't.

And it's really, really hard work. It's like the hardest work because it's on yourself and it's really, really hard work. It's like the hardest work because it's on yourself and it's against habits or practices or assumptions you've had your whole life. In recovery circles, they have this great acronym, HALT, since for hungry, angry, lonely or tired. The point is when you're feeling those things,

when you haven't been sleeping enough, when you haven't been eating right, when you're isolated, whatever it is, you're less likely to be able to be the strong-willed, disciplined, healthy, safe, smart person that you want to be. The stoics weren't superhumans. They didn't because they read a couple of these texts, never have cravings, never slip, never mess up. And in fact, a big part of stoicism is that kind of self-awareness, monitoring why you're feeling what you're feeling.

Stopping, when you feel that feeling and going, why am I feeling this way? Am I feeling frustrated, upset, like I need to do this thing that I told myself I'm trying to stop doing? I need to do it, or do I just feel that way? Because of some other thing that I've been neglecting or not taken care of.

There's a great study I saw a couple years ago that found that the majority of arguments between spouses were rooted in one or more of them being hungry. So if you're mad at yourself for falling off, if you're mad at yourself for not being the disciplined, still and complete and total self-command of themselves,

stop and think about that acronym, ask yourself, hey, what's actually going on with me? And am I setting myself up for success generally? But then specifically in this moment, what voice inside me am I listening to? What is the context in which I'm considering this or thinking this or reacting this? Senkha says that philosophy doesn't take away natural feeling. It doesn't matter how many books you've read, how steeped and stows is in you are. If you're hungry, angry, lonely, tired, you're not going to be your best self. And thinking about that is a really, really important part of making better decisions.

Over and over and over and over again, more than 40 times in meditations, you talk about being of service to the common good, doing things for other people. He says, our job is to put up with people or to help them, right? Pick one of those, right? And I love this idea. We should not just give help, but get help. We should not just get help, but give help.

Be of service to as many people as possible, to be and to do as much good as possible, insofar is that is in our control. And this is why the idea of being of service, I think, is so developed into the 12 steps and to surprise is that one of the best ways to lighten our burdens is to help someone with theirs. One of the best ways to get perspective

on our own problems is to think of people to spend time with people who are really, really struggling. And then one of my favorite ideas from Senka is that we learn as we teach, as we help we're helping ourselves. This is something that when the world feels like it's falling apart, when it feels like we can't possibly make a difference in the big scheme or scope of things, what we can do is help our neighbors or families, you know, stranger on the street, we can make a difference in a very small way that's in our control.

To me, that's actually the essence, that stranger on the street, we can make a difference in a very small way that's in our control. To me, that's actually the essence. That's just the essence, but the highest point of stoicism. We don't overindulge to the violation of the key virtue of temperance, the right amount, moderation in all things the stoics would say, although some things, not at all. Nobody is having less fun than the glutton or the addict the stoics to say, although some things, not at all. Nobody is having less fun than the glutton or the addict the stoics would say. If the pleasure means you wake up with a hangover, it's not really so pleasurable, is it?

So it's about moderation, it's about temperance, it's about finding the right amount of things. The essence of stoic philosophy is being in command of yourself. In fact, Seneca says no one is fit to rule who is not first master of themselves. And the reason we're not masters of ourselves is we give that power over to someone or something else, right? Trug, alcohol, cigarettes, right? Codependency.

That's the tragedy of addiction. Not only is it bad for the person, but often we can become addicted to our relationship with different addicts, right? The Stoics, it was about being in control of yourself, not your urgent, not your desires. The Stoics look at Alexander the Great, Mark Suresd, as he looks at Alexander the Great

as someone who is super powerful, but not actually powerful, because he can't stop. There's never enough. Seneca himself actually defines poverty as not having too little but wanting more. If you more is all you need as the great Talika song Master of Puppets, because that is such a dark and slavish place to be. So the reason we battle our addictions, the reason we try to get clean, the reason we practice discipline so we can be fit to be good

parents, to be leaders, to be bosses, like if we're not in command of ourselves, if something or someone, some urge or some substance, if that's really what's ruling our life, that is not a good place to be. It's really simple. There's all the things in the world that happen and then there's a tiny, tiny bit of it that you control. All the things that happen and a little dot that you control. The Stokes called this the dichotomy of control.

There's some stuff that's up to us, some stuff that's not up to us. The Chief Task in Life epipathy to said he was a former slave. He knew all about unfortunate realities. He said, the chief task in life is discerning what's up to us and not up to us, what's in our control, not in our control. This is also the brilliance of this serenity prayer. That's the key.

Is this up to me? Then it should deserve 100% of your energy. If it's not up to you, if you can't influence, if you can't control it, then it's none of your concern. All the things that can happen, tiny bit that you control. And we're at the screening the night, you know, the movie premieres and Quentin Tarantino is there.

And suddenly, I'm like, literally amongst the people I so look up to. And I wake up the next morning and the reviews are coming in and the reactions great. And I immediately tell everyone in the house I'm saying that, I need to leave right now. I'm getting on a plane. I'm out of here. And people are screaming at me.

They said, Josh, why? Like, this never happens. And it may never happen again. And you're going to leave. Enjoy this. And I just, as soon as I was a member of the club,

you know, it's that great saying. Like, I never wanted to be part of a club that would have I was a member of the club, you know, it's that great saying. Like I never wanted to be part of a club that would have me as a member. And it was one of the most impactful moments in my life that I realized good or bad at the highest of the high or the lowest of the low. I am bottomless and nothing be it food, drugs or proceeds can fill up this hole in my soul. And I got sober two weeks later, and I think it's undoubtedly correlated

that sort of spiritual bottom. And it is inevitable that we will fall short. Marcus did, I do, everyone does. Antoninus Pius probably did too, which is why in Meditations, Marcus really says to pick yourself back up when you fall, but he also says to celebrate the fact that you're a human being. What matters, he says, is that you come back to the rhythm of it. We're going to be jarred by circumstances. We're going to be messed up. We're going to slip on our diet, on our New Year's resolution, on the progress we were making.

That's okay. What matters is that you get back up. What matters is that more often than not, you stick to it that you always come back home to it. Umpish something good with hard work. The labor passes quickly, but the good and dirt. This is if you do something shameful and pursuit the pleasure, the labor passes quickly, but the good and dirt. And it says, if you do something shameful and pursuit of pleasure, the pleasure passes quickly,

but the shame and dirt. And this is the still-ex idea of freedom. What leaves the residue and what doesn't? What has power over you and what doesn't? Who is in charge, right? Is it you or the urgent? So I think about this with my phone. And I use in the phone or is the phone using me?

And when I can't not use the phone or is the phone using me. And when I can't not use the phone that says something about my relationship to it, I need to change, right? What rules your life? What has power over you? And what power do you need to take back? So you can enjoy the fact that legally we have incredible freedoms in this country, in this era, in this time, right? In this prosperity, the freedom that you have has to be enjoyed, you can lift up to, the first that means frame yourselves and a lot of things that we self-impose, right?

Epictetus says, it's better to starve to death in a home and confident state of mind and to live anxiously amid abundance or to be dependent on something. The idea is that you live free or you live a kind of death and that this pleasure turns very quickly into pain. Hey, Prime Members. You can listen to the Daily Stoic Early and Add Free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon

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