The Daily Stoic - What We Want (And Deserve) More Than Anything | What’s Up To Us, What’s Not Up To Us

Episode Date: January 2, 2023

We think we want to be rich. Or famous. Or powerful. We want to succeed, we want to achieve. We want more of this. We want less of that. These desires of ours are explicit, they define our goals and order our priorities. We salivate over them.But deep down, they don’t reflect what we actually want. They’re proxies, indirect ways of getting to what we’re really looking for.---In this first Daily Stoic Journal entry of the new year, Ryan revisits the most important Stoic task that there is: distinguishing between what is in our control and what isn't.For a limited time, you can purchase the Daily Stoic Journal ebook for only $1.99 on Kindle✉️  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 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 illustrated 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 stoic intention for the week, something to meditate on, something to think on, something to leave you with, to journal about, whatever it is you're happy to be doing. So let's get into it.

Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wunderree'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. What we want and deserve more than anything. We think we want to be rich or famous or powerful. We want to succeed. We want to achieve.

We want more of this. We want less of that. These desires of ours are explicit. They define our goals and order our priorities. We salivate over them. But deep down, they don't reflect what we actually want. Their proxies, indirect ways of getting what we're really looking for. I want first of all, in fact, as an end to these other desires, Anne-Maro Limberg writes in gift from the sea.

She says, I want to be at peace with myself. Whether we're conscious of it or not, we think that success will make us feel good. We think that proving people wrong will make us feel better. That externals will bring us internal harmony. But will it? Has it ever? No, no, it hasn't. It's interesting, Lindbergh quotes Socrates who prayed that, may the outward and inward man be at one. Perhaps that's the mistake we make. We think that perfecting the outward and inward man be at one. Perhaps that's the mistake we make. We think that perfecting the outward version of ourselves that the world sees will bring us the inner peace that we want, that only we will know. But Socrates and the Stoics knew that it was the other way around.

It's the inner work that is more likely to bring us the outward success, and more importantly that the inner work was an end unto itself. That's what Marcus Aurelis was doing in meditations, trying to focus inward on the inner work. Notice, he speaks nowhere in those pages about how he will be remembered by history, how long his accomplishments will stand. On the contrary, he was reminding himself how little those things mattered. If he did not bring his inner world into harmony with his philosophy. Because no one is going to remember all the things we've accomplished after we're gone. But we will never forget how little joy they brought us when we were alive.

They don't come from the right place. In the right order. Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoke podcast. I've got my Daily Stoke journal in front of me. It's actually got the new cover on it, which is pretty awesome. I actually slide it in here. Should I do this right? I got to do the back first. But anyways, you slide it in there. Boom. Got the cover on it. And then let's riff on today's entry. This is the first week in the Daily Stove Journal.

366 days of writing and reflection on the art of living by yours truly and my co-writer and translator, Stephen Hanselman. I actually do this journal every single day. There's a question in the morning, a question in the afternoon, and then there's these sort of weekly meditations. As Epictetus says, every day and night,

we keep thoughts like this at hand, write them, read them aloud, and talk to yourself, and others about them. You can check out the Daily Stoke Journal, anywhere books are sold, and also get a signed personalized copy for me in the Daily Stoke store, it's store.dailystoke.com.

And it starts with the most important stoke task that there is. What's up to us and what's not up to us? Epititus' handbook, the Incaridian, begins with the most powerful exercise in all of stosism, the distinction between things that are up to us in our control, and the things that are not up to us. It is this, the dichotomy of control that is the first principle in the entire philosophy. We don't control many

of the things we pursue in life, yet we become angry, sad, hurt, scared, and jealous, and we don't get them. In fact, these emotions, those reactions, are about the only thing we do control. If that is the only lesson to journal on and think about this year, consider it a year well and philosophically lived. And then Epictez is discourses, which we actually open the Daily Stoke with. So I'll riff on that in a second, but he says, look, the chief task in life is simply this. To identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control and which have to do with the choices I actually control.

Where then do I look for good and evil, not in uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own? And then in Korean, one, one, he rifts on what is and isn't in our control. It says, some things are in our control while others are not. We control our opinion, our choice, our desire, our versions, in a word, everything of our own doing. We don't control our body, our property, our reputation, our position, and in a word, everything not

in our own doing. And even more, the things in our control are by nature free, unhindered and unobstructed, while those not in our control are weak and slavish, and can be hindered and are not our own. And then, one, 22, he says, we control our reasons, choice, and all acts that depend on moral will. What's not under control are our body

and any of its parts, our possessions, our parents, our siblings, our children, our country, anything with which we might associate. Look, I think what Epictetus is saying here is that not just the wisdom of the serenity prayer, you know, you separate things into the categories, and you only focus on what's up to you, but that a lot of things that we think of as being up to us or not even up to us, right? Really at the absolute core of it, what we control are our thoughts, our emotion, our opinions. We don't control what happens, control how we respond to what happens, but even then

within a constrained amount. This might seem kind of resigned or a sad way to start the year, but I don't think it is. I think it's the only way to start the year. It's certainly the only way I thought we could start a daily stoic, which I'll read to you the January 1st entry. The single most important practice in stoic philosophy

is differentiating between what we can change and what we can't, what we have influence over and what we do not. A flight is delayed because of whether no amount of yelling and an airline representative will end a storm, no amount of wishing will make you taller or shorter or born in a different country. No matter how hard you try, you can't make someone like you. On top of that, time spent hurling yourself at these imovable objects is time not spent on the things we can change The recovery community practices something called the serenity prayer

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change the courage to change the things I can in the wisdom to know the difference Attics cannot change the abuse suffered in childhood They cannot undo the choices that they have made or the hurt they have caused They can change the future Through the power they have in the present moment as that Petita says they can control the choices they make right now The same is true for us today for The year that stands before us if we focus on making clear what parts of our day are within our control and what parts are not We will not only be happier. We will have a distinct advantage over other people who fail to realize they are fighting

an unwinnable battle. It's funny. I think when we're younger, we have an outsized view of what's in our control and what isn't. And as we get older, we ratchet that back, which is ironic because as we get older, we're also more powerful, more successful, etc. But you just realize, like, look, you don't control what other people do. I mean, even the longer I've been a parent, the, it's not the less strict I am, but I do feel a more chill I am because I've made the mistakes I've tried to control things. I don't control. I've seen where my anxiety or stress or worry or whatever gets me and I cultivate the ability to step back to focus on what I control. My son was like, I was working, I was playing on the fourth one of my sons and my other

son drew on my jacket with a pen a couple days ago. And it's like my favorite jacket. It's like when you wrote all over with a red sharpie. I don't know why I didn't notice, but I didn't. And you know, it's mad. But there's a part, I was like, hey, look like no amount of being mad at a child is going to undo the ruin to jacket, right? And what's the opportunity that I want to seize here? Right? Like, what good is it? To make this person feel bad about what happened or to no amount of yelling is going to undo what happened. So I want to take the opportunity to talk about, instead, calmly, respectfully, talk about what it means to respect other people's persons, their stuff, etc.

And to talk about, hey, I would you feel if I did that to something that you like or that you care about, right? And I didn't do it perfectly, but my wife and I were talking about it after just like how, compared to how our parents would have reacted had different it was. But the idea is, look, I just control what I do about it, just control how I respond, I just control whether I let my emotions get the best of me or not, or when I catch myself at what point in that process, and do I walk it back, right? What's up to us and what's not up to us?

I feel like so many things that I'm upset about that I can argue and it's about what I'm really saying is Wish that hadn't happened. I want to undo that that happened and That's not how life works. That's not something that's up to me and so I'm practicing the idea of getting a little bit better at letting go of that thing of moving on from that thing and so much to you This is a year that we try to focus more on what's in our control. We argue less with reality. I have a whole set of no cards. It's a theme I often journal and think about how often I find us,

we're in arguments with reality. We wish things were different. They weren't the way that they were. And this isn't like resigning yourself to the state of society. This is resigning yourself. That's something that happened. Did happen.

It has done. It is in the past. Arguing and relitigating and relitigating. It doesn't change it. It's not. You don't have the power to make it unhappened. But you do have the power to decide how it's going to make you feel, whether it harms you or not,

what you do about it, who you are because of it. That's the part of this that's up to us. That's where I'll leave you today. It's a wonderful new year. Like I was saying, I've got the leather cover on the journal which you can check out at store.dailystoke.com. It's really cool.

I'm glad to have one. This is the copy I keep at the office. I check out at store.dailystoke.com. It's really cool. I'm glad to have one. This is the copy I keep at the office I have one at home. And on the front, it just says make time, which is what we should be doing for journaling. We should make time to think about what's in our control and what isn't. You can check that out at store.dailystoke.com. And of course, the daily stoke is $199 as an ebook

for the next two weeks. I'll link to that in today's show notes as well. Happy New Year, everyone. Hope you're enjoying the challenge, and we'll talk soon. Thanks so much for listening. 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. Hey there listeners! While we take a little break here, I want to tell you about another podcast that I think

you'll like. It's called How I Built This, where host Guy Razz talks to founders behind some of the world's biggest and most innovative companies, to learn how they built them from the ground up. Guy has sat down with hundreds of founders behind well-known companies like Headspace, Manduke Yoga Mats, Soul Cycle, and Cotopaxi, as well as entrepreneurs working to solve some of the biggest problems of our time, like developing technology that pulls energy from the ground to heat in cool

homes, or even figuring out how to make drinking water from air and sunlight. Together, they discussed their entire journey from day one, and all the skills they had to learn along the way, like confronting big challenges and how to lead through uncertainty. So if you want to get inspired and learn how to think like an entrepreneur, check out how I built this, wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and add free on the Amazon or Wonder yet.