Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - #273 BITESIZE | This Mindset Is The Key To A Happier Life | Ryan Holiday

Starting point is 00:00:00 Today's Bite Size episode is brought to you by AG1, a science-driven daily health drink with over 70 essential nutrients to support your overall health. It includes vitamin C and zinc, which helps support a healthy immune system, something that is really important at this time of year. It also contains prebiotics and digestive enzymes that help support your gut health. It's really tasty and has been in my own life for over five years. Until the end of January, AG1 are giving a limited time offer. Usually they offer my listeners a one-year supply of vitamin D and K2 and five free travel packs with their first order. But until the end of January, they are doubling the five free travel packs to

Starting point is 00:00:51 10. And these packs are perfect for keeping in your backpack, office, or car. If you want to take advantage of this limited time offer, all you have to do is go to drinkag1.com forward slash live more. Welcome to Feel Better Live More Bite Size, your weekly dose of positivity and optimism to get you ready for the weekend. Today's clip is from episode 171 of the podcast with the wonderful Ryan Holiday. Now, Ryan is making timeless ancient wisdom accessible to millions through his inspiring books and blogs. And in this clip, he explains that it's not what happens to us in life that really matters. It's our reaction to it.

Starting point is 00:01:38 And when you change your mindset, you can transform your life. you can transform your life. I really feel when I see a lot of my patients that the friction between what is going on in our minds and what is going on in real life and that sort of the obstacles and the tension around that, actually that is a stressor on the body. And we know that stress affects every organ system in the body. So there's so many symptoms, downstream symptoms I see, whether it's anxiety, depression, gut problems, insomnia, all kinds of things that actually, I feel Stoic philosophy would really, really help people.

Starting point is 00:02:24 I feel Stoic philosophy would really, really help people. What Stoic philosophy is really built around is the idea that stuff is going to happen, stuff that we didn't want, stuff that we didn't expect, something that knocks us on our ass. Epictetus says, it's not things that upset us, it's our judgment about things. And I remember hearing that for the first time and it just sort of, it blows your mind. It's not what happens, it's how we respond. It's how we react that matters. The opportunity is what we decide to do with that thing. How do we become better for it if that's possible? What's a thing that we couldn't have done without this happening? That's another way to think about it. What can we learn from it?

Starting point is 00:03:07 How is this testing us in some way? How is this creating an opportunity for us to rise above it, to transcend this moment, to do something for other people, for ourselves, for the world? There's really no situation so bad, so undesirable, that some good can't be wrestled from it. I'm not saying you can magically turn the death of your father into a wonderful fairy tale of greatness and joy. I mean, bad things happen. But we can wrestle some good from them. Yeah, I mean, Shakespeare also said, didn't he, that there's no such thing as good or bad,

Starting point is 00:03:49 just thinking makes it so, which I guess is another spin on a very similar concept. Events are objective. They're not good or bad for you. That's where we have the power. We have the ability to decide what story we tell ourselves about what's happened. The reality is every day we wake up and life is putting us in sort of undesirable, unchosen circumstances. And we can get upset about that. We can be resentful about

Starting point is 00:04:20 that. We can be bitter about it, or we can be hopeful and choose the right response to that. I think, and I can reflect on my own experience with this, that what you just said there, when we really understand that, you open up new possibilities in the way you live, the way you feel, you know, this kind of tension in your body over not being able to control everything. And when you understand that actually it's the story we tell ourselves and that story is up to us, it really is quite profound. It's like many things. It's quite simple once you get it, but before you have got it, you know, you can't see it. You are in this reactive state. And I don't feel that anyone is saying you can't see it. You are in this reactive state. And I don't feel that anyone

Starting point is 00:05:06 is saying you can't be upset. You can't want to change something. But controlling the controllables means something different, doesn't it? Yeah, James Baldwin has a great line that I think captures the sort of paradox of it. He says, like, not everything that's faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed before it is faced. And I think that the idea is you have to come to terms with reality, with the situation you're in, with what has happened, with what led up to why it happened, with how overwhelmingly negative or bad or dangerous or scary it is. It starts with one, an unflinching acceptance of what's in front of us. And two, an understanding of where we can make a difference and where we can't. And really doing that so we're not wasting time and energy directed at the parts of it that are not up to us. So often when we face things, our energy is to go towards litigating why they happened or who's at blame for them. And this is not making it better in any way.

Starting point is 00:06:28 any way. It's eating up the one resource that is most scarce in life, and that is time, right? The Stoics focus on death for a reason. It's that life is very short. And so to spend time kicking and screaming and wishing that things were otherwise than they are is to reject the gift of the moment that is in front of you right now. Yeah. How important is it to be able to access stillness in order to practice the philosophy of Stoicism? Or can the practice of various Stoic techniques and principles help you become more still? 500 years ago, Blaise Pascal said, all of humanity's problems stem from our inability to sit quietly in a room alone. So you asked how important is it? Well, I think it's probably hard to get bigger than all of our problems stem from this one thing. I think that's been one of the interesting things about the last several months is just how much it's forced us to slow down and

Starting point is 00:07:33 live a different pace of life, to focus on what really matters for us. So I think stillness is essential. Seneca says there is no greatness without stillness, without calmness is the word he uses. But we tend to associate stillness, that sort of inner peace stuff with, again, with the Eastern philosophy. But I'm always amazed at just how much overlap there is between the East and the West in that regard. And, you know, whether you're reading the Bhagavad Gita, you're reading, you know, the writings of a Zen Buddhist or a samurai warrior, or you're reading Marcus Aurelius, this idea of slowing down, of locking in, of calming those demons that are swirling around inside us, that's really the key to insight, to artistic expression, to happiness, to scientific breakthroughs. I think it's just at the core of everything that we do. Yeah, it really is. It's a thing in my life I've started to prioritize more and more.

Starting point is 00:08:43 It is something I've experimented with various ways to access stillness. And I think it changes throughout life. It changes on your life situation. If you've got kids, what's going on in your work life, all these sort of things. But I know if I don't guard it, other people, other things, other people's demands. And that's not me blaming other people, but they will suck up the stillness that I cherish so much. When I say I guard stillness, I guard my daily practice off it because when I do my daily practice, I am more still and present for the other 23 hours of the day. And when I don't do it, I find I can fall into old patterns. It's true. It is about guarding it. And I think that's the basic part of it, right? Is like,

Starting point is 00:09:33 do you have room in your life for stillness? Are you overcommitted? Are you doing too much? You know, what's your routine look like? These are all really important ways to get to stillness, no question. But I also think there's a part of it about accessing stillness even inside the craziness, right? I think about a basketball player, you know, on the free throw line, a crowd is screaming at them and that, you know, this one point will determine the game. I think about, you know, you brought up kids. It's like, there's nothing less still than my house right now, sort of quarantining with two kids under four years old, right? It's madness. On the other hand, how do you find stillness within that? It can't just be, oh, my house is really noisy and loud. I'm going to go away. Marcus Aurelius talks about, he's like, you know, people try to get away from it all, you know, by going to the mountains or to the beach

Starting point is 00:10:32 or to the countryside. But he says, you can get away from it at any moment by turning inward. And I think, ironically, presence is the ultimate form of stillness. Just to say, everything is crazy right now. My kid is screaming. My phone is blowing up. You know, I'm trying to cook dinner. To just sort of take a second and breathe and just go, I'm alive. I'm doing this stuff. It's hilarious and weird and ridiculous. But instead of trying to wish

Starting point is 00:11:07 it was over or make it otherwise, I'm just going to be here for it. You know, that's, that's a, to me, a really important element of stoicism and of stillness. Yeah. I wonder if you, some sort of closing thoughts on some real practical wisdom that people can think about applying. Well, Seneca has this great line. He says, a lot of old people have no proof of their age, but a lot of years. His point is like, it really doesn't matter how long you live. It matters what you do in your life, like how that life goes. And the idea of death sort of looming over things and giving you perspective and priority to me has probably been the most singularly valuable exercise in Stoicism. So I carry a coin in my pocket that says

Starting point is 00:11:58 memento mori on it. I try to think regularly about death, even go to your point about parenting. Marcus Aurelius says, as you tuck your children into bed at night, you should think they may not survive till morning. That seems really dark and morbid. But what he's saying is, why are you rushing through this? Why are you taking this person for granted? And so I think the act of slowing down, of being present, of valuing the right things, all of that is enabled by a regular practice of meditating on your mortality.

Starting point is 00:12:37 Yeah. Really hope you enjoyed that bite-sized clip. Hope you have a wonderful weekend and I'll be back next week with my long-form conversational Wednesday and the latest episode of Bite Science next Friday.

Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - #273 BITESIZE | This Mindset Is The Key To A Happier Life | Ryan Holiday

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