Modern Wisdom - #170 - Massimo Piggliuci - 5 Exercises From Stoicism To Improve Your Life

Episode Date: May 14, 2020

Massimo Piggliuci is a Professor of Philosophy at City College and an author. Despite being 2500 years old, Stoicism has recently seen a surge in popularity. I wanted to find out why this ancient philosophy has found root in the modern world. Expect to learn what the underpinnings of stoicism are, how the foundational principles used by stoics made them resilient to setbacks, 5 exercises & thought experiments to help you improve your life, how to focus your attention where it is needed and much more... Sponsor: Get Surfshark VPN at https://surfshark.deals/MODERNWISDOM (enter promo code MODERNWISDOM for 85% off and 3 Months Free) Extra Stuff: Buy How To Be A Stoic - https://amzn.to/3fGh7TL Buy Live Like A Stoic - https://amzn.to/2WqLrKb Follow Massimo on Twitter - https://twitter.com/mpigliucci Take a break from alcohol and upgrade your life - https://6monthssober.com/podcast Check out everything I recommend from books to products - https://www.amazon.co.uk/shop/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Join the discussion with me and other like minded listeners in the episode comments on the MW YouTube Channel or message me... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/ModernWisdomPodcast Email: https://www.chriswillx.com/contact Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello my friends in podcastland, welcome back. My guest today is Massimo Pilucci and we are talking about Stoicism. Now you very well may have heard Stoicism be thrown around a lot recently. It's been popularized by authors like Ryan Holiday and Massimo himself, but it's ancient. It's two and a half thousand years old. Why are people bothered about this ancient philosophy now? So I decided to get an expert on who can explain it to us. Now there's quite an interesting history to how Stoicism developed, but I wasn't bothered about going into that today. What I wanted to get out of Massimo were the practical underpinnings. What is the philosophy of Stoicism? How can we apply it to our lives?

What are the modern interpretations and adaptations of how we can use this ancient wisdom in a modern way? As you can see, perfectly fits the show's title. There is so much to take away from this episode and a lot to think about. What I also wanted to get out of Massimo were some exercises which you can apply to your life today or tomorrow, which will allow you to implement these stoic principles and hopefully make you more resilient, happier and less prone to anxiety or negativity. So if you stick around until the end, you will get five practical lessons which you can use exercises that you can do in your life,

which allow you to not only think and understand this philosophy, but to also enact it and to allow it to change your life for the better, which seems like a pretty good deal to me. But for now, it's time for the wise and wonderful, Massimo Piluchi. It seems like stoicism is kind of similar to the hot new girl in school. You know that everyone's interested in, she's just arrived here, and everyone's thinking, oh, she's, I want a bit of her. Everyone else seems to be interested in her. So what is it about stoicism that's giving us this resurgence in the modern era? I'm not seeing waves of books being written about a resurgence of Confucianism or Taoism, you know, what is it about Stoicism that's made the hot new girl? Yeah, that's an interesting question. Well, of course as far as hot new girls go, Stoicism is about 24-century-old.

She's aging well. She's aging, definitely, very well. I also want to make a point. I actually a I actually comment on your observation that, you know, why stoicism not a lot of other philosophies. I've seen, since especially since this COVID, Bruhaha started, and it's all mess started, I have seen a lot of articles on other philosophies, including Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism,

and if we go to the Western philosophies also, Epicurinism, but I think that's a lot of the things that I've seen in the past, including Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, and if we go to the Western philosophies also Epicurianism, but you're right, those are the exceptions. The overwhelming majority of things that I see are about stoicism. I think it's for two reasons,

and I think that actually two different reasons, depending on whether we're talking about other Western philosophies or Eastern philosophies. Eastern philosophies are just not very Western friendly. That's one way to put it. Meaning that unless you grow up in, and vice versa, of course, Western philosophies are not Eastern friendly.

Meaning that if you grow up with a certain language, background, culture, et cetera, et cetera, it is less likely that a philosophy that comes from a very different language and background is going to speak to you. Like for instance, before I got into socialism, I was actually exploring a number of possible philosophies of life, and I, of course, checked out Buddhism, because which is reasonably

well known in practice even in the West, although the Western version is significant to different from the original one. And it just didn't speak to me. I mean, I recognized, intellectually, I recognize what they're talking about. I don't know what they're talking about. I appreciate their ethics, et cetera, et cetera. But the language, the examples, the way of, you know, the writings, it's just didn't click. And then I read it picked it as, and I said, holy cow, how did I never hear about this

guy before? I mean, this guy clicked immediately. And as I said, I suspect it's the same the other way around if you go west to the east. Of course, we'll plan your exceptions. I mean, how do B.S. Toik, the first book that I wrote about to us has been published in Japan and Korea and China.

So it's not like there's no audience. But it certainly is a fraction compared to Confucianism or Buddhism and so on and so forth. So I think that's part of the explanation in terms of Western readings that you might have in country. Now, the interesting thing is, well, why not? Epicurinism or these are a little bit more about... Cynicism or whatever.

Yeah, cynicism or cynicism is pretty tough to practice for one thing. Living out of a pot. You've got lots of pots and just sort of... Yeah. ...you and a couple of rags on the side of the road, yeah. Right. It doesn't cost a lot of money for the practice cynicism. That's, you know, that's

an upside. So there is one book that came out recently on Epicuronism. This was before the pandemic, by a colleague of mine, Catherine Wilson, actually here at the Sydney University of New York, you know, a book that I co-edited recently called How to Live a Good Life. There's a chapter on Epicuronism. But yes, there's certainly the exception. Most of what you hear about is stoicism. I think it's for a couple of important reasons. It's not just by chance. First of all, because stoicism particularly speaks to,

although one can use it no matter what the situation, no matter what the personal conditions, it definitely speaks to difficult times. It was born in difficult times. It was born during the Elimistic period between the death of Alexander the Great and the beginning of the Roman Empire. That was a major time of turmoil in the Mediterranean area. Things were big changes that nobody seemed so coming and people felt like they didn't have control over what the hell was going on there.

So that's the environment in which the Stoicism was forged and it still speaks today to that kind of stuff. And we are living in that kind of situation, obviously particularly with the COVID pandemic. But even before, I mean, stories in my scene as a resurgence over the last 20 years or so. And even before, I want, well, you know, think about it. Over the last century, we went through two world wars, not one, all right. We are looking at the possibly global climate collapse. We are still, uh, we are still present constantly by nuclear annihilation.

So it's like, you know, there's been a lot of stuff going on that sort of makes these times pretty similar to the ones during the Elanistic period. So that's one reason. The other reason is because unlike a lot of other philosophies, including Epicurinism, Aristotelism, and so on and so forth, so as it actually comes with a lot of other philosophies, including Epicurinism, Aristotelism, and so on and so forth. So, as it actually comes with a lot of practical advice, practical access, actually access,

actual exercises you can do in day to day week to by week. Anistotle's ethics, for instance, the Nucle Machin ethics is the book where the major book where I subtled, put forth these ethics. It's very interesting from a theoretical perspective. But I thought it wasn't interesting in a living that as a philosophy of life. And so he didn't give any particular actual ground rules or what, okay, what am I going to do about this? A peculiar, a peculiar has got a little closer,

but even he wasn't not that interested for one thing in proselytizing. It wasn't really writing that much about how to put this into practice. It was kind of general advice. One of the things that distinguishes stories is the fact that there is a lot of emphasis on the practice. I mean, if you don't practice, you're not doing anything. And the stories are very clear about this.

A pictidos says several times in the discourses to his students, like, you know, if you guys are here just through the theory, you're wasting your time and mind. Yeah, it's interesting to see some of the surface level information that I come across online on the internet about different philosophies, both ancient and modern. And you're right, some of them appear to be just thought experiments from an armchair. And then others appear to be thinking tools to be weaponized almost.

Right. Yeah, so let me give you an example. So I have a close colleague and friend who is an existential, existentialist philosopher. And existentialist actually has been, you might have seen coming, you know, popping up, especially now, for instance, in the middle of the dynamics, one of the best-selling books is Kamu's The Plague, not surprisingly, right? Yeah. Although I have actually read recently, just like a couple of days ago, that people are running out of your prices

or running out of copies of microsurrily's meditations and send it as writings. Yeah, that's amazing. That's really amazing. Now, the problem is, you read the existentialists. And yes, as a general framework, that sounds, that's interesting. There are some things to really think about and sort of, there might be helpful in practice. But it's not

like it's essentially, it's actually laid out a coherent philosophy of life to follow. In fact, they kind of on purpose refused to do so. Most of them actually rejected even the label, the existential, including Kamu. So, and most of them wrote novels, not philosophical criticism. Right? So you do get what they're getting at, you get the idea, but it's, you know, you get to the end of the novel and you say, okay, now what? How do I go existential here? Do I just start, you know, drinking a lot of coffee and smoking a lot of cigarettes? Or is there something else to it? And, you know, I'm, of course, teasing to some extent.

You might want to talk to my friend Skyclair about it. She should not have different ideas. But nevertheless, you know, that was one of the things that I found not particular pinning, you know, in a philosophy of your life, where if I can understand the point sort of at an abstract level, but then I merely wondered, okay, and now what am I supposed to do about it, then seem to be an issue. Yeah, it's the very fancy app that you've just downloaded onto your phone that looks great, and sounds wonderful in principle,

and for some people it might work, but for you, you just open it up, downloaded onto your phone that looks great. And sounds wonderful in principle. And for some people it might work. But for you, you just, you open it up and you're like, I don't understand how any of this happens. So what I want to try and do, I'd love to get you back on and talk about the history of stoicism, how it came about. And as the listeners will know, I went to Athens

for my birthday and I stood in the stoa poickle,, which is where Stoa's sism was founded by Zeno of Citium. Yes. Yes. See, I've been doing my research, Matimo, I've been doing my research ready for you. Flew all the way to Athens on my birthday, ready for this podcast. That's an expensive bit of research. It was painful, obviously. I'd love to get you back on to do that, but what I really want to do today, especially given the fact that we're period turmoil, people are pivoting within their life, there's a lot of uncertainty, people require more robustness, more resilience, all that sort of stuff. I want to really try and get into the nuts and bolts of what are the principles that underpin storesism that people need to understand to give them the foundational knowledge and then let's talk about some of these exercises.

Let's talk about how people can take these principles of stoicism and apply them so that hopefully tomorrow if they come up against a difficult situation, they might be able to use it a little bit and then that domain of competence hopefully will grow and grow and grow and then Maybe we finish off with some some cool book recommendations Certainly some of which will be will be yours and then some other reading people want to get stuck into it So why do we start so this is them 101 where do we begin? Well, let's let's start with a couple of the basic principles that are immediately applicable to people's lives. So there are two of them that I think we could start with. One is the four cardinal virtues. So the stoics recognize four fundamental virtues,

meaning character traits, meaning things that you need to work on in order to become a better human being and The notion was that is that you use these four as kind of almost as a compass to navigate your life a model compass to navigate your life Basically everything you do you should be asking yourself Okay, how does that square against the four card in on virtues? So it's kind of a checklist right check Check one check to check three check four so the four card in one purchase? So it's kind of a checklist, right? Check one, check two, check three, check four. So the four card in one purchase are practical wisdom, courage, justice, and temperance.

Practical wisdom is the one that I'm gonna spend a couple minutes on because it's the one that usually people have trouble understanding. And also it's the one that it doesn't roll off your tongue. Practical wisdom, it's like whatever. The Greek term is actually phonesis. And essentially, this is the knowledge of what is truly good for you and what is truly bad for you.

Now, we grew up with certain ideas about what is good for us and what is not good for us. Those ideas come from society large, from our parents, from our friends, and so on and so forth. So for instance, a good number of Westerners would think that what is good for you is a good job, a good career, certain amount of money, health, a good relationship, some friends, that sort of stuff. For the story, that's not quite the case. All of those things are

preferred, meaning that if you have them, that's great, but really they're not what is truly good for you. The only thing that is truly good for you is good judgment, is arriving at good judgment about situations. Why is that? Well, because all of those other things that I just mentioned, you may gain or lose at any time in your life. You might gain a new relationship and it's great and then you lose it. Or you might make money and then you lose it and you might get a job and then you get fired. That's all that sort of stuff. It's not really under your control. It's stuff that happens. And sure, you can work on it.

You can make it more likely to happen for sure. But ultimately, it does really depend on you. And in fact, the value of all those other things really depends on how you behave in respect to those things. So for instance, having money, it's not an unqualified good. It is good if you use the money well. But if you don't, if you use your money to corrupt politicians so that you have your own way and write your own laws, for instance, that's not good. Then money is not a good thing. So in

other words, the notion is that the fundamental thing that is good for you is good judgment because good judgment is what allows you to use everything else in the best possible way. Similarly, or, as you say, conversely, the only really bad thing that for you is bad judgment. So it's the opposite of it. Why? Well, because bad judgment is going to make you squander your money, lose your relationships, lose your friends, lose your job, and so on and so forth. So, judgment is really the only thing that went into the story that is important, that is crucial. And so, the first cardinal virtue, practical wisdom, basically reminds you constantly, that the only thing you need to work on is your judgment. A constantly improved.

So whatever makes you, refines your judgment, makes you better, better, it's good. And whatever makes it worse, it's bad. That's the first virtue. Got it. Second, courage. Courage is not necessarily physical courage, or the courage to rush into battle or anything like that. It's moral courage So it occurs to do the right thing That's related to the third cardinal virtue, which is justice

What is the right thing to do as far as other people are concerned that that comes down to justice? You need to treat people just like fairly as you would like to be treated essentially. Right? Notice the difference between the first and the third virtue. First virtue, practical wisdom is about what is good for you. The third one, justice, is about what is good for other people in terms of how you behave toward other people. I'm going to guess those two come into conflict while that's one of the things that you have to, you know, to handle, learn to handle. And then the fourth virtue is temperance. Temperance is often understood as doing as little as possible, but that's not quite right. Temperance means doing things in the right measure, neither too much nor too little.

Okay, so let me give you a specific example where we can see all the four virtues working simultaneously because that's the notion that anything important that you're going to do, you should ask yourself, well is this practically wise, is it courageous, is it just and is it temperate? And if the answer is no to any of those things, then don't do it. Oh God, my decision making is good and take a little bit of time. If I like, what do I want for breakfast tomorrow? Oh God, are these? God, are these cocoa pops? That actually applies even to things like breakfast.

Uh-huh. I love breakfast. I know. I, I, I, I, I get should A don't have breakfast. I usually have just the fruit. But and coffee, of course. Yes, definitely. Coffee.

Coffee is all coffee meets all of the four criteria. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. It's essentially, I think coffee to a stoic would probably be divine. Yeah, it's really, it comes pretty close. Now, so let's say that you have work and a coworker is being aroused by your boss. And then the question is, well, should you intervene or not? So you should take the side of your coworker

and basically tell your boss, hey, slow down here. Well, let's apply the four virtues. The first one is, as I said, practical wisdom. Well, practical wisdom, I put it in terms I presented in terms of judgment, but another way to present it is in terms of improving your character. Because judgment and character go well to go hand in hand essentially. If you have a better and better judgment, that means your character is improving, becoming

a better person. And vice versa, if you have bad judgment, your character is going down the drain. So if you think I'm in terms of character, well, is it good for your character? Of course it is. Because you're doing the right thing by your coworker. That is good for your character that improves your character. If you decide not to do the right thing, that undermines your own character, that undermines your, you know,

makes you a slightly less, less good person. So think of it that way. Is it, is this thing making me a better person or less good person? Well, clearly, intervening makes you a better person. So the first term is yes. Or is it courageous? It is, because what I like about your boss. So your boss could not take it well, and it might retaliate,

and you might lose your job, or at least get on the wrong side of the boss. So yes, it does. They courage. What about justice? Is it the just thing to do with as far as your co-workers concerned? Yes, obviously, because if you were in the co-workers situation, you would want somebody to step in and help you out. Right. So it's you're treating him three for three. So far, three for three. Now, what about temperance? Well, temperance tells you that you want to do things in the right measure. So that means you don't want to just mumble under your breath about something so that your boss doesn't actually hear it because that's not enough. You haven't done anything at that point, right? You appeased your

conscience, but you haven't done anything. By the same token, however, you also don't want to rush to your boss and punch him on the nose because that seems like a little bit of an overreaction given the situation, right? So, temperance tells you that probably the right thing to do is to politely and but firmly say something and on the lines of, hey, let's talk about this situation. There's a different size of the story, blah, blah, whatever the thing is. So all the four virtues concur. Santa Cazaz at one point, the four virtues are like a

concert of different instruments and they have to play in unison. There has to be no discordant notes there. So all of the four in this case will tell you, yes, do it. Go ahead. Now more often than not, the virtues will at least one of the virtues will say, that's not a good thing to do. And therefore you want to refrain. In fact, the story extends to refrain a lot from things. It's like, you know, the famous commercial,

just do it. Yeah, it's kind of the opposite. Just don't just wait. Stop and think about it. Yeah, just wait. Just slow down and think about it. Because as it turns out, so Socrates, who was a major inspiration for the story,

used to say that he had a daim on his shoulder. So, Socrates, who was a major inspiration for the stoics, used to say that he had a daemon on his shoulder. Daemon is a demon. And essentially, you can think of it as an externalized version of your conscience, okay. And he was asked, so how does your daemon advise you to do things or not to do things? And Socrates said, most of the times, How does your Daemon advises you to do things or not to do things? And Socrates said, most of the times just as a single word, no.

Don't do it. Because if you think about it, a lot of things, we get in trouble. Simply because we too, we rush into doing things. That I'm thinking about is like, yeah, that was not a good idea. There was not a good thing. Do you think that the hesitancy or the measuredness of not brushly committing to actions is that why, because to be stoic actually has taken on a meaning of its own, right?

When you say to people in the modern world, that guy over there, he's quite stoic with, you know, it kind of means someone who's stiff up a lip, us Brits would probably be, you know, a fairly good example. Stiff up a lip and he's fairly sort of resilient, maybe a little bit surly as well, you know, he's in the corner kind of scowling, scowling at everyone. Is that why he's that way? Yeah, I think it is. And so, you know, that's a stereotype and I think it's an inaccurate stereotype.

But like many stereotypes, they do have a, you know, a certain, or a true, exactly. It's a coronal truth. In fact, the two things that are stereotypical about the story are the ones that you just have mentioned. And then the other one is that we go around suppressing our emotions, which are related to stiff upper lip and then suppression of emotions. Well, the reason people say that got that impression about the story is because the story is are in fact in the business of enduring things. Endurance is a stoic value.

If there is nothing you can do about something, then what are you complaining? What's the point of complaining? You just kind of feel worse. You're just going to make things worse because not only you cannot actually address the specific problem, but now you also make it worse in your own mind by as a modern cognitive behavioral therapist, we put it by catastrophizing it, by making it into this gigantic thing that you say, oh my gosh, this I can't believe this is happening, it's like, what do you mean you can't believe it? It is happening, it's a fact.

So in what sense can you not possibly believe it, right? So that's one thing. And then the thing about the emotions is it is true that the story is done. Don't want to suppress emotions partly because it's a hopeless thing. And you simply cannot suppress emotions. What we want to do is to train ourselves to move as far as possible from what we consider disruptive emotions, such as anger, fear, hatred, things like that, and to mindfully cultivate what we consider positive emotions, and these include love and joy and a sense of justice, you know,

sense of the right thing to do, you know, that sort of stuff. So if you turn those two tendencies, two attitudes into a stereotype, then you get the stiff upper lip with no emotion kind of stuff. But I want you to go back to the practice. So I mentioned earlier on that that there is a second important bit of stoic theory that has immediate practical application. And that is the so-called dichotomy of control. This is a modern term. You don't find it in ancient stoic texts. And it's an unfortunate term.

It was introduced by William Irvine in one of his early books on Stoys' in a few years ago. And as much as I like bail, I think he actually did a disservice there. Because people get immediately the wrong idea when you hear the term, the economy of control. So the basic notion is, goes back to epictetus, right at the beginning of the inciridion of the manual that his student, Ariane, wrote based on these notes. Epictetus says, some things are up to you,

and other things are not up to you. And then he lists some, the things things are up to you and other things are not up to you. And then he lists some, the things that are up to you and then he lists the things that are not up to you. And then it says, you should be concerning yourself with the first one and not the second one, which is pretty soundly wise. If there is nothing you can do about something, you might as well ignore it, because what are you going to do about it? Can you remember any of the things that he says? Absolutely. Can you give us a couple from the list? Yes.

Let's go through both lists, because those are really tell you a lot both about stoic practice and stoic... And this is... This is... 2,500 years old, 2,600 years old? It's about 2,400... 2,400... 2,400 years, the philosophy.

Epic Titus was more recent, he was active at the end of the first century, beginning of the second century. Oh, practically modern. Yeah, practically modern. Yeah, cool. So he just finished, he just finished it up, emailed it over. Yeah, cool. Yesterday, that's right.

Cool. Okay, so some things are up to us, and other things are not up to us. What kinds of things? Epic Titus actually makes a list, and he says, okay, the only things things are up to us, and other things are not up to us. What kinds of things? Epithetus actually makes a list, and he says, okay, the only things that are up to you are the following. Judgments, you know, explicit judgments, endorsed values, and decisions to act or not to act.

That's pretty much it. Oh, God, yeah. That's not a big list act. That's pretty much it. Oh, go ahead. Yeah, that's not a big list. It's a pretty short list. OK. Well, that makes it easy to practice, if you think about it. OK.

Because you only have those four things to concern yourself about. So what does he mean? So explicit judgments, meaning the kinds of judgment you actually endorse, you arrive that by reflection. So like, you know, it's good for me to have coffee in the morning. That's an explicit judgment. It's not something you do automatically or instinctively. You just say, yeah, this is a good thing for me. That's an explicit judgment. Endures values. For instance, sexism is bad. That's an

endorse value. Okay. That's an endorsed value. That's a you telling yourselves like, no, you know what, I might have inadvertently engaged in behaviors that may come across as sexist, but I actually think on reflection that sexism is a bad thing. I think that women ought to be treated as men. That's an endorsed value, as opposed to an implicit value. Because implicit values, they're more difficult difficult to control you may be doing certain things

You know behavior certain way that you don't actually realize but the explicitly endorse values Those are the ones that you obviously tell yourself. Yeah, this is a good thing to do or not a good thing to do and then Third decisions to act or not to act So for instance, it's like I don don't know, to Tode in the afternoon here in New York, the sun coming in my window, it's getting warm. So I feel like a beer, but I'm not going to act on it. Do it. I'm talking about world-friendly.

We're all friends here. Well, let's party. I'm not going to do it. Okay. For one thing, because I don't actually have a beer, and therefore I would have to go downstairs, we'll have to stop and then resume in a beer. And therefore, I would have to go downstairs, we'll have to stop and then resume in a minute. That's not gonna happen.

Also, I don't know. I think I'd rather keep my mind straight while I'm talking to you. And then I have a beer later on, right? Actually, a glass of wine to be specific. That is a decision to act or not to act. I made an explicit decision. Again, the emphasis here is on explicit.

Because sometimes we react instinctively to situations. Somebody throws a ball at you and you catch it without even thinking about it. That's not an explicit decision to act or not to act. Great. So in other terms, in other words, if it says that the only things are completely up to you are the things that you decide to do or not to do or to endorse or not to endorse.

It's a paramreflection. They are up to you in the specific sense that the buck stops with you. If you say, hey, I think that sexism is actually a good thing. Because I know these women can't think I know I don't I don't buy it and somebody says What the hell are you talking about? Well, you are responsible for what you're talking about because this is your opinion You you can't say oh well, but somebody told me or or I read somewhere Well, what it doesn't matter what somebody told you or what you read the thing is this is an endorsed opinion by you the box stops with you You're responsible for it.

Now the second part, what is none up to you, right? So if you did as lists a few things and let me give you a short list, your body, your reputation, your wealth, and your relations, in other words, everything else. Now what does he mean as when he says it's not up to me? Well, those things are not up to you. Consider, since we're in the middle of a pandemic, consider your body, meaning your health, right? Well, of course I can do, and if you did,

it's new perfectly well, that of course you can do things to safeguard your health, right? You can eat a good diet. You can go to the gym and exercise regularly, you can go to the doctor to practice some preventive medicine, all of those things, or in the case of a pandemic, you know, you can go out very little, you can wear gloves and a mask,

you can disinfect your hands when you can back. All of those things are obviously things that you can do. But ultimately, despite all those things, you things that you can do. But ultimately, despite all those things, you may be unlucky and the virus is going to get you. There's no guarantee that that's not going to happen. You can do everything exactly right, and then the virus is going to strike you because it's a son of a bitch. So that means that health, although you can influence your health, ultimately the box doesn't stop with you. It stops to externally with external events, external factors, right? And the same exact thing goes for all the other things that I mentioned. So like real reputation. Sure, I'm sure you're a good guy, you're a nice guy, and everything.

But you know, all it takes is a mere campaign against you on social media, and you're done. And you have no way to stop that sort of stuff. Your job, your career, obviously the best way to have a good career is to put the right amount of work into it, to do it seriously, et cetera, et cetera. Sure, but then the economy goes down the drain and you lose your job, right? So that's another external factor. Again, all of those things that are not up to you, that doesn't mean you can't do anything about them.

That's where that's why the term economy of control is a little bit funny, because people say, Oh, I can't control them, but I can influence them. Yes, you can. But the buck doesn't stop with you. It is always going to be some external factor that is not in your control, that might completely ruin your plans. So, what would you have called it? If it wasn't dichotomy of control, have you considered how you would have termed it? Yeah, I don't have a good alternative. Part of the reason I was stuck with the kind of your control is because it's catchy, and nobody has come up with a particular alternative.

I bet a better alternative, yeah, exactly. But notice that epithus doesn't call it anything. It doesn't give it a name. It's one of those things. Before gravity, gravity didn't have a name, but everyone knew what gravity was. Exactly. So, we're stuck with it. That's fine.

But so long as we understand what it is that we're talking about. Now, the practical bit of advice therefor here, and this is really crucial. I mean, I apply, I've been practicing stores now for like five and a half years or so, give or take. And the economy of control has become second nature to me. I'll give you an example in just a second. But it's become second nature. So now when something happens, the first thing, the very first thought that a person is,

okay, what can I do here? And what is not under my control? What is it that I can? What is my action? What's actionable? And what is not actionable here? That's basically what it comes down to. Now, when Epitheta says you should focus on the first and then take the rest as it comes, develop a multitude of equanimity toward the outcomes. For instance, let's say you're going up for a job interview, which these days a lot of people are going to have to do once this old stuff is over. Well, it comes natural to us to focus on the outcome. I want the job.

That's what I'm worried about. That's what I focus on. But data coin group activities is exactly the wrong thing to focus on because actually getting the job is not up to you. It's up to your boss, whoever is interviewing them. Whoever is on the other side, it depends on your competition. It depends on a bunch of things. It depends on random factors,

like maybe the guy's interviewing you got off the wrong foot of the bed this morning and he's not even bad mood, or whatever it is. What is up to you? What is up to you is to prepare for the interview, to put together the best resume you can, to take the interview seriously, to dress appropriately, to address

people in the way that you're expected to, all that sort of stuff, to focus and not get distracted by other things during the interview. All of those things are up to you. But the notion is that you focus on the things are up to you and then you say to yourself, okay, but this is life. And I know that sometimes in life, you know, I'm an adult, I know sometimes you went, sometimes you lose. This may be the time that I'm gonna lose, and it's okay.

I'm okay with that, because it's not my fault. If I've done everything that I could up to this point, then I don't have myself to blame for anything, it's the circumstances. And guess what? If I don't get to jump today, there will be another interview tomorrow, or next week, or next month, so on and so forth.

So another way to think about this is that the notion is to internalize your goals. We tend to externalize goals. We tend to go after outcomes. Oh, I want to get married. I want her to say, yes, I want this job. I want to get married, I want her to say yes, I want this job, I want to make money, I want all of these outcomes and none of them are up to us. Only our efforts are up to us.

So if you refocus, you know, internally, internally instead of externally and the advantage is, first of all, as you know, there is a pretty tight correlation between the two. The more you actually do a good job internally, the more likely you are to actually succeed externally, you know, the two are not unrelated. But you also gain peace of mind, because you get into any situation from the start by saying to yourself, okay, hopefully you'll come my way, but it might not and I'm okay with that. It's really, really, it's powerful. Can taking a philosophy like that lead people to apathy? It's funny, you mentioned the word apathy because one of the goals of stoic practice is

what the ancients refer to as apataya, which is Greek word that in fact is the root of apathy, other word, the English the root of apataya, the word the English word apataya. But no, that's the meaning is different. Apataya was not apataya as we understand it today. The root, the answer is in the root. So apataya is made of two words, A-A, the first A, and pataya. the first A and pataya, A means without. And pataya means negative emotions. So to be apathetic for a story doesn't mean that you don't give a crap about things. It means that you're not disturbed by negative emotions. You don't have anxiety, you don't have fear, you don't have. I much prefer, I much prefer the Athenian definition of the words that we need. There's no, there's no modern equivalent. No, that's that. Resilience isn't it, robustness isn't it. No, we need to make a word for that. I think that's really cool. Yeah, but now, let me go back to answer your question.

So no, the notion is not to, you know, not give a damn or play back and all that sort of stuff. The notion is simply to make what I would think is an adult consideration, choice, and say, look, I'm gonna do my best. So I'm not gonna be apathetic in the sense, in the modern sense of the word. I'm gonna do my best. So I'm not going to be apathetic in the sense, in the modern sense of the word. I'm going to do my best. But I have to accept that things are not going to, I'm not a child anymore. I have to accept that things sometimes are

not going to work my way. And if that happens, I'm not going to act like a child. I'm not going to throw a tantrum. I'm not going to get upset. I'm going to say, all right, next round. You're going to do better next next time. On the hopeful side, you've mentioned there about how you don't get the job, but you are hopeful or you are almost certain. I'll get the next one. What's the virtue of hope or the virtue of positivity toward oncoming events? Yeah, that's a good question. The stories are not into what we would today call positive psychology. Like, oh, yeah, things are going to go well. Because you have no guarantee that things are going to go well.

That's in fact, it's kind of a problem. Yeah, you've got to have both edges of the sword, right? Right. But what you do have is your reason about the human predicament, predicament, you're capable of reasoning about things. And you know that luck, who the stoics actually personify it as a deity, right, as a goddess. For tuna. For tuna, right.

And you know, by that, for tuna, by her own nature, sometimes, you know, throws things at a random. So sometimes you will go your wives, and sometimes you won't go your way. And the notion that Santa Cappr to be particularly is puts forth in several of his writings is that the way to come to terms, to approach the situation is to have Fortuna come to terms with you. You don't control Fortuna.

Fortuna does whatever the hell she wants, right? But you make her come to terms with you because you are prepared ahead of time, mindful, fashion, and say, all right, I know that this is going to have a 50-50 chance. But if it's not going to work this time, then by virtue of that 50-50 chance, that means the next time I'm going to have also a 50th chance and one of these days are going to get it. So it's not really optimism as much as a realistic understanding of what the situation is. You may be familiar with this, but a lander boton from the School of Life, he has a wonderful bit.

I've seen him give the same talk twice now on his book in emotional education. And you may be able to pad out this story that I'm about to tell a little, but I think he said that in ancient Athens, the people that were homeless, that were the beggars on the street, that were potentially sort of diseased and stuff like that, they were referred to as unfortunates. I think that that was the etymology of it, right? What was the Greek word? Yeah, unfortunato, I think it's because... Okay, so they were referred to as unfortunates, and he rolls the clock forward. And we get ourselves into the 21st century. What's the equivalent? New people that are listening and give you a couple of seconds. What's the equivalent of an

unfortunate in today's vernacular? It's a loser. That's what they call the people that don't that it's a loser and what happened? What Alan argues and I think I believe I agree with is that In a meritocracy, which is what we say that we have now equal chance, equal ability, all that's not equal ability, equal opportunity, shall I say. In a in a in a meritocracy, if the people who succeed a worthy of their successes, that also means that the people who fail a worthy of their failures, and that shift And that shift from the unfortunate to the loser, I think, is a real, a very easy way to see why society may be less empathetic toward the people who don't have the haves and the have-nots.

And it is incredibly unfortunate shift because I think that the ancient Greeks in general and the Stoics in particular were right about this, that it is a matter of fortune. Now, meaning, not that the outcome has nothing to do with your efforts. Of course, it is not a question about it. And there are some people who are responsible for their own down fall because they do make bad decisions, you know, that this is a fact of

human life. But those people include very rich people or very powerful people. I mean, the history is complete with, you know, powerful and rich people who make really stupid or really bad decisions and then that's the downfall. So, it's not a question of abdicating responsibility. It's a rather a question to understand that external events will hit people, even the best people, even the people that make the best effort. They will be hit because for tuna doesn't care.

For tuna is kind of a random thing. For tuna can be a bit of a bitch sometimes, can't you? Well, you know, but she can also be very good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I was, for instance, I was reading it. So I just, I'm just about to launch a zoom based book club that is going to be cool. Yeah. Where can people find out more about that if they're interested? Go to my meetup site, which is the store nova. So go to meetup.com and search for store nova Yep, and you'll find it or actually search actually even better search for Philosophy book club and you'll find it. It's even easier because it's not just about stores But the first book that we're reading The first meeting is scheduled for May 11th, is the consolation

of philosophy by Boatius, not to be confused with the consolations of philosophy plural by the botan. And Boatius was one of the last Romans basically. He was living in Reddy and the Roman Empire. He was a philosopher. He was also an advisor to the king, and he was doing very well. For most of his life, his sons were doing well, his family was doing well, he was also an advisor to the king, and he was doing very well for most of his life. His sons were doing well, his family was doing well, blah, blah, blah. And then at some point he was doing so well that some envious people started putting rumors about him, and one of these rumors arrived to the king's ear, and as a result he was accused of treason and condemned to death.

And he was executed, in fact. Now when he was in prison in Rome, he wrote the book, the constellation of philosophy, and he imagines in this book that philosophy, Lady Philosophy, comes in and basically tries to cheer him up, right?

And one of the first things that Lady was very sadial about between him and Lady Philosophy, some of it is poetry and some of this prose. It's a really wonderful book. And Lady Philosophy, one of the first things that she does, like, so you forgot, you're upset about fortuna, right? You think the fortuna treated you unfairly, and he says, yeah, of course it treated me unfair. I mean, here I am, come down to death. I'm about to be ahead, it's like, what the hell? And then,

philosophy says, but so you forget all of the other good stuff, the Fortuna gave you, right? So for most of your life, you were much more lucky than most people in this in this country. Your sons are still doing very well. Your wife is still doing very well. Your family fortune is untouched. You're doing much better, even condemned being condemned to death, than most people around you. So it's like, did you not know that for tuna works this way,

that sometimes you give, and sometimes you take. So somehow you got convinced that you, among mortals, were the only one that was only gonna get and never gonna be taken from, it's like, come on. It's like, she's shining him for essentially behaving like a truck, forgetting his philosophical training and expecting the impossible, expecting the Santa Claus keeps coming and coming and coming and coming. Sometimes it's just cold. You have to deal with it.

So, let's get some exercises. Let's get some ways that people can apply some of the stuff we've spoken about and then some other principles as well. So you've already touched on one of them, which is when something happens, when anything happens, try and work out whether it is or within your control, right? Yes, that's right. In fact, my friend and colleague Gregory Luppas, we have written a whole

book of story-case exercises called A Handbook for New Story. I think in UK, the title is living like a story or something like that. I don't know for what reason they changed the title. It's confusing. But anyway, we actually put together an entire curriculum for 52 different exercises that people can sample and see what works for them and what doesn't work for them. Why do you give us your favorite five? It gives you top five? Something like that, yeah, something like that. So one of them is the one that we've been talking about

and the academic control exercises can actually be done in the following way. Let's say that you are about to do something, the outcome of which is in depth, such as the job interview that we were talking about before. Well, the way you do the exercise is that in the days before the actual event or the night before, whenever it's convenient for you, whenever you think it works for you, you literally sit down and write down, you put a piece of paper or a spreadsheet and you get two columns, things under my control, things not under my control. And then you start breaking down the situation and listening to yourself, the kind of stuff that is up to you and the kind of stuff that is not up to you.

And then the notion being that then on the next several days, you use, before the interview, you use that list to remind yourself, you go back to it and remind yourself to focus on the first column and prepare yourself about the second column. So that's one exercise. Another one of my favorite exercises is the, sometimes it's referred to as the evening meditation, sometimes it's referred to as philosophical journaling because you can do it as an actual journal, as writing in a journal. That's the way I do it, but actual journal, as writing in a journal. That's the way I do it, but it doesn't have to be a journal. This is an exercise that comes from several stories.

In fact, epictetus mentions explicitly this approaching the end Caribbean. And Seneca does it at the end of on anger. And you can read the entire meditations and microsuriders essentially as a journaling exercise because it was his own philosophical diary, that's what it was. Now, the idea here is not to write the meditations because not everybody is microsorealis and you know we're not that good writers and it is certainly not for publication. But the notion is I tend to do it, I try to do it every night, but you can do it at least several times a week. It only takes a few minutes. You sit down, pick

a moment before you go to bed, don't do it in bed otherwise you fall asleep. Before you go to bed, pick a moment where it's quiet and you can concentrate for a few minutes. And write down some thoughts about the major things that happened during the day, or even a single major thing that happened during the day. It doesn't have to be comprehensive. And about that then, ask yourself three questions. Number one, what did I do wrong? Number two, what did I do right? Number three, what could they do differently if this similar situation arises again? For what's the point? The first question, what did it wrong? The notion is not to beat yourself up and say, I should have done this, I should have, because the past is another

one of those things that is not up to here. It's outside of your control. You can't change it. You can't go back and redo the thing. No matter how many times you actually rerun the thing in what happened in your mind, you cannot change it. In fact, the story would say that's a waste of emotional energy because you're only going to feel bad about it. And that's it. Instead, however, what you do want to do

is to learn from your mistakes. So you want to write down. It's like, okay, this is what I did wrong, because you want to pay attention to it. And then Santaica says, immediately forgive yourself. You have the power to forgive yourself. So write it down and then say, okay, that's done. Out. I learned my lesson.

I hope not to do it again. But that's it. Second, what did they do right? Well, part of the reason for doing that is because, pat yourself on the back, if you do something right, great. You know, this is this is progress, you're making, you're going in that direction. But also because now you have two points of reference, what you did wrong, what you did right. And the notion is that day by day, you want to move as far away from the first one and as close as possible to the second one. So you don't want to do fewer and fewer wrong things

and more and more right things, right? And so if you keep an in mind as to posts essentially through reference points, that's helpful. The third thing is, what could I do it done better? Why engage in the hypothetical? Because we all like to think of our lives as extremely varied and unpredictable and ulcers of interesting things that's going to happen, but usually that's not the case. We kind of live the same life every day. You get up, you get to work during lockdown. We live the exact same life every day during lockdown. Especially now. But even outside, right? So you go to work, you see the same people, you do the same kind of things, then you get back home, you see the same people, you

do the same kind of things, and you go out, you don't do weekend, then you do DC friends, those are the same people, you do the same kind of things. Of course, there is variation, of course, sometimes you do something truly novel. But mostly, we tend to be routine kind of people. You know, we do the same thing over and over, which means that it pays off to pay attention when you actually did something wrong because you're going to start saying, okay, well, this one didn't work out very well, but I know this kind of situation is going to happen again or something very similar is going to happen again. So let me think ahead. The next time that something like this happened, what am I going to do? And so I can give a small example of how this works. This is a trivial thing,

this is the thing that happened years ago. I was walking down in Lohramanath, I was a friend, and I was obviously not looking very carefully where I was going. So these other women who was also not looking where she was going. So it bums into me and she had a large Starbucks coffee venue and it's went over the place. Now nothing terrible happened. We're both surprised and we're both sad, you know, sorry. But we both then kept moving. And then I found about a later, I said, you know, I think that was mostly my fault. I was paying less attention than she was. So it wouldn't be nice to actually offer her to pay for the coffee. That's a small thing.

It's like a couple of, well, it's Starbucks. So it's more than a couple of bucks. But anyway, it's not that much. And it would have been a nice gesture to do. The moment was passed, who knows where that woman was, so that's done. But that kind of situation can happen again. You can bump into people. And if the next time you're prepared and you say, you know, something that happens again,

next time this is what's going to happen, this is what I'm going to do. Then you're prepared and Senna Katel is you over and over. A prepared mind feels better with situations than an unprepared mind. So that's the point of the exercise. The preparing for things by using existing experiences, I've been discussing this an awful, awful lot recently. And the analogy that I always use is if I told you Massimo that you were going to fall into some quicksand a week from now, right now at seven three minutes to 8pm on a wednesday night or whatever it is. And I said you got a week to prepare and you spent the next week you go online, you research strategies to get out a quicksand,

what's the most efficient way, you might even dress, dress slightly differently, ready for the quicksand, and then you'd be counting down on you. The difference between that and me just pushing you into some quicksand now and saying, good luck. The difference is. It's true. Yeah, absolutely, because we really, really struggle to make rational decisions when we're in the moment. And the listeners will be familiar. Michael Males said to any of his fans who was struggling, he's also living in Brooklyn in New York. And he said to any of his fans on his show, he's got these hundreds of thousands of listeners, anyone who's suffering with depression or suicidal ideation, when you're in your best mind, write yourself a letter, write a letter to you when you are in the depths

of feeling down and feeling depressed and tell yourself what you're going to do. Tell yourself to ring a friend, tell yourself to go for a walk, tell yourself to get a glass of water and do the things that make you feel good because that person then is you at your best, at your most rational with all of your faculties intact. Whereas you when you're feeling depressed, when you're feeling down, that's you in quick sound. And it's very difficult to strategize whilst you're also executing. Exactly. And there is a lot of evidence from modern psychology, by the way, that this thing actually does work.

Some of your listeners might be familiar with then your cameraman's best sounding book, thinking fast and slow. Now, cameraman's research clearly shows that we have these two metaphorical systems, they're not actually an atonical systems, but these are metaphorical systems in the brain. One that is for very quick thinking in the moment, the reaction, you know, you're actually not even not thinking in the sense of, you know, sort of reflecting on things. It's just immediate. It's like that on the snap. That's the fast one. And then we have these slower, you know, more deliberate, more cognitive approach to things. And the idea is,

in terms of stoicism, it says, much as it is possible, as much as it is feasible, switch from system one to system two. Slow down. Sometimes it's not possible, right? I mean, if somebody's gonna run after you and you know, with a gun and you never happen before and you probably will never happen again, you're gonna do whatever system one says, right? If it is dark, you're dark, if it is screen, you're screen, whatever it is, that's, you have to rely on your instincts

and good luck to you, right? But if you can, and, you're a screen, whatever it is. That's, you have to rely on your instincts and good luck to you, right? But if you can, and in a lot of situations, we don't actually live in ward zones. We don't live in a savannah where the lion can be coming at any minute. We tend to live in fairly structured societies where things happen in a slower pace. So we do have the time to slow down and engage system two

and say, OK, what is the best thing to do? But what? Even about the thing that I just said, which is that some situations you just can't avoid engaging system one, a pictor's obviously did not know about system one or system two. But he had a pretty good idea that sometimes we react in the moment and sometimes we actually have a bit of defend. One of the reasons he kept telling his students that they have to practice ahead of time regularly every day, right, that remind them mindful, you know, do these exercises regularly. It's precisely because you wanted

to make their decision making automatic. Right. So when I said, for instance, if you remember a few minutes ago, I said that the economy of control is now automatic for me. Right. So initially, when I started starting storesism, I had to remind myself and slow down and say, wait a minute, what is under your control? What is not under your control? All right, let me make the list. Right. I actually had to go and make the list. But after you start doing it on a regular basis, then it becomes, I don't need a list anymore. It's immediately when a situation comes up, it has shifted from system two to system one. It's an experience that feels a lot like learning to drive a car. So if I know

if you remember, but when you start driving a car, even though I live in the United States, I actually learn a little bit. So I had a shick stiff, you know, this is kind of stuff. An actual, a real car, you know, that was a car. A proper car, yeah, proper car. And, you know, when you start learning, it's like, oh my gosh, I have to all these things

to think about, it's the clutch and then it's the brake and then it's like, it's steering wheel. And I have to look at the people outside and listen to the car is giving me, it's the clutch and then it's the brake and then it's like it's steering wheel and I have to look at the at the people outside and listen to the caries giving me stuff it's like whoa all of that takes a lot of slow deliberate thinking and that means you're not a good driver initially right because precisely because you're very late for the digger. Yeah right but then you start doing it and the more you do, the more become automatic. And so now you can, you know, can you can gingerly ship it while you're singing, singing

to the music on the radio, thinking about the other stuff. Yeah. Isn't it, isn't it interesting that you, you are deep programming system one, you're creating what Cori Allen would refer to as the mindfulness gap, which is why I love it's that it's that break in between stimulus and response. So your deep programming system one, then allowing system two to come in, then reprogramming system two and habitizing it or systematizing it sufficiently frequently to then reintegrate the upgraded version of system one. The beauty of that, I'm reading a lot of evolutionary psychology at the moment,

a lot of Robert Wright and other stuff. Yeah. And he's a good friend, yeah. He's phenomenal, man. He's that guy, the moral animal, everyone that's listening, he's like, oh, God, shut up about fucking moral animal. But until everyone's read it, until everyone's read it, I'm gonna keep talking about it, so good do it.

And yeah, because we are energy conservation machines, you know, our evolutionary heritage is to expend as little energy as possible. This is literally the double-edged sort of habits, right? It's the fact that you want to automate as much as you can, but unfortunately, that means that you went bed, bad habits as easily as good habits and sometimes even easier,

because you've got the initial cost to pay it very start. But it's inspiring to hear that someone like you has been able to take something which sounds awfully labored, it's driving the car. It's, I gotta get in and use the left hand and depress the clutch and then use it a little bit and find the biting point and all that stuff. And then now you've managed to instill this, you've instantiated it to the point where, as you say, it is that. And mercifully for me, I've seen an equivalent happen with my mindfulness practice. So I've

been doing a particular practice from Shins and Young, which has a focus on rest. And what happens is when you realize that you've become lost in thought, you label the thought as either see, hear or feel. So visual imagery, auditory noise within the head or somatic sensation, label it as that and then let it go and return to whatever it is that you're doing. And upon having sat on the cushion doing that, that one area of that one practice within this one school, probably maybe 150 hours now, not much more, so not a huge amount of time, certainly not by meditation terms, but not nothing. And that's been maybe a year, year and a half. And now I find myself doing stuff.

I'll be walking down the street, and I'll realize, I'll be like, you thinking about work later on, just enjoy the walk, focus on rest. And you just label it and let it go. And it's, there's a degree of satisfaction that again, we don't think we actually have a word for. But there is a degree of satisfaction to do with reprogramming your own mind. Absolutely.

To be able to do that and there's not many great feelings in that, I don't think, than transcending your own nature. You're right, and this is something that several traditions have hit on. The Buddhists have invented techniques to do precisely these kind of things to be more mindful in the automating that mindfulness. The story Aristotle kept saying that the way to improve your character is by practice. It's just the same way in which you get to Carnegie Hall practice, practice, practice. I want to, sorry, I know you're going to keep going. That quote about

X, we are what we repeatedly do. Excellent. Therefore, it's not an act, but a habit. What was that Aristotle? I believe it is Aristotle. I believe it is in the Nicaraghan ethics, but I need to check that. Okay, because I've seen equal number of blog posts discrediting it and saying it to someone else as saying that it was him. No, I'm pretty sure it is Aristotle, but it may not be the exact quote. That's fine. I've got it from the equivalent of the horse's mouth, so I'm happy. You know, I mean, I'm happy. So, so let me give you an example of what I'm talking about. So, let me give you an example of what I'm talking about.

As you know, we're only in lockdown here. With my wife, we are going to reach day 40 this coming Friday. Yeah, so it's going, yeah, it's an interesting situation. Okay, now a couple of weeks ago, in the middle of this thing, we opened the refrigerator and the refrigerator is not working anymore. Like, hmm, not a good thing in the middle of a pandemic. It's bad timing, right? It's bad timing. For one thing, because of course that literally means you cannot store reasonable quantity of food.

And also, our building has a policy against delivery of furniture for security reasons during this period. While in lockdown, new furniture, new appliances cannot be delivered and the story. So, normally, and by normally, I mean, like several years ago, I would have gone upset and I would say, God, I mean, it's like, you know, this thing is like, not only we got a pandemic, but now we can't eat it. It's like, you know, this thing is like not only we got a pandemic but now when we can't eat it's like, oh, what are we gonna do? blah blah blah. Instead, the very first thing, we looked at each other because my my my fault so it's pretty aware of

the historic principle. So we look at each other and say, okay, what's actionable here? Well, it's on their out control. Well, the first thing is to redo the shopping list, moving away from stuff that needs a refrigeration to dry foods like pasta, canned foods, like beans and things like that. Number one, that was the very first thing. Number two, let's call the land lady and see what she says. She might have some ideas.

This may have happened before, for all I know. So we call and she says, well, I'm going to replace the refrigerator, but I can't do it now for the reasons that I just explained, you know, the Campy delivery, the Plans is Campy delivery, but she said, I checked with the building and it turns out that small refrigerators, like, you know, dorm kind of level refrigerators can be delivered. So I just ordered one for you and it's going to come come the next couple of days. That was it, problem solved. I still have the small refrigerator here because the big mess is still not working. And so now we switched to a diet of, you know, then includes some fresh food

and then a lot of dry stuff and everything. And there was no getting upset, there was no, you know, any no emotional response and whatsoever. It's like, just look at each other and say, and what so I was like, just look at each other and say, okay, this is an interesting challenge, let's see what we can do about it. That's another trick, by the way, that the storage deployed and it turns out it's confirmed by modern psychology. It's called the framing effect.

So the framing effect in psychology consists in the phenomenon that if you present these same exact information to people but in two different ways they will react differently depending on how the information is presented. For instance you go to the doctor because you're worried about something and the doctor says all right you got a 90% chance of making through this. Or he says, all right, you got a 10% chance of dying from this. Don't want to be with that doctor. Right. Now, the fact shown, if notice that the factoring information is exactly the same, 90% survival rate is exactly the same as 10% death rate. There's no difference at all.

But as you just notice, people will react differently, right, depending on where you put it, this one way or the other. Now, the framing effect has been used by Stoics for more than 2,000 years to look at the same situation in a more productive way. Marcus Suerit is writes in the meditation that if we find an obstacle, instead of banging your head against the obstacle and the obstacle is unbreakable, you need to find a new path. The obstacle becomes the way. It becomes a new way of doing things, right? In the case of setbacks, one way to like the refrigerator be should, one way to react,

which comes kind of natural, is as modern quantity behavioral therapies called catastrophizing. Oh my gosh, the refrigerator is not working. What I'm going to do, this is horrible, this is a catastrophe, this is a problem, blah, blah, blah, or you're going to look at the same exact thing and say, that's an interesting challenge. So now I got a problem to solve. Let me see how I score on this challenge. And you start taking taking notes and say okay, so here's how I Reacted and here's what I did and so on as well. You kind of make it into a game essentially was Was that a Marcus Aureliassism about was it called the equanimity game?

Was it about if you fall off a horse how quickly can you get back on was that Marcus Aureliass or am I making that up? I don't remember that in Mark. Oh, definitely. I've definitely just ascribe something to Mark. It's the earliest that he does. It's absolutely nothing to do with it. I haven't memorized the meditation. So you know, you could be. I'm almost certain I'm probably not correct.

But you see what that goes. So it's a it's exact same situation. Right. But now you choose to apply a different frame. And the frame, the new frame that you apply is actually productive as opposed to being You know kind of undermining yourself now whenever I say that people say oh, but so that means that stores is just a mind trick And I say yeah, you know what else is a mind trick life? Everything else everything is a mind trick

Well, that's the thing. You know, from a neuroscience perspective, Sam Harris has this beautiful quote where he says, in a practical sense, everything that we are seeing is a kind of a dream, except for the fact that we can control what's happening in this dream. Well, watching it happen, everything manifests in the mind, right? And you only have that. The bottom line, if the Stoics run the controllable versus uncontrollable even further back, it would be what is inside of here, right?

Of course. We have three more exercises, but my first question is, do you think that Seneca and Daniel Kahneman would have been good friends? Because I think that have been fantastic. You know, like, I can imagine them as a crime fighting duo. You know, like, like, going around the streets of Athens at night, just like throwing wisdom at people, doing loads of cognitive tricks. I think that would be, I think that would be good. That would have been something to see.

All right, so quickly, because I think we're doing pretty, pretty good timing. Cool. So, that's the doing pretty, pretty good timing. So that's the three exercises, three exercises more. One of my favorite exercises that I do on an occasional basis, not on a regular basis, is the sunrise meditation. This is found in microsorealists. There is a bit in the meditation where it says that, it actually ascribes this practice to the pita-gorians, which means that it predates the stoicism and goes back to the 6th century PC. And it's a very simple thing. You just set up your alarm, make sure that you know you check the weather forecast, and so you know

that it's either sunny or clear or almost clear. Set up your alarm clock for about 45 minutes before sunrise, depending on how far you have to walk to get there. And then reach a location, grab your coffee, and then get to a location where you can see the sunrise or as close to it as possible. Here in New York, it's next to impossible to see the actual sunrise. But you can see

the sun low enough, you know, behind some level of buildings on their eyes and it's good enough. And then you just stay there and wait, sip your coffee and focus your attention on the fact that a star is about to come over the horizon, right, Literally. Of course, don't do what Donald Trump does. Don't look at the sun straight, because that's a bad idea. Just, you know, look on the side or get some special glasses if you really want to look at it. But the point is not to look at it, the point is to experience the event. This is obviously an amazing event. It literally happens every day.

But we never pay attention to it because very few people take the time to actually, you know, set the alarm, get up early, go to the place and then just stay there for a half an hour, 45 minutes, or whatever it is and just think about, reflect about what's happening. Now, why would you want to do that? It's a way to reconnect with a broader cosmos, with the reminding yourself that you are actually part of a gigantic whole of which to which you're connected by an unbroken web of causing effect. You may think that the sun is nothing to do with you, but in fact literally the sun is what keeps you alive, right? If there were no sun, there would be no life

on Earth. As one of my favorite scientists of all time, Carl Sagan used to say, we're literally start dust, all of the elements that make up our bodies literally were forged inside a supernova somewhere in the universe universe and that's where we come from. So all of these is beautiful and it reconnects you in a sense of, you know, spiritual sense. I don't want to use those words, spiritually, in any kind of mystical sense. I'm not, you know, I don't think it in those terms. But it transcends, it's a sense of transcendence. There is very good empirical evidence from modern psychology that a sense of transcendence is one of the best things, long term,

that make people happy. People that cultivate a sense of transcendence, of course, in many cases, this is literally believing in a God, right? But that's not the only way to feel transcendence. I don't believe in any particular, in any God. And that, to me, is a way to do it Incidentally, you also get a very early start on the morning on the day, so you get a lot of stuff done that

You've had a good coffee first thing. Yeah, I love it. I love it that connection with nature big big way to answer Connection of it and there are other ways to do it. I mean if you're in a You know when I was in I lived for several years in Tennessee, I would go, why water can you, for instance? So for the whole day, I would be just myself in a friend or two, maybe in the middle of nowhere surrounding just by water. And that's another way to do it. When I used to live in Italy, in a place on a small town north

of Rome, I would actually go outside on purpose on nice evenings and look at the Milky Way, because I could see the Milky Way, just stare at it, right? Now I can't see that damn Milky Way from New York, so that's not an option. Only one thing, if you're doing the sunrise meditation, don't cheat, don't do the sunset. Because the sunset is too easy. It's not the same. It's too easy. So this part of this, how would you say, kind of like a pilgrimage, a small pilgrimage that

you need to make? Is the price that you have to pay as part of the... Correct. I love it. Number four, number four, Massimo, number four. All right, number four. We'll have to say, the premeditation of an adversity is one of those those those those start techniques that I find particularly

useful. Although there is a couple of caveats. So the term in Latin is primitive, it's primitive that's your mororum, which literally, well, not literally, which sort of translates to thinking about bad shit happening. Is that mororum like malady type thing? Yeah exactly. It's like bad things. Malorum as a malady as a bad thing. So what one is it and you want to do this? Well whenever you are facing a situation that might not turn out well for you, like pandemic, for instance. So what does the meditation consist of? Well, you take some time to develop a in detail, a

scenario, a worst case scenario, and you ask yourself you actually visualize or otherwise make a concrete how you go into react throughout this unfolding scenario. So what is the worst thing that can happen? Well, I'm going to end up in the hospital. That's the whole more thing you can, of course, the thing that can happen is you're going to die. But for that one day, there's nothing you can do about it.

So it's okay. Done. But you end up in the hospital, you know, in emergency unit or something like that. That's the worst thing, the worst case scenario, right? It's unlikely because for most, we need to remember that for most of us, this is actually an unlikely scenario, but nevertheless, it's possible. So the notion is once again, you might notice that this is a recurring team. You want to make yourself prepared for that sort of situation, even though it's not likely to happen. But if it does happen, it's a tough one. Okay. that's not going to be just enough to say,

well, what's on the microdraw? That's going to be a tough one. So the probability that similar means that you very carefully and deliberately work through the worst case scenario and the way in which you're going to react to that worst case scenario bit by bit. Now, there are different ways of doing it. The modern way to do it, a popular modern way to do it, comes from cognitive behavioral

therapy. Again there is research here that shows that this does work. And it's in the form of a visual meditation. So you close your eyes and then you kind of slowly go through a mental movie, basically, that carefully shows you to your mind's eye what the situation is going, how the situation is going to unfold and how you're going to react. The problem with that, there's two problems with that. Number one, it's easy to slip into an emotional state. What are you doing, that sort of stuff, right? You're supposed to do it in a detached fashion.

You're supposed to rationally think about what's happening, not emotionally. So, but the problem is that once you do it as a visual meditation, a lot of people slip into the emotional mode, and that's bad because then you actually, instead of solving, you know, of helping yourself, you actually cause yourself anxiety, and that's not a good thing. So you might want to do it carefully, anxiety and that's not a good thing. So you might want to do it carefully if you feel it doesn't work for you then stop doing it or doing it under the supervision of accounting behavioral therapists who would actually help you through the stages. However there's another problem with the so the visualization exercise. Some people like me are not good at visualization exercises. If I close my eyes and I start thinking about something, I fall asleep. It goes off. Sorry, that's not going to do it. What I get distracted, I go

somewhere else with my mind. So I have to constantly bring back. That becomes like at Zen Meditation. There's too much work. So the way I do it is different. You can either write a letter to yourself or to a friend without actually having to send the letter. You just write it. It's a writing, you say, or you write it as a fictional story. It's a short story. As if you were to publish a short story on your blog or something like that. Again, you don't have to publish it. It's just for your own news, right? What's the point there? First of all, the simple act of writing, instead of thinking about it, already puts some distance

between you and the situation. It makes it more detached. Especially if you write in the second or third person. So if you imagine that you're writing to a friend or you're writing to somebody else, or you write a story in the third person, as an narrator, that puts some distance. And this may sound like, oh, you know, like the small thing,

this actually fairly good research shows that it makes a huge difference. Don't write that stuff in first person because first person, you get emotional about it. If you notice, and if you go through the meditations by Michael Cyrillus, is written in the second person. first person you get emotional about it. If you notice, and if you go through the meditations by Michael Cyrillus, is written in the second person, he talks to himself in the second person.

He never says, I do this. I always says, you did that. And so he had this notion already, way, 2000 years before modern psychology, that it's a better thing if you actually detach yourself from this kind of stuff. So the primeditation of adversity, I think it's very good because on the one hand, if you do it right, it helps you exercise your fears and your anxieties because it becomes a way to externally,

objectively look at the situation instead of worry about the situation. And it also prepares you for that situation. Should that kind of stuff actually happen, then you actually already have a certain scenario worked out in your mind for how you react. So that was exercise number four. I guess. Before let's finish it off, big number five. Number five, at the cost of being of sounding morbid,

I'm going to put the meditation on death as one of my favorite exercises. So here's the way, so the stories are big on death. Can you be big on death? Yeah, yeah, let me show you how. Let me see, tell you how. So, and in fact, on that one is one of those bits where they actually completely agree with the Epicureans. Death should not be feared. And the reason it shouldn't be feared is because, as Epicureus says, where death is, you are

not. And when you are, she is not. Meaning that you're not going to experience death. That is literally, by definition, the state of lack of consciousness. So you're not going to, don't worry about it. There's no such thing as a, you know, a particular says, don't listen to the priests and the poets for trying to scare you shitless about what happens after the, after the, the, all they want to do is to scare you or to control you.

Don't believe it. Don't, don't be afraid because there's really nothing to be afraid of. Um, you might want to be concerned about the, before you get there, how you get there. But once you get there, there's nothing to worry about. Now, the story has had an interesting positive take on death, Seneca, especially. Seneca wrote a book called On the Shortness of Life.

And the story perspective there is that we ought to live our life more or less as if we didn't know where we're actually going to be, what was our last day going to be. That is, as if we had no idea what we're going to die. Turns out, we don't actually have any idea what we're going to die, right? We have statistical expectations, obviously. I'm 56, I'm a white Caucasian male living in New York, so there's, I can look up actual statistics

and I can tell you what my expectancy, life expectancy is. But of course, I could go downstairs and go grocery shopping and being hit by a car and that's it, that's the end of my season, that's not very considerate. So the point there is if you are aware of the fact that you actually, if you take seriously, because we all know it, but you don't take it seriously.

If you take seriously the fact that, you know what, this might as well be my last day. Okay. Then all sorts of things follow. It's like, so what am I doing here? How am I spending this day watching bad bad television that seems like a bad idea Running and you know, being a good book. Well, that sounds better. You know talking to my friends. Yeah, that's pretty good watching You know, I don't know playing a video game that it's gonna make myself mindless. No, that probably not that good There's an exercise in the book with Greg where we actually ask people say, look, look, list a number of tasks and ask yourself, number of things you do doing a particular

day, and just take a day of your life, and then write down the kind of things you do. And ask yourself two things. Number one, is this meaningful to me? And number two, would I be doing this on the last day of my life? It really puts things in perspective. It's a very, very, very hard question to ask. Right. And so it turns out that you can make a list of these things. And then of course, the notion is to act on that list. So if it turns out, for instance, that being on social media is not the kind of thing you would do And if you knew that this was the last day of your life Then probably that's the kind of thing you want to do less. I can see how this would time with the Epicurians and

slightly hedonic Approach towards towards pleasure and and right they put in the hedonic Perspective the so like it says basically this is a way to restructure your priorities Since your life is short Relatively speaking It certainly finite short is a valid judge is relative is not it's relative but then it's finite You don't have an infinite amount of time and so then the question is, what is the best use of your time, even that it is in fact finite?

Seneca says, you know, we are very concerned when people ask us for money, we keep track, you know, we give a loan to some people, even friends, but we track the money and we say, you know, we're concerned, you know, we're going to get it back. And then people ask us for our time, and we just freely give it as if we had an infinite amount of it, but we don't. Not only we don't have an infinite amount of it, it cannot be repaid. The money can't come back. The time doesn't come back.

So any time that we make a decision like for instance, let me give you a specific example of the conversation we're having right now. Over the last several weeks, I've got a significantly larger number of requests for interviews and chats and things like that. I had to start telling myself, okay, there's a limited amount of time during the week you have to do these things. So you need to be picky. You need to look into who the host is. I'm going to take that as a massive compliment, massive moment.

Take it as a compliment, as that's the way it was meant. Thank you very much. So that's the exercise. I love it. Look, that is five very cool ways to implement stoicism. I got so much more stuff that I want to talk to you about. So I apologize to the other podcasters who are trying to get you on their show,

but I am just going to completely monopolize you, and I'm going to try and get you back on as soon as I can. It's been amazing. Can you tell us, so you've got a number of different books, one of which is more practical, and then another one which... Tell us what books you've got people on the phone. Live like a story in the UK edition is the practical one. It's got these 52 exercises from which people can choose,

you know, sample and see how it works for them. How to be a story is my earlier book, and it's more comprehensive. It includes a story theory, a little bit of history. It also does have exercises, so it has a small number, I think it's about 12 exercises at the end of the book, that people can do to start practicing. So those are the two things that I would recommend in terms of my books.

There is a new one coming out in September, and it's called a field guide to our happy life. And it's basically a rewriting of 21st century updated in rewriting of epithetias and charidian. The charidian is this classic text of ancient stoicism which has been rewritten and updated several times. The Christians used it throughout the Middle Ages as a book of spiritual exercises for instance.

And so I decided that as an homage to epithetias in part, this was time to do a 21st century edition of it. So this is coming out, it, for instance. And so I decided that as an homage to Epititus in part, this was time to do a 21st century edition of it. So this is going on in September. That's amazing. That must have been a very fun project for you to work. Yes, that's definitely. That wasn't, well, selfishly, again, I don't want to have to wait until September to get you on,

but let's get you back on ready for that book. And then if we can get you on in between, brilliant, look links to everything that we've gone through will be in the show notes below, of course, including Massimo's Twitter, which you definitely should go and check out as well. Any questions, comments or feedback just hassle them online or give me a tweet or do whatever it is that you want. If you knew here, like, share and subscribe as always, but for nowimo it's been so good thank you very much. It's been a pleasure man. you