Stoic Wellbeing - This Is Your Second Chance: Stay Present For It

Episode Date: December 23, 2022

It’s that time of year when we encourage each other to slow down, appreciate what we have, and be present with others. But how do we stay in the moment when our minds keep drifting to what’s happening next week, or what occurred 10 years ago? That’s what this episode is about.Sarahmikutel.comDo you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? I created a free Conversation Cheat Sheet with simple formulas you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you’re in a meeting or just talking with friends.Download it at sarahmikutel.com/blanknomore and start feeling more confident in your conversations today.

A lot of us say that we want more meaning in our lives to be part of something greater than ourselves, to feel more connected to other people in the universe. This begins with becoming more connected with who we are and more self-aware of what's unconsciously motivating us. Welcome to Stoic Wellbeing. I'm your host to Sarah Megatel, an American in England who uses stoicism and other techniques to help my coaching clients become more present, productive, and open-hearted. I am here to help you to visit Stoicwellbeing.com to learn more. It's that time of year again when we encourage each other to slow down, appreciate what we have, and be present with others. But how do we stay in the moment when our minds keep drifting to what's happening next week or what occurred 10 years ago?

That is what this episode is all about. My mother and I spent her birthday afternoon kneading dough in a pasta-making class in Bologna, Italy this year. We rolled out Talia teale, we filled tortelloni with ricotta and herbs, and we washed down. everything with Lombusco at lunch in this apartment of a native Bolognese. Later that evening, the eating continued in Reggio Emilia at my friend's house. Annalisa made dinner, and then her entire family joined me in singing happy birthday to my mom who was sitting at the head of the long table. And as I watched the cake being placed down in front of her, candles lit, a time-traveling sensation washed over me. I felt like I was a version of future me from a time when my mother was no

longer with us. I just felt like I was this person who had wished, God, I wish I could just have a few more moments with my mother again to be in her presence. And then here we were. And this was my second chance. And I was totally present and I was totally in the moment and grateful to be with my mom. And I have never felt anything like this before. And I'm going to continue to search and explore how I can feel this feeling again and how I can help other people feel this feeling of presence. Because what would the world be like if we could all be that present with other people? What would your life be like? Marcus Aurelius said, think of yourself as dead.

You have lived your life. Now take what's left and live it properly. Live your life now as if this is the bonus time. You've been given another chance, not just to build your empire, but to truly be here in this world. to be here for those you care about and to leave a positive legacy, enjoy today because the end is near. But most of us don't realize this until it's way too late. Many financially successful entrepreneurs write books later in life. And these books are often warnings to us. Yes, they made millions, billions even. But how they lived their lives wasn't worth it, according to

them, because they didn't live. They forgot to have fun. Their kids didn't know them. What is the point of having a lot of money. More money than you know what to do with. What is the why behind all of that? What is that drive? The Stoics had nothing against money. They say it's neutral. It's an indifferent that could be used for good or bad. Money can be used to feed people or to start wars. But the Stoics have you question your desire for riches. What is the end goal? What are you working for? You may have heard of the five wise exercise, and this was conceptualized by Toyota's founder in the 1930s. state your problem and then ask yourself why. Why is this the way it is? For every new statement that you come up with after asking why, keep asking yourself why and do this five times to get to the root

cause. This idea applies to stoicism as well. For whatever you desire, ask yourself why. Keep asking yourself that question until you get to your true motivation. The Stoics believed we could cut out our ego-based desires and get to our core needs and values. This reminds me of the story about the Mexican fisherman and the investment banker. It's a modern parable you may have heard it, and I will summarize it for you here right now. While walking along a sandy beach in Mexico, an investment banker comes across a fisherman who is packing up for the day. His boat contained several large fish, and the banker said, impressive catch. Why are you leaving so early? And the fisherman, said, well, I already caught what I needed for today. And the banker said, well, what will you do

with the rest of your time? I'll go home and spend time with my wife, go for a walk with my kids, enjoy a good meal, play guitar with my friends. Well, I'm an Ivy League grad and a businessman, and I would be happy to offer you some free advice. You should really stay here and fish longer. That is how you're going to grow your business. Then you can afford a bigger boat, and then you can get a bunch of boats and hire other people to work for you. And then you can move to the city where you can manage your fish empire and you can get involved in production and distribution and meet investors. Well, how long will all this take? About 20 years, but then you could make millions. You will take your business public and sell your shares and you will become very, very rich.

And what would I do with all that money? Well, you can move to a quiet, Mexican beach town, spend time with your wife, go for walks with your kids, enjoy a good meal, play guitar with your friends. The point of the story is, as you can probably guess, the fisherman was already living his best life. He was spending quality time with people he loved. He didn't need to get caught up in making millions for the sake of making millions. What do you really value? What is the end goal? How can you cut out the middleman and go directly to what matters to you? considering these questions helps us minimize distractions so we can focus on the here and now. What do you cherish above all? What is really important? The Stoics said not just to imagine that

our life ended and then we are given another shot, but also to imagine that the things we value are no longer here or that we never had them at all. Marcus said, look at what you have, the things you value most, and think how much you'd crave them if you didn't have them. But be careful. Don't feel such satisfaction. that you start to overvalue them, so much that it would have set you to lose them. End quote. We often take what we already have for granted. The practice of wanting what we already have is an effective twist on expressing gratitude. Imagine you are lacking something that's already in your life and concentrate on how great it would feel if you could obtain it.

Feel into that want. And then be grateful that this is already your reality. And I'm not just talking about material wants, but things like good health, the fact that you have a roof over your head, a warm jacket. What I've talked about so far are cognitive approaches to stay present and stop taking life for granted. From my experience, this can only take you so far. Living in the present moment really requires paying attention to your somatic intelligence, that is, the wisdom of your body. We make sense of our present moment by filtering it through our past experiences. Our bodies are reading the room and sending information to our brains in the form of physical sensations that we feel in our bodies. This is called interoception, your perception of what's happening inside your body

regarding physical sensations like hunger and also emotional sensations, like a shiver down your spine. Have you ever felt like you should be working when you're with your family and friends? Maybe you constantly feel like you have more to do or whatever you're doing, you should really be doing something else. We can get really caught up in our heads this. way. We need to get out of our heads, and here's how. We need to slow down and pay attention to those physical sensations and get curious about what they mean. I can definitely relate to feelings of having too much to do and not enough time, this striving, future-focused, yet still distracted by a lot of busy work, at least for me often. And for me, these physical sensations feel like a tug of war

inside of me, where part of me is pushing forward and another part of me is pulling back and I can feel this war inside of my chest, these sensations. Now, let's say I'm feeling this when I'm walking with a friend. We're walking along the beach and the messages that my body is sending to my brain is this is nice, but you should be at your desk. You should really head home soon. Don't go out tomorrow because you have a lot more to do, this sort of soft alarm. Instead of trying to try to to fight thoughts and sensations like these, we can pause and be mindful of them. We're not trying to suppress them. We're just letting them be in our awareness. Then we can take a deep belly breath to open up and just melt away some of that tension that we're feeling. And then ask ourselves

better questions that connect to our values. Questions like, what is truly important to me? What if this is exactly where I'm supposed to be? Ten years from now, how will I wish I had spent this day? I think this is a really key question that we should be asking ourselves. What if this is the last day I ever spend with this person? Someday it will be. And then hand on heart if you want to really feel those responses. What are you physically feeling when you start to keep,

consider 10 years from now, how will I wish I had spent this day? Chances are if you are on a walk with your friend, you're having a nice time and you really take a moment to be mindful, this is exactly where you were supposed to be. Ten years from now, you are not going to wish you were sitting alone at your desk. So what are you physically feeling when you connect back to what's truly important to you and relax into those loving sensations? Notice what you're feels different from that striving feeling and shifting into those feelings of connection. How is your posture different? Maybe you've relaxed your shoulders and are feeling more at ease. Presence comes when we start working with all three of our intelligence centers, so not just our head and heart, our brain,

and our emotions, but our body as well, our instinctual wisdom. A few years ago, Tim Urban, the blogger at Wait But Why, wrote about how much time he had left based on a lifespan of 90 years. And he drew visual examples. So he had about 60 winters left, which he represented in snowflakes. He had about 20 more ball games left at Fenway Park based on how many times he's gone in the last few years. Time to read about 300 more books. That is nothing. I already have more than 300 books on my list already and I add more all the time. What am I going to read these? We need to be mindful and make plans for these things. Most importantly, Tim talks about relationships, and I'll quote him here. I've been thinking about my parents who are in their mid-60s. During my first 18 years, I spend some

time with my parents during at least 90% of my days. But since heading off to college and then later moving out of Boston, I've probably seen them an average of only five times a year each for an average of maybe two days each time. Ten days a year. About three percent of the days I spent with them each year of my childhood. Being in their mid-60s, let's continue to be super optimistic and say I'm one of the incredibly lucky people to have both parents alive into my 60s. That would give us about 30 more years of coexistence. If the 10 days a year thing holds, that's 300 days left to hang out with mom and dad. Less time than I spent with them in any one of my 18 childhood years. When you look at that reality, you realize that despite not being at the end of your life,

you may very well be nearing the end of your time with some of the most important people in your life. It turns out that when I graduated from high school, I had already used up 93% of my in-person parent time. I'm now enjoying the last 5% of that. time. We're in the tail end. End quote. And that is from Tim's blog article, The Tail End. On the way but why website, you can buy a life calendar, which is a grid of empty boxes. And this is, this grid is also in Tim's article. But this calendar, it's, yeah, it's just a bunch of empty boxes, one box for every week of your life up until the age of 90. And when you cross out the boxes of the weeks you've already lived, you can see an estimate of how much time you have left. So here is the

description for the calendar. We tend to feel locked into whatever life we're living, but this palette of empty boxes can be absolutely whatever we want it to be. Everyone you know, everyone you admire, every hero in history, they did it all with that same grid of empty boxes. The boxes can also be a reminder that life is forgiving. No matter what happens each week, you get a new fresh box to work with the next week. I think this is such a great reminder to live your life, but Tim is not the first person to come up with this concept. In fact, Memento Mori goes back thousands of years and is one of the core ideas that the Stoics talk about. In the 17th century, artists started incorporating hourglasses and skulls and candles about to go out in their

paintings, and this style was also called Memento Mori. Remember You Must Die. There's an artist living in Belgium, and he has created a clock called Short Life, and this shows the percentage of your life that you've already completed based on your life expectancy. Now, reminders like this that we only have so much time left on Earth scare some people, many people, probably most people. We would rather pretend that we're going to live forever. And this is a trap because thinking this way keeps us stuck in our own BS and prevents us from living the lives we truly want to live and seeing the people we really care about. Seneca says that it's not that life is too short, but that we don't use our time while. We waste so much of it. So ask yourself, what's most important to you? If you could create more time to do what you really care about, what would you stop doing today to give yourself that time? What will you start doing to live more in alignment with what you say you care about? I'll end. I'll end. with a few quotes from Marcus. Give yourself a gift, the present moment. People out for a posthumous

fame, forget that generations to come will be the same annoying people that you know now. And just as mortal, what does it matter to you if they say X about you or think why? People find a pleasure in different ways. I find it in keeping my mind clear, in not turning away from people or the things that happen to them, in accepting and welcoming everything I see, and treating each thing as it deserves. Again, that is Marcus Aurelius from the Meditations, and all my Marcus quotes today came from the Gregory Hay's translation. I'm curious, what's something you learned in this episode about staying more present? Put it into practice and share this idea with others. That is the best way to make new ideas stick. That's all for now. Thanks so much for listening,

beautiful week wherever you are. Do you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? I created a free conversation sheet sheet with simple formulas that you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you're in a meeting or just talking with friends. Download it at sarah micotel.com slash blank no more.