Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - Trudging Through Your Own Life? Here's the Stoic Fix | Maria Semple

Episode Date: April 17, 2026

How to do your best work, reframe life's bullshit, and stop making your happiness hostage to outcomes. Maria Semple is the bestselling author of Today Will Be Different, Where'd You Go, Bernadette, and This One Is Mine. Before writing fiction, Maria wrote for TV. Her newest book is called Go Gentle. In this episode we talk about: Cognitive reframing tools to shift your mindset  Maria's daily Stoic routine The limits of Stoicism What to do when mediating gives you anxiety The danger of "baited bounties"  How to "get shit done" with non-attachment Using fantasy as a coping mechanism Related Episodes: Stoic Practices for Getting Rid of Mental Junk, Your Morning Routine, and Talking to the Dead | Ryan Holiday Stoic Advice for Handling Setbacks, Insults, and Death | William Irvine Get the 10% with Dan Harris app here Sign up for Dan's free newsletter here Follow Dan on social: Instagram, TikTok Subscribe to our YouTube Channel Additional Resources:  William Irvine's "A Guide to the Good Life" Join Dan and Emmy Award-winning journalist Allison Gilbert at 92NY on May 17th for a live conversation about how mindfulness can deepen connection and combat loneliness, available in person and via streaming. Register here. Join Dan, Sebene Selassie and Jeff Warren for Meditation Party, a 3-day immersive retreat at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY, October 16–18, 2026. Register here. This episode is sponsored by: Rosetta Stone — Language learning that's immersive and intuitive. Start your journey at https://www.rosettastone.com/happier ButcherBox — 100% grass-fed beef, free-range organic chicken, and wild-caught seafood delivered to your door. New listeners get chicken breasts or top sirloin for a year, or ground beef for life, plus $20 off at https://www.butcherbox.com/happier   To advertise on the show, contact [e-mail] or visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/10HappierwithDanHarris

This is the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey, gang, today we're talking about the enormous power and relief and release that comes from shifting your perspective. One way of putting this is the old saw about how the problem isn't the problem. The problem is how you're relating to the problem. So today we're going to talk about that. We're also going to talk about a whole bunch of other stoic principles, including focusing on what you can control. and letting the rest fall by the wayside, which my guest calls, quote, a major turn on. And we'll talk about the concept of, quote, digging it, baby, no matter what's happening.

My guest is my friend Maria Semple, who's a well-known novelist. She is perhaps best known for her novel, which then turned into a movie called Where'd You Go Bernadette? And now she's got a new novel that's getting a ton of buzz called Go Gentle. I had the opportunity to read it early, and it's incredibly good. And it is filled with stoic principles because the protagonist is an expert on stoicism, which I should have said this earlier, but it's the ancient Greco-Roman philosophy, which itself has become incredibly buzzy in recent years. And Maria herself, as you will hear, is a big stoic enthusiast. That's why she injected the theme into this new novel. Although, as you will also hear her discuss, both she and her protagonist have some questions about the limits of stoic philosophy.

practice. By way of context, I got to know Maria several years ago when I met her and what I'm about to say is supremely bougie. I know it. But when I met her, when we were seated near one another at a dinner party at the TED conference where I was giving a speech, over the subsequent years, Maria and I have become really good friends. I've watched her go through quite a bit in her personal life, including a divorce and a cross-country move. And then, of course, all the labor that you put into this new book. So it's really moving. fun for me to watch this book come out and be so well received, and then to get to interview her right here on this show, where, as you will hear, she did a great job. You're going to love this

conversation. Before we dive in, just real quick, I want to point out that one great way to improve how you handle the problems in your life and in the world at large is meditation, which is why I would love for you to check out my new meditation app, 10% with Dan Harris. As you may know, I had a meditation app for many years and then I went through a painful separation from that app and now I've got this new thing, which I'm really happy about. Many of the same teachers from the old app are on this app, people like Joseph Goldstein, Sabinezlase, Jeff Warren, and more. What's different with this app is not only do we have all the amazing guided meditations, but we're also now leaning into community. We've built in features that allow you to connect with me, with the teachers, with the team,

and with one another. We also do weekly live events with, uh, we're also do weekly live events with a guided meditation and then we take your questions. Head on over to danharris.com to get the app and join the party. The first two weeks are free and if you can't afford it, just let us know and we will hook you up. Okay, we'll get started with Maria Semple right after this. You know what can be good for your brain help? Learning a new language. Engaging in mentally demanding tasks like language learning helps build what's called cognitive reserve. Having that reserve can help your brain function better for longer, even as it ages. Which brings me to one of our sponsors today, Rosetta Stone. Rosetta Stone has been a trusted leader in language learning for over 30 years.

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for Top Surline for a year or ground beef for life, plus $20 off your first box and free shipping always. That's butcherbox.com slash happier. Don't forget to use our link so that they know that we sent you. Maria Semple, welcome to the show. Thank you. I'm excited to be here, Dan. Your book is awesome. Go gentle.

Everybody should read it. I was lucky enough to get an early copy because we're friends. And yeah, just let me start by saying congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. It's exciting for me that it's out in the world now and people are starting to read it. It's very cool. Yeah, it's super cool. I mean, I'll just speak selfishly. Having talked to you throughout, we met each other a couple years ago and just being able to watch you do this thing. In the middle of a period of like real personal tumult on your side. Yeah, it was very cool to watch it from soup to nuts. Oh, thank you. Yeah, to go from, I'm sure we met when I was despairing that the book wouldn't come together and probably. probably also giddy that I was writing the greatest thing ever. It's all, you know, you cover every single thing when you're writing a novel.

It takes years and you kind of feel all the emotions while you're doing it. You had a sign that you put on your computer while you were writing it, and I think it said, dig it baby? Yes. Can you just unpack that? Yeah, so I have a sign that says dig it baby. And what it does for me is it basically tells me that if I'm not loving what I'm writing, I should just get up and walk away and just wait till I dig it.

I'm not going to continue writing unless I fully dig it. The story of that is that many years ago, my former partner and I produced this show together, and he was doing a series of monologues, and he'd never done monologues before in his life, and he'd never performed. And I had gone to a Buddhist meditation retreat, a week of silence. The only time we could speak was when a guy named Scott Kelman, who was an acting teacher, came in and did with us something he called The Work. And it was this, I guess they were acting exercises. I'm still kind of unclear about what an acting teacher was doing in a Buddhist meditation silent retreat. But he came. And he really reminded me of like Roy Scheider and all that jazz when he was playing Bob Vossi.

He was just like a seriously cool cat, this guy. And he would just make us go really deep and kind of stand in front of people and look at them and kind of tolerate being looked at and then all the emotions that came up from it. So maybe there was some kind of Buddhist stuff. I really like this guy. And right before our opening night of this show, George, my ex, was kind of nervous about for the first time going up in front of an audience. And so I said, I think we should bring in this guy, Scott Kelman. I think that he's going to be able to have. help you. So Scott came in and watched George do these monologues. And George stared at this spot like high up on the ceiling and just read and delivered the monologue, his first one. And then Scott said to George, who are you looking at? And George said, well, I'm just looking above everybody because I feel like if I look at anyone, I'm going to get really distracted. Like there's going to be friends of mine in the audience and I don't want to have to look at them because I don't know how to do this. And And then Scott said, okay, I want you to do it again.

And this time, I want you to look people in the eyes and I want you to dig it baby. And I just really like that, the idea of just like look people in the eyes and this time dig it baby. And so that's what I have on my desk. The look people in the eyes is kind of important too because it's about being sincere and wanting to connect and taking a risk in that way. So that's kind of what I like to write by. I love that. I didn't actually know the full story, even though you and I had talked about the sign over dinner several times.

So gives it a lot more color hearing the full story. It feels to me like life advice, not only for the creative act, where those of us who do creative work can fall prey, I think, to the sunk cost fallacy. You know, it's like, oh, I've been working on this for a while, so I've got to finish it, even if it's a slog. I've been there.

But also for like life, for all of life, you know, just whatever we're doing, let's actually dig it. Let's actually be here for it. Absolutely. And just the willingness to commit to things without any other voice in your head, you know, which like the resentment and there's a lot of stoicism and that Seneca writes a lot about it. And as you know, my book has a lot of stoicism in it. But that's a really big thing that there's a lot of quotes about that. I really like, which is just show up and show up with pure gung ho spirit. That's a modern word. They didn't use gung ho back then. But that's what it is. And I do think it is very simplifying,

you know, in a way. You just kind of up to make the decision. I get to do this. That's a thing that I really like instead of, I have to do this. You shift it to. I get to do this. And that's the kind of energy I feel like one should bring to everything. Do you never fall back into a place that I, and I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I feel like too often I'm trudging through my to-do list. And so I'm not digging it. I'm just doing it. Did that ever happen to you? And if so, how do you pull yourself out of trudging to digging?

Well, to-do list is not a good example because I really love getting shit done. I feel like in a way, that's really what writing a novel is for me. It's just this massive to-do list. So I really bring fiendish, joyful energy to... tasks, you know, and having to do anything. So to-do list is not the best thing. I think it might be more working out or something, you know, for me. But so anything that's just like planning, making decisions, planning, coming up with some kind of scheme, I find very creative, actually, even a to-do list of, oh, how am I going to get that done? Who do I call first? Oh, no, maybe I should

call the other person first before this. You know, that's like very happy for me. to be doing all that. And so that's not really hard, but I'd say when I'm doing something I don't really like to do, I really try to think of it as character building. I'm going to go through this and I'm going to be better on the other side and I will be stronger on the other side and kind of grittier maybe on the other side. So that brings joy to it, I think. So what I'm hearing throughout this very young conversation, you know, that we're just starting, is bringing cognitive reframes to stuff. Does that

land for you? Oh, very much so. And in fact, I'm sure talk about the Stoises and that I'm very into, but there was a quote that I was reading that it said that Stoics try to bring the most useful perspective to a situation. And I really

like that because I feel like yes, it's reframing. I feel like everything you can reframe. And I really like the word useful because it's so simple. And it's like, oh, yeah, there's like a useful way of looking at something and there's not. Epictetus says there's two handles by which you can hold a vase, I think is what he's referring to, hold something and hold it by the right handle.

And so I do think that if that reframing is useful, it makes your existence better, and I think that what I really like about it is that it really, to me, activates my imagination. You know, if something like bad has happened, quote unquote, or, you know, I don't get what I want or there's a frustrating person, I actually think it's really fun to just get your imagination, like, fired up and just think like, oh, what's another way of looking at this? Again, then I'm into my, like, to-do list energy, and I'm then excited by, like, psyched about this situation. Like, oh, there's a way that I can reframe this to make it positive. It's amazing the simple power of changing your perspective to alleviate dread, anxiety, anger, whatever. Yeah, it really is. It's kind of crazy that it's so available in a given time.

Like, nothing's keeping you from doing it. You're just 100% in control of it. It's just readily there for the taking should you choose. I think the biggest obstacle is remembering. I think the biggest problem in all of whatever you want to call it, personal growth, self-improvement, spiritual development, whatever. The biggest problem is remembering you can listen to Maria, hold forth on stoicism, which she's about to do. And then, you know, you go through the rest of your day and you're pulled into the tides of forgetting and a ripe opportunity comes up for reframing. You just forget to do it.

Completely. And I think that that's why practice is really important. And I think everything, you know, meditation is a practice and I have a stoic practice. And I think that without a practice, it's just something that makes you like all psyched to change your life. I used to always say, I heard something that changed my life and now I've forgotten it. It's like, and I think that's what you go through if you don't just go through almost like the drudgery of practice. And that's what it's for, right? So you can internalize it.

and that this stuff starts to become second nature or the first, maybe not the first response, because sometimes that's just visceral of just dread or shame or panic or whatever it is, but maybe like very quickly afterwards you can go to the reframing thing. And it almost feels natural. I love what you're saying. And yes, I've been humbled so often when taking the Buddhist or stoic or psychologically wise approach is the eighth reflex on my part after a million. and other less constructive roots, but at least it's in there.

Yeah, and the damage is done, right? And it's like, oh, Jesus, now all these apology emails I have to write and all of this shit, you know? So I almost think on just a basic level, that's why you should do it. It just like saves you a lot of time. Yeah. I have a phrase that I like that I say, the low road always dogs you. It just makes life a lot easier not to have taken the low road. Yes.

Because it will stay with you. Yep. The Laura Road can be really fun for a few delicious nanoseconds. The best. Let's talk about stoicism. So the protagonist in your new novel, which again is called Go Gentle and is phenomenal, is an expert in stoicism and has written books about it and is a teacher of it. And this is based, as I understand it, in your own deep personal interest in stoicism.

So I'd be interested in hearing your story. How did you get interested in stoicism? What is it for those of us who are uninitiated? Okay, so I got into stoicism maybe 12 years ago or so, and I think I just read about it in the New York Times, and I read a book about it. William Irvine wrote a book called, I don't know, we can look it up in the show notes or whatever.

He's been on this show, so I'll put the episode, I'll put a link to that episode. Okay, the Guide to the Good Life, I think that's his, William Irvine. It's just this really great intro to stoicism. And I read it and was really turned on. What turned me on initially was this perspective thing. But the basis of it, as I understand it, is that there's things that you can control. There's things that you can't control.

Your job is to only focus on what you can control, and that's virtue. And everything else you just cheerfully throw over to fate. And so that sounds suspiciously like the AA Serenity, you know, and a lot of other kind of systems. And it was formulated 300 BC, you know, by the Greeks. And it's kind of crazy that it's so old and it really is only focus on what you can control. Cognitive behavioral therapy is very much rooted in stoicism. And so I think for anybody in any program, the first time you hear something like that,

or let them, right? The Melrod, you know, just like, let it, like whatever is going on, whatever people, whatever is going to happen in the outside world. It's not your business. Just concern yourself with yourself. It's really energizing and it's a super turn on. And again, it's one of those things where you're like, yeah, my life is going to be different. I'm now going to live this really happy superior life. And so I started reading the Stoics themselves, Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. And I just kind of invented this program for myself because I didn't know anyone who was a Stoic or anyone who was into it. And so I just started every day sitting down and reading stoicism and

figuring out my philosophy of life and writing it down and doing these journal exercises that I kind of created for myself. And that's how I start every day. And it's really fun. It's actually very hard to tear myself away from it. You know, and then I read some of the, I don't know, I just like putter around with my stoicism and get very happy and focused, you know. And it's like, to me, it really helps one of the things I do. It's like clarify your purpose. That's a big thing in stoicism. What am I going to do that day? What is today about? What virtue? And the word virtue is kind of problematic because it sounds churchy or whatever. But it's the four virtues, I think they're Plato, is wisdom, courage, justice, and temperance. So it's not judgy. It's just about your own character.

So then I got really into it and I'm still into it. It's kept alive in me for all these years. So the turn on here, I just want to dig into this, is there's something, if I'm hearing you correctly, really invigorating and empowering about focusing on what you can control and letting everything else fall to the wayside. Exactly. And the more you kind of study it and learn about it, the more wisdom you see in it, the more wisdom you see in it, the more you really. you really see that there's actually nothing outside of yourself you can control when you really start looking at it that way. So it really positively reinforces things. Then there's the reframing that's fun that I think is good and easy. And then pretty soon, I mean, you've gone through this

with your meditation practice is you'll be in a situation and you'll just kind of notice that you have just experienced that in a very, not very, maybe even a slightly different way. then you might have a year before where it just doesn't stress you out or cause you anxiety. And you're like, oh, wow, I think something must have worked along the way. I don't quite know how, but there's been a shift. And I have a much more peaceful existence. Coming up, Maria talks about her own daily stoic routine, what stoicism actually is, and what to do when meditation gives you anxiety.

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That's night and day decor.com. Tell me about this morning practice that you do. Can you just really walk us through? Because it sounds like you've invented it. And so Pete, there isn't some workbook people can buy. So can you just give us the steps in case we want to replicate it for ourselves? Yes. Oh, shoot.

I wish I brought my stoic book with me. I almost did. It's this little book that's now about 60 pages long that I've rewritten about 15 or 20 times, that I keep writing and improving and then going back to Kinko's and having them print up a new one and put a little coil binder on it and then do it, you know, when it gets too marked up, I make a new one. And so I start out by writing down my philosophy of life, which is my goal for today is to bring my actions, desires, and thoughts into line with my philosophy of life. My philosophy of life is virtue equals freedom. Virtue is the only good. It's

Pursuit is the only guarantee of abiding good cheer, secure joy, and a tranquil mind. So that took like 10 years for me to write, okay? So like that's my philosophy of life. And so I write that down every day to remind myself. And then I go to the four virtues, and I have adjectives listed next to the virtues. And if it's like wisdom, I'll go to one of my adjectives next to wisdom, you know, sound judgment or something. because wisdom really is about just separating what you can control from what you can control. And then justice is about, there's a lot of kind of meta in that, friendliness, benevolence.

It's not about like being a justice warrior. It's about just like being a good human being to others. Then there's courage, which is like about work, and it's like love of work. There's a lot about like not falling in with the mob, you know, about like moral, courage, about endurance. And then under temperance, it's about kind of discipline, patience, speaking less, speaking kindly. I kind of pick little subcategories of virtues that I need to work on that day. And then I journal all this out. I journal it out. And then it's like clarify my purpose. I figure out what my purpose is that day. And then there's a,

like a list of prompts. I think today I did, I get to do this. That's what I did. I was like, I get to go and talk about my book with Dan. Like, this is really amazing that I get to do this. You know, like I love Dan. Like, there's a podcast studio down the street in my publisher's house that's all set up. You know, that's like all this good stuff is happening. And it's about not like, oh, fuck, I got to go do this thing with Dan. And I was, you know, it's like, because it could. I love you. But you know what I'm saying? We all can just slide into that. So it's basically just like reframing it.

So it's really positive. And then I'll read the Stoics and then I read other philosophy. I'm reading some Rousseau now. I'm trying to, I'm not trying to, but I enjoy branching out a bit. And then I'm like ready to write. This is so interesting. I just want to, for anybody who wants to do a bootleg version of this for themselves, it sounds like, roughly speaking, the exercise begins.

by restating what your life philosophy is. And then the next click deeper is, how does that apply to what you're going to do today? Yes. And then you do some reading, what might be an cheesely called inspirational reading of stoic philosophers, et cetera, et cetera. And then it culminates in some sort of journal prompt

around how am I going to, back to today, how am I going to apply one aspect of this very rich philosophical tradition to what's on my docket for today? Did I roughly restate that correctly? Yeah, no, that's exactly it. And then you're like, let's go, let's go do this thing. You know, here's the important thing, is that I've set it up so that every single thing that I set out to do was 100% of my control. For instance, when I was coming down here, it wasn't like what I wanted to do today. it wasn't like, I want Dan to love me.

I want to sell a million books on the podcast. I want to become like an influencer. It was like, I want to be on time. I don't want to interrupt. I feel like I have. So I'm going to go into a shame spiral. But try not to interrupt. Try not to swear.

And those were like the only three things I really intended to do today. Right were those three things. And I'm like maybe B plus or something. But it was like I wanted to be professional. like love of work, I wanted to show up with my full self. And so that's what's really fun about it. It's not like you set out for the day to like write a bestselling novel. It's because you can't control that. You set out for the day to do like a good day of work and to focus and to concentrate and not to just like waste your time on the internet and take naps and things like that. That's what's kind of so fun about it. And that it's like you only desire what's in your control. That's like a really big thing. And that's like actually quite radical, is to shift, and that's why in my top half of my philosophy of life, is it's like to line up my desires, thoughts, and actions. Those are the three disciplines, I think, of stoicism. It's thoughts,

desire and action. But desire is really the big one, which would be a very good segue to my book and my character, but I feel like you want to keep talking about stoicism so we can put a pin in the segue. No, no, no. I want to follow your lead here. Okay. Because actually, I think it doesn't take us far afield from stoicism because your protagonist starts the book in Act 1 in this state of feeling like she's got it all figured out in

in many ways she does. Right. And she's, and I just interrupted. There we go. So it's like, now I just, okay. But did that see you're a friend? That's the problem is I feel like if I didn't. know you. Friends, apparently, I steamroll over and I don't even care. That's like what it is to be a

friend of mine. But so she basically is figured out that the key to life is to desire only what she has. Her name is Adora Hazard. She's a recently divorced woman who's moved to New York with her teenage daughter, very similar to my story, lives on the Upper West Side. And she has kind of figured out that if you desire what you have, then you're happy. And so she's set up this really fantastic life for herself. She's single. She assumes that she'll never find love because she's kind of later in life, so she doesn't desire love. She desires the company of her friends, and she lives on the seventh floor of an apartment building and a lot of other single women live in the other apartments, and they call themselves the coven. It's like the best smartest people, her favorite people in the world, and they kind of share Netflix. pass words and do things and the ideas when they get old, they'll all just like take care of each other. And she's the moral tutor to a very wealthy eccentric family who lives on Fifth Avenue and particularly to their twin boys. And so after they go to their private school and they're wearing

their uniforms, they come back with all their really terrible, like, status obsessed values. She has to sit there and kind of talk them through it and try to like do moral training for them. And so she's quite, you know, pleased with herself, I should say, which is kind of one of the digs against philosophers. You know, it's like the arrogance of the philosopher. It's like the Christians, that's how they, when Christianity came along, they would talk about how, you know, philosophers who were kind of running rampant until Christianity believe that reason could solve everything. You know, you didn't need faith. So they got, I guess, a bad rap because they didn't believe in faith. They just thought, no, I have everything I need to solve all the problems. And so there

was kind of an arrogance to it. Even though Adora is not particularly arrogant, I did just kind of write it just with a little flavor of being pleased with herself. So then what happens is early on, she meets a handsome stranger at the ballet, a man at the ballet, and he pulls her into this kind of international mystery. And Adora kind of realizes that maybe desire that she hasn't snuffed it out as well as she thought she did, that in fact, there is something like a flame that is burning inside of her. And this guy awakes it, and then this whole plot awakes it, and then we go back and learn about what happened to her and why she turned to stoicism and why, like, character became very important to her and the story she'd been telling herself. And so it's a, my books are crazy. It's a pretty

crazy plot, but it's very philosophy-heavy, which is this aspect of exactly how this book is crazy. Is it in the end something of a repudiation of stoicism then? You know, it's kind of interesting is that I think that one of the things that's to me interesting is that stoicism doesn't love chaos. And I kind of like chaos, you know, like you say, oh, I love the low road. You don't really love the low road. But I mean, it's like kind of asking you not to be human, to not want to like lust or just like give into your appetites or do the wrong thing and feel good, sending a hundred angry text and becoming completely unhinged in the moment. Like, that is being human, you know? And so I feel like there's certainly a denial of that in stoicism, a stoic sage. And so, and I think love is, especially in the

early stages, as I was writing about in my book, it's just by definition chaotic and you're unhinged and you're desiring what you don't have and you'll do anything to get it and to keep it and all of that kind of good, great shit that love is. And so I think at the end she kind of is still a stoic but maybe has modified it a little bit. Where are you with stoicism? I love stoicism, but I will say I'm also kind of now

getting into Nietzsche who really hated the stoics. Tia's his own set of problems, but there's something about just the creative will that I think is just really fascinating. But I will always, I don't know that I will ever not do my stoic practice because it really does make me feel good. It's just now a practice. Do you meditate like every morning, Dan? Do you start out the day? It really depends on the day.

Okay. So I feel like I certainly don't feel this when I meditate, which is why I rarely meditate, but I don't feel good when I meditate. You know, like I feel bad when I meditate, I will say, sorry, I know this is a meditation podcast. It's supposed to be. But I mean, I just judge myself too much, you know, and it's like, Ben, I get anxious. I have all this anxiety. And I think stoicism just at least makes me feel good while I'm doing it. I'm not just sweating with shame while I'm doing it.

Sorry, is this not a good thing to say on this podcast? No, no, there's no such thing of bad thing to say on this show. And it's not really, I mean, we talk about meditation and Buddhism a lot, but it's really about we've done tons on stoicism. We do sleep. And it's all aspects of life. Maybe this is a little bit cute what I'm going to say. I do want to get back to stoicism and your take on that and what you said about Nietzsche, which I need to learn more about because I don't fully understand. But just to respond to what you said about meditation, which is very common, the experience you're describing. And the cute part is I do want to reframe it. I can for you, that maybe this will be helpful. And this is not designed to browbeat you into meditating. It's just to help change the way you and some others think about it. The point of meditation is not to feel any kind of way. The point is to be cool with whatever you're feeling. And that leads to a kind of meta-equanimity where you realize that whatever comes up externally or internally, you can handle it because you've sat with it, sat with all the ugliness of your mind,

and survived. One of my favorite little aphorisms, it's a coinage of Joseph Goldstein, who I know you're familiar with, my favorite meditation teacher, and he often tells people, it's okay, which does not mean everything's okay. It just means it's okay to feel whatever you're feeling right now. And that creates a kind of equanimity that allows you to navigate all life's ups and downs with more skill. Does that make sense what I'm saying? No, it does.

And then you bring that into everything. Then there's just kind of a general benevolence that then you will greet the day and other people with, right? Once you kind of give it to yourself, I can really see that. I have the same issue you have, which is anxiety, is I feel like when I sit to mess. meditate my heart races. It feels like it wouldn't be racing if I weren't meditating. So why am I putting myself in the situation? You know, maybe you have an answer for that. I do a two-part answer. Two-part answer. One is you can think about it like first, well, before I give you the two-part answer, I want to signal again. I know. I know you've never,

you've never been the seller, the peddler. I know. Thank you. Two-part answer. One is you can think of it as a kind of exposure therapy. The anxiety is a prominent and a massively salient feature of your mind and my mind. And whether we meditate or not, it's going to be there. And so meditation is a way to kind of learn to work with this gnarly inconvenience psychological feature or bug more skillfully. So that's one answer. The second answer is there are types of meditation that I think go right at anxiety. In particular, you use this word.

before meta, not M-E-T-A, like the name of the company that owns Instagram, but M-E-T-T-A, which is a kind of benevolence or friendliness. And that style of meditation where you systematically envision certain people send them good vibes, including yourself, which can be very cheesy, as you know, it was designed by the Buddha, it is said, as an antidote to fear. And it makes sense. Love is kind of the opposite of fear. And so if you can just, generate that skill of warmth and passion, it pulls you out of spirals of fear and anxiety. So that's my two-part answer. Okay, so I love the meta practice. Okay, it's like a drug. I just feel like a runner's high after I do it. So here's my question. If like my practice was to

sit down in the morning and listen, do you have it on your app? I'm imagining a meta practice? Okay. So let's say go to your app and I do meta every morning. That feels like cheating for me as meditation. Like I have this idea that I need to sit there and empty my thoughts. And if something goes by, watch it like a cloud or whatever. And then, but could I just every morning do a metta practice? Like if you guide me or another teacher, I'd like literally listen to a tape, but I'm not alone quietly with my thoughts.

Yes, a million percent. You can do exactly what you're describing. And just to say on the clearing your mind thing, that's impossible. And that's a pernicious misconception that people. carry into their meditation practice that makes it miserable because they're trying to do an impossible thing. So there's no cheating. Another Josephism is whatever works. Do what works. If doing no meditation is what works for you, I want you to do no meditation. If doing some meditation of a specific variety is what works for you, then do that. Okay. God, you know, I'm actually going to do this.

I'm going to do like a 10-day metta practice because I love the metta practice. like I say. So I'd go into it without dread. I'd be like, oh, yeah, I get to sit down and, like, send good wishes to the stranger, which I love doing. Okay, and I'll report back. Coming up, Maria talks about the limits of stoicism, the danger of baited bounties. I'll let her explain what that is. How to get shit done with non-attachment, using fantasy as a coping mechanism, and much more. Spring has a way of reintroducing your home to the light. The day stretch a little longer. Mornings feel softer. Your home opens up after a long winter. But with more light comes more glare, more heat, less privacy.

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stoicism's reputation as kind of clinical and reasonable, is missing the warm and gooey piece that is the inevitable result, I believe, of loving kindness practice. Right. I mean, there's a lot to be said here and you can pull quotes and, you know, like I say, justice is really about friendliness and being compassionate and the difficult people that you give love to and all of that. But I don't really think that's what it's about. Like, I think if you really wanted to defend stoicism that you could say, oh, no, it's in the way. It's in the It's all in there. It is pretty cold. It is pretty purely rational. And I think it is rational to love people and to be kind to people and to embrace difficult people. But in stoicism,

it's like rooted in rationality. They say it's part of being human. So maybe that gets a little closer, you know, that that's what being a human is and we have to get along with people and what is it? What's good for the hive is what's good for the bee or what's good for, I don't know, what B is good for the hive or whatever it is like we all have to work together in the system. But no, it's not. And I'm not an expert. I mean, I spend a lot of time on it, but I certainly don't hold myself out an expert. We should get Ryan Holiday on the phone because he would have a good answer for this. But I think that the just about being purely loving, I'm not seeing that in the text of Stoicism. You know, just like running around joyfully and giving love. Yeah, just to say about Ryan Holiday, he's been on the show several times. I'll put a link to my interview. In the show notes, I'll put a link to my interviews with Ryan. And I'm sure he would have a lot to say on this subject.

But getting back to you and your main character, Adora, it seems like while you and Adora both continue to love and practice, stoicism, there is this addition of a little bit. more messiness and warmth and wild love that you're innovating on top of it? Yes, and just allowing that. And, you know, I'll tell you something that I was writing, but was kind of one of the sparks for writing the book, or there's this section in the middle of the book that's going into a door's past.

And one of the things that I really love about stoicism or not I wanted to write about, and particularly as it pertain to me, is that I realized as I was studying stoicism that I'd never thought about my personal character, which was really horrifying to me, that I was raised Catholic, but I feel like they didn't talk about character. They just talked about like miracles that Jesus did, and if you didn't believe it, you'd have to, like, say more Hail Mary's. It was not a good priest I went to, apparently. I didn't learn about just being in control of your character and always doing the right thing and having moral courage and separating that out from kind of status seeking and what society is telling you will make you happy.

You know, all the bainted bounties, as we've called them before, of just success and reputation and money and all that stuff. I realized that as I started getting into stoicism, that I was, I had just kind of internalized all this garbage without really thinking about it. And so that's really what I wanted to write about was kind of character, that Adora kind of felt like she had bad character because she wanted kind of the wrong things. You know, she was like I was. I conveniently made her a former TV writer in Hollywood as I was. And she was younger when she did it, as was I, she was chasing all these things that society tells you we're going to make you happy. And so I think one of my real turn-ons with stoicism was just kind of separating out all of that stuff, questioning that. The stoics go really hard at that does not make you happy.

You know, that is like the path of suffering to pursue any of that. get it, it's going to make you miserable. And so that's just something I hadn't heard. That's like really fresh and new, you know, if you're just sitting around mindlessly munching down, you know, just the messages of society. It's like, oh, wow, there's another way. And I don't have to be a toxic person hearing this stuff around with me. And so that's kind of a Dora's journey as well, you see, and that was really fun for me to write about. What was the term you used bainted bounties? I used that. You don't remember at dinner once a few months ago, and you really liked it. So I was giving you another shot out of Dan. That's so embarrassing. My memory is like a Swiss cheese. But so... No, it doesn't matter. It was so minor. No, no. It's what Seneca calls things that get dangled in front of you. Stoics call them externals, that anything that's outside of your control and often you desire them. The baited bounties are basically like riches or something.

that you think like, oh, it's bountiful, but it's like baited with treachery or with negativity, and you think you're going for something that's going to make you happy, but it's actually something that you snap at. So that, I probably said this at dinner, and don't remember that either, but... Right, that's okay. The Buddha talked about the terrible bait of the world. Oh, okay, that's what it is, the baited bounty, yeah. It's all the same stuff.

He also said what the world calls happiness, odd calls suffering. and what the world calls suffering, I call happiness. And so it's all about the downside of desire. He's not anti-pleasure, but he describes it, and this is quite a simile here, as being like licking honey from the edge of a razor. Oh, okay. Ouch. Okay. So there's, yeah, we need to eat and reproduce and lots of, he's not saying we need a completely monkish, although he was a monk life.

it's that if that's where you're placing all of your hope for happiness and fulfillment, it is unlikely to provide. Right. And that's what this is. The Stoics have one of my favorite terms just because it's so clunky and it's so like such a bad translation, but I don't know how else to do it. So I think it's Seneca mainly who says that you can want money and pleasure and reputation, but that if you get it, you have to get it without attachment.

You know what I'm saying? As long as you're not attached to it, you can have it, which was convenient for him because he was like the richest man in the empire. So we had to come up with a workaround, right, about like, I'm sitting near my robes, you know, with all of my enslaved people around me. So how do I circle that square? He puts externals, which, again, is anything that's not your character into two categories. and he calls externals indifference, I-N-D, I-F-F-E-R-E-N-T-S, right? Indifference. They are like an

indifference. And he says that there are preferred indifference, which is like comfort and pleasure and money, and then there's dispreferred indifference. And I just think that's a really funny term as a disprepared indifference. So when something really bad happens, I'm like, that was a disperferred indifferent. That these things that happen, you can, you still can want good things to happen to you. You know what I mean? And I think that that does allow for humanity because we are human. I want my book to do well. And I don't think that that makes me like a shallow, bad person, that I want people to read my book. I want it to get out in the world. If my whole sense of tranquility doesn't hinge on that, then that's okay.

It is to go back to the edge of the razor. It's a very narrow path. that I hear you describing, which is you don't want to deny your humanity. You're a person who has spent several years working to create this beautiful book. So you want it to do well. You can't help that. You want it to do well. And you're doing these morning rituals that help you sanely tune into the fact that if you want things that are beyond your control, that is a reliable wellspring of unhappiness. Exactly.

And so during the day, if I'm writing, I want to focus, I want to just try to do the best work I can. And then at the end of the day, I'm happy. And I guess that it is like a matter of faith, or not happy, but it's like I've done what I set out to do so I don't have this whole extra thing of like being miserable from not achieving that. And then, you know, you put enough of them together. And then you've got a product, I guess. That's kind of the faith that you have to do, that it's not just about wanting. the success of it. I want to finish a book. You know what I'm saying? Like I'm not pretending that I don't want to finish a book. I'm not just like totally floating in non-attachment. I mean, I always find,

I'm sure I've talked to you about this, is how do you get shit done with non-attachment, right? How do you get through the day? And we both are accomplished people and we obviously value finishing books, right, and having like crazy projects that we've seen of fruition. And that takes a lot of self-will, right? It takes a lot of determination and desire and a lot of fueled by fantasy, you know, in my case. And that's all like danger zone, danger zone. You do need that. Now, how do you balance that?

I don't know. I guess I go back to my practice, but I really believe that fantasy kind of kept me alive when I was a kid. I was a really lonely kind of unhappy kid and unpopular and I was fat and the bullies would beat me up and I would just really prefer my own company and I would just create these really elaborate fantasy scenarios, usually involving celebrities being in love with me. But it was, you know, these like very happy worlds that were just like highly determined. And I would just just have to be at school or something, or I would be like in my fantasy world in the middle of like literally dialogue. And then it would be like, hold that thought. I have to go to class and like

come back and pick up right where I left off, you know. And I used to love like being alone. And I grew up in Aspen, Colorado. And I would always like to be the single on the chairlift, you know, like, I always hated it when I'd be in the chairlift line. I always like kind of pretend I was with somebody and just like get on the chairlift by myself. Because It was just so happy for me to sit on this chairlift by myself. I would kind of hope the chairlift would stop so I could just sit there and just like live very intensely in this fantasy world. And so I think that's what made me a novelist.

It made me able to kind of sustain my attention over a long time. It made me create scenarios that were extremely pleasurable to me. And I think that that was a value that I bring to my books that I write. You know, I try to write like really nice places for people to go, even though it's like filled with ideas and suffering in some ways. Like generally, I really want to offer someone this very kind of overdetermined happy world that they can live in for a while. So I'm not going to renounce fantasy, that kind of fantasy life. I think it's good. Well, to my area, where you've done this beautiful thing, I think the term for this is.

sublimation, I think, maybe like of taking this difficult aspect of your childhood and then you had this survival mechanism of the fantasy and now you've turned it into art that is a service to the world. Oh, well, thank you. Yes. I mean, that's a nice way of looking at it. Thank you. One last thing to say as we wind down here about this balance of trying to do big and meaningful and important and beautiful things in the world without being overly attached. One of the biggest sources of wisdom in my life is the CEO of our little company. Her name is Tony. We were at a meeting recently about my next book and planning a bunch of stuff.

And I think she could sense that I was getting revved up and crazy. And she said, just keep in mind that good enough is pretty amazing. And I just, I was like, I want to get that tattooed on my forehead. good enough, it's pretty amazing. If this project is just fine, you know, is good enough, you know, it doesn't have to, like, put a dent in the universe. It's going to be pretty amazing for the people who read it, for my company, for me, for my family, and that's sanity-inducing for me. Very much so. Yeah, I totally agree.

And that something recently that's similar that I think you can definitely relate to because I know you've been working on your book for a while. And I haven't written a book for 10 years. This is my first book in 10 years. So I'd taken a lot of attempts, abandoned novels, tried this one, and it didn't work out, and abandon it, tried other things. A friend of mine recently is having a book come out at the same time, mine is. At lunch said to me, what do you want from this book? We were both like really pre-pub, and she's like, what do you want from this book? And I thought about it, and I thought, I want to have written this book.

No. It's so, I'm really, that's like, I'm so happy I wrote the book that everything else is gravy, you know, and right? I mean, don't you feel so proud, Dan, that you're going to have written this fucking book finally? Yes, I need to do a better job of occupying that space because it's very easy for me to get into the realm of not being indifferent and trying to control things that I can't control. Mm-hmm. But I don't know, I think by working hard. And doing your best work, that does really set you up for being able to let go a little bit. Yes. You know, it's the only way to do it. Yes. The Buddhists call it non-attachment to results that you can work incredibly hard on a book or your child as both of us are parents or anything, any project.

You can work really hard on it. That's what you can control. But then you release it into an entropic universe and you have to do your best to be non-attached. Yeah, yeah. Definitely. Before I let you go, can you just remind everybody of the name of the book? And then also your past books just for people who want to take a deeper dive. Oh, thank you.

So this book is called Go Gentle. It's called. It's a novel. And the other books that I've written, the one that people would know more than the others is called Where Do You Go, Bernadette? I think that was your gateway book, Dan, into my universe. I wrote a book called Today Will Be Different. and one called This One is Mine. And so Go Gentle is my fourth book.

I feel very fortunate to be able to be talking about it. So thank you. Where'd you go, Bernadette was my gateway, but I had met you before that. I met you and didn't know anything, really. And I just liked you. And then I was at a book sale at my kids' school and saw that, Where'd You Go, Bernadette was available. So I bought it, read it, and loved it.

And then we stayed being friends. Exactly. That was a really awesome text that I still remember getting from you. That was like a year later. Like, hey, by the way, I read that book. I was so happy. That was very nice of you. Thank you for texting me.

Yeah. I sent a similar text after I read Go Gentle, which in my opinion is even better. Where'd you go, Bernadette? That was amazing. This is even better. So you just keep getting better. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. Maria, thanks again for coming on. Thank you, Dan. This is fun. Thanks again to Maria Semple. Don't forget to check out her book. Go Gentle. Also, don't forget to check out my meditation app if you're into that kind of thing. Danharris.com is the place to get it. There's a 14-day free trial if you want to try before you buy.

And if you can't afford it, just let us know. We'll hook you up. Finally, thank you very much to everybody who works so hard to make this show. Our producers are Tara Anderson and Eleanor Vasili. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our managing producer, Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer, DJ Kashmir is our executive producer, and Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme.