The Daily Stoic - Daily Stoic Sundays: How to Feel Like You Have Enough

Episode Date: June 28, 2020

In today’s episode, Ryan discusses how to feel satisfied with what life has brought you—whatever that may be—using the wisdom of the Stoics.This episode is brought to you by the Theragun. The new Gen 4 Theragun is perfect for easing muscle aches and tightness, helping you recover from physical exertion, long periods of sitting down, and more—and its new motor makes it as quiet as an electric toothbrush. Try the Theragun risk-free for 30 days, starting at just $199. ***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow @DailyStoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/ryanholidayInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanholiday/Facebook: http://facebook.com/ryanholidayYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic. Each weekday, we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoic, something that can help you live up to those four stoic virtues of courage, justice, wisdom, and temperance. And here, on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview stoic philosophers, we reflect, we prepare. We think deeply about the challenging issues of our time. And we work through this philosophy in a way that's more

possible here when we're not rushing to worker to get the kids to school. When we have the time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with our journals, and to prepare for what the future will bring. Raising kids can be one of the greatest rewards of a parent's life. But come on, someday, parenting is unbearable. I love my kid, but is a new parenting podcast from Wondry that shares a refreshingly honest and insightful take on parenting. Hosted by myself, Megan Galey, Chris Garcia, and Kurt Brownleur, we will be your resident not-so-expert experts. Kingailey, Chris Garcia, and Kurt Brown all are, we will be your resident not so expert

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the hardest job in the world, listen to, I love my kid, but wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. Don't tell yourself you will be happy when you do X or when you get Y. That is like the most insidious lie in the world. I'm sure you can tell your audience. Like it's like you have accomplished things

that you would have absolutely killed for, like 15 or 20 or even a couple of years ago, right? How did it actually feel to get it? Yeah, yeah, it doesn't. Doesn't feel like anything. It feels the same. Yeah, the only way I know to get it. Yeah, yeah, it doesn't. Doesn't feel like it feels the same. Yes, yeah, the only way I know to describe it is you don't like walk through life with changing states. Yes, you sort of stay in this bubble and life moves.

Does that make any sense? So the goal is to strengthen my bubble. Yeah. And that will project me further into life because you don't. If you're always feeling like someone has something better than you, I bought a Lamborghini when I was 26 from my birthday. Yeah. What that cost you?

I don't even remember $200,000. Okay. Right? And I always felt like, gosh, look at all these guys with their cars. I'm going to get that when I get enough money. The week after, I was looking at the person who had the nicer Lamborghini. And at two years later, I bought a Rolls Royce. I was looking at the person who had the nicer Lamborghini, and two years later I bought a Rolls-Royce. I was looking at the guy who had the newer Rolls-Royce.

Like, you always live in that state of trying to get somewhere if that's what's pushing you to get there. And you were anxious about having the Lamborghini. It's not as fun as you, it's all also disappointing. Did we talk about that? No, no, we should say it. But I think it's funny, it's also like, how did it feel to get a beard? Yeah. That's like well you didn't get a beard you grew a beard slowly over time

So you there was never a day where you're like no beard beard. Yeah, right? It's a process out of an hype Yeah, I was 16. You got this beard on my face. I'm like what as someone who who cannot grow a beard I would but yes, yes, no that but you'd go like, oh, okay, it's, it's a process. So you never get there. And so the point is not like, oh, so you never feel good. So it's not worth having a Lamborghini or it's not worth being successful. No, that's not the point. Is that can you do it for a better reason?

Like, can you do it running on a cleaner fuel? Like, can you go like, I really like cars. I have $200,000. I'm not going to spend it on anything else. I'm going to buy Lamborghini, right? That's different than I won't feel like the loser kid from school if I have the Lamborghini or like, my dad will be proud of me if I win a gold medal. Yeah. No. If your dad is not already proud of you, no amount of accomplishments is going to get that for you. If you don't feel comfortable

about around women, let's say, you're not gonna feel comfortable around women ever unless you work internally on yourself. It's no, being a billionaire is not gonna solve that problem. It might make you sort of creepily able to pretend you don't have that problem. But it won't, being famous is not going to fill the hole to creepily able to pretend you don't have that problem. But being famous is not going to fill the hole in your soul.

Only working on your soul will fill that problem. You cannot solve internal problems with external accomplishments. You can still have external accomplishments, and I hope that you do. But that distinction is very important because people end up, people blow their brains out because they go, oh, this is all there is. And it's like, no, this is what happens when you try to solve a problem with a solution that has nothing to do

with the problem. Yeah. The sort of Zen metaphor is that like on the surface, the ocean looks calm, but beneath there's currents. You know, there's Rick Riptides. This kind of what they saw is like craving and desire. It's like that it threatens to disturb the stillness that you have. So I think Tiger Woods is a fascinating example of someone who like mentally on the golf

course and physically on the golf course and physically on the golf course complete mastery, but spiritually clearly was, you know, wrestling with some very dark demons, right? And I mean, I think one of the saddest things I found out in my research is that his dad referred to the idea of enough as the e-word. Like there was never enough. And that's such a horrible lesson to teach a kid. It's not that winning isn't great

and that you shouldn't strive to be the best that you can be, but the idea that you can never be satisfied, that you'll never feel good, that only weaklings ever feel content is a horrible thing. Right, that's horrible. That's like a, ever feel content is a horrible thing, right? That's horrible. That's like a, if you were trying to create a formula for misery, that's literally what you would come up with. I tend to think of pushing or doing in being or stillness.

It's kind of opposites. And I think what you do in the book, really a nice job of is these things are not necessarily opposite, and you can have a life where you are pushing, but you're also very still. And I look at you on this toward, we'll get personal about it. You are clearly in pushing mode right now. Literally, yes.

Absolutely. And I'm curious how you incorporate stillness in that, and also in your research in writing this book, how you came with a definition of stillness that isn't just secluding yourself in the monastery for long periods of time, but stillness that is very much integrated with productivity doing pushing. Well, that's the kind of stillness that I'm interested in.

I'm interested in not the person who retreats from the world, but someone who manages to find peace inside a very busy world. Marcus really talks about this. He says, you know, if people want to flee to the mountains or to the beach or, you know, to the beautiful ruins, but he says, you can actually find this by looking inside yourself.

So again, that's something I missed the first read and probably at 19, you know, made no sense to me. But as you get older and you do more stuff, you realize, oh, wait, that's sort of, that's the point of all this. Kennedy is great, right? And the Cuban Missile Crisis is all about self-control discipline, but also he cheated on his wife with his ridiculous fans during the 13 days.

Like, instead of being home with his family, the world's about to end. He's like, let me hook up with a college girl. That's not power. That's slavery. You know what I mean? Like, that guy is not in control of himself. That's what addiction looks like. And we think we can keep those fears of our life separate.

You don't think about how it's going to feel having sex. You think about that period right after you have it. You're like, the guilt, you know, the lying that you're gonna have to do the significant other. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So if you can flash forward, you go, okay, I don't need this.

This is my mind lying to me, saying that this is gonna be amazing, and it won't be. But I think you have to experience that to know that. Of course, of course. And that, like sometimes you gotta get that award or make that money or do that accomplishment and go, oh, it's not what I thought.

And then that gives you some ability to be a little bit more cynical in a good way about that stuff in the future. What I found something interesting about that chapter was like, do you have Kate, that desire was passed down to him from his father. Yeah, yeah, you gotta work, like yeah, he had a father who cheated on his wife,

he had a father who told him, you know, like, nurse grudges, he had a father who told him, like you can get away with whatever you want. And so we can pick up bad habits from our childhood. And you gotta do that work. Because what happens is you get from your dad or whatever, that like, you know, you're only powerful, you're only a man if you do X, Y, and Z.

Absolutely. And that's not true. And so you got to be constantly checking those assumptions. Because they come from a different time, a different era. If you like the podcast that we do here and you want to get it via email every morning, you can sign up at dailystoic.com slash email. Hey, prime members, you can listen to the daily Stoic early and add free on Amazon music. Download the Amazon music app today, or you can listen early and add free with Wondery Plus

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