The Daily Stoic - Difficult Things Are Good For You | A Simple Way To Measure Our Days

Episode Date: December 15, 2022

When one thinks of a philosopher, they usually picture something like an ancient figure in a toga, or they think of a college professor in a tweed jacket. They don’t think of an athlete. They don’t think muscles, right? They think brains, not brawn.But in the ancient world philosophers were warriors, athletes, hunters, boxers, wrestlers, and distance runners. They did hard things. They pushed their physical limitations.---In today's Daily Stoic Journal reading, Ryan examines Marcus Aurelius' Meditation 7.69, and why the Stoics didn't believe that striving for perfection should be our primary goal in life.---You can reserve your spot right now in the 2023 Daily Stoic New Year, New you Challenge, at daily stoic.com/challenge.To check out Discipline is Destiny and other books, visit thepaintedporch.com ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee 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 Stoke Podcast early and add free on Amazon Music. Download the app today. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wundery's podcast business wars. And in our new season, Walmart must fight off target, the new discounter that's both savvy and fashion forward. Listen to business wars on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. on music or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. On Thursdays, we do double duty, not just reading our daily meditation, but also reading a passage from the book, The Daily Stoic, 366 meditations on wisdom, perseverance, and

the art of living, which I wrote with my wonderful co-author and collaborator, Steve Enhancelman. And so today we'll give you a quick meditation from one of the Stoics, from Epictetus Mark Srelius Seneca, then some analysis for me, and then we send you out into the world to do your best to turn these words into works. Difficult things are good for you. When one thinks of a philosopher, they picture something like an ancient figure in a toga from a painting, or they think of a college professor in a

tweed jacket. They don't think of an athlete, they don't think muscles, right? They think brains, not brawn. But in the ancient world philosophers were warriors, athletes, hunters, boxers, wrestlers, and distance runners. They did hard things. They pushed their physical limitations. Socrates was a soldier. He was admired for his ability to endure cold weather. Marcus Aurelicrates was a soldier, he was admired for his ability to endure cold weather. Marcus Aurelius was a wrestler, Clienthees was a boxer. These philosophers were practitioners, true believers in the ethos that Joe Rogan recently expressed when I was on the podcast, sounding a bit like Santa Cone, and he said, difficult things are good for you. They are good for your mind. Because doing physically

difficult things takes discipline. As Rogan said, discipline is a part of the mind. It's counterintuitive, but true. One of the best ways to increase your mental capabilities is to do things that are physically challenging. We treat the body rigorously, Santa Claus said, so it will not be disobedient to the mind. We do difficult things because they are good for us. They are good for our bodies and our minds. They make this stronger. They assert control over our bodies in a way that is transferable to the next time we are tempted by some impulse or inclined to take the easier route. They make us better at doing the next hard thing that life has in store for us. Difficult things are good for you. They make us better at doing the next hard thing that life has in store for us

Difficult things are good for you. They make us better not just physiologically But philosophically That's why I think discipline is one of the four cardinal virtues right courage self discipline justice and wisdom and Self-discipline is one we have to practice Physically, I think it's why the first part of Discipline's destiny is about physical discipline. It's why I spent so much time thinking about it. And I think it's why the book is resonating with people. It's been awesome to see it come out of the gate so hot.

I'm honored that so many of you have read it. If you haven't yet, I'd love for you to check it out. You can get Discipline is Destiny to power self control. Anywhere books are sold. I'll sign your copy. If you buy it from store. That daily stoke.com and click the sign copy button, or you can pick up sign copies here at the painted porch in bastard Texas, or grab the audio book or any

other version in any other bookstore you like. But I'd love for you to check out discipline is destiny. Just go to dailystoke.com slash discipline. A simple way to measure our days. This is the December 15th entry in the daily stow it. 366 days of writing and reflection on the art of living by yours truly and my co-writer and translator, Stephen Hanselman. I actually do this journal every single day. There's a question in the morning, a question in the afternoon, and then there's these sort of weekly meditations. As Epictetus says, every day and night we keep thoughts like this at hand, write them, read them aloud and talk to yourself and others about them. You can check out the Daily Stoke Journal,

anywhere books are sold. You can also get a signed personalized You can check out the Daily Stoke Journal, anywhere books are sold, and also get a signed personalized copy from me in the Daily Stoke store, at store.dailystoke.com. This is the mark of perfection of character. Mark's really says in meditation, 7.69, to spend each day as if it were your last without frenzy, laziness, or any pretending. The Stoke didn't think that we could be perfect.

The idea of becoming a sage, the highest aspiration of a philosopher, it wasn't realistic. This was just their platonic ideal. Still, they started every day trying to get a little closer to that mark. There was so much to gain in the trying. Can you actually live today as if it were your last? Is it even possible to embody completeness or perfection in our ethos or character? Effortlessly doing the right thing for a full 24 hours? Is it possible to do it for even a minute? Maybe not. But

if trying was enough for the stoics, it should be enough for us too. And I think as we get older, as we go through life, we should get better at this, better at not wasting our time, better at not taking it for granted, better at rejecting the busyness or the chaos, the laziness and the procrastination, ceasing to pretend or try to impress other people or other things that don't matter.

But being content and contained within ourselves, concentrating like a Roman, as Marcus really says in meditations, right? Facing the day with responsibility and poise and dignity and self-control, doing what has to be done, doing it well, right? Doing the things that have to be done, but not the things that don't have to be done. Focusing, living, loving, living each day, not just as if it was your last, but as a complete day, as a representation of the person that you want to be that you aspire to be. And I look back on my days in my 20s, I see I wasn't as good

as it as I am now. I look back at my teenager, I was even more ridiculous. Look back when my kid was one. Now there's six. You know, I feel like I'm getting better at it. That's what progress is not perfection of character that we're after, right? But it is about perfecting, right? Improving, making strides in our character. That's what we're after. That's what we're doing here. And the fact that we don't have that long should put an exclamation point on all of it. It should hang over it like the sort of damacles, put it in perspective. Let you know that you can't waste a minute of it. That's what we're meditating on in this final month of the daily stoic. And it's also what we've built the daily stoic, new year, new U challenge about, which is going to start

in roughly two weeks. Again, I'm not promising you perfection through it. I don't think anyone can be perfect, but we can get better. We can be a little less frenzied, a little less lazy, have a little less pretending. We can be more in line with the ephemerality of life, do the things that really matter. And I hope you join us in the challenge you can sign up now at dailystoeak.com slash challenge. Speaking of laziness, procrastination, busyness, it's always funny, I watch and wait, as people get to the very last minute, right?

They hear me talk about it on the 15th. And then they're, they, oh, yeah, I meant to sign up for that. And then the email is fr it on the 15th and then they're they so oh yeah, I meant to sign up for that and then the you know Emile is frantically on the first. Hey, you know I want to sign up as a two late as a two late as a two late That's one of the things we don't want to do or be like in 2023 So if you're thinking about signing up, will you join us now and I look forward to seeing you all in the daily Stoke new year new you challenge to sign up at dailystoke.com slash challenge.

And let's measure our days. Let's measure who we are this upcoming year by how unfriendly we are, how diligent we are that is to say not lazy, a little pretending we do, and do we spend each of those days as if we were fully aware of how unpredictable and non-guaranteed the future happens to be.

Thanks for listening to the Daily Stoke podcast. Just a reminder, we've got signed copies of all my books in the Daily Stoke store. You can get them personalized, you can get them sent to a friend. The obstacle is the way. You go as the enemy, still in this is the key. The leather bound addition of the daily stoke, we have them all in the daily stoke store, which you can check out at store 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 in Apple Podcasts.

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