The Daily Stoic - Do This While You Can | The Portable Retreat

Episode Date: March 18, 2024

It’s funny, over here at Daily Stoic, we do these challenges throughout the year (maybe you’ve joined one before). On the one hand, this name is probably bad marketing. People don’t usually get excited by the thought of being challenged. In fact, what they usually want is a secret or a shortcut or a hack. They want someone to solve the challenges for them. On the other hand, isn’t embracing life’s challenges what Stoicism is all about? So naturally, we couldn’t call the Daily Stoic Spring Forward Challenge anything but that. It is a challenge. 10 days straight of them. Starting now.So yes it’s been a long December, but as the song also reminds us, there’s reason to believe that this year will be better than the last. And that reason is you—if you allow yourself to be, if you challenge yourself, if you decide to climb out of your velvet rut. A person who has never been challenged, Seneca said, who always gets their way, is a tragic figure. They have no idea what they are capable of. They are not even close to fulfilling their potential. “Stop wandering about!” Marcus Aurelius said to himself, perhaps on the eve of a new season just like this one. “Get busy with life's purpose,” he commanded, “toss aside empty hopes, get active in your own rescue–if you care for yourself at all—and do it while you can.”And so as the seasons change, as the clocks change, we want to urge you one last time to join us and thousands of other Stoics in The Daily Stoic Spring Forward Challenge. Because one of the best ways to cure anxiety, to deal with stress, and to become present is to really throw yourself into some means of self-improvement. Stop procrastinating. Break out. Break free. Get cleaning. Challenge yourself.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://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.

Welcome to the daily stoic podcast. Each day we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient stoics illustrated with stories from history, current events and literature to help you be better at what you do. And at the beginning of the week, we try to do a deeper dive setting a kind of stoic intention for the week, something to meditate on something to think on something to leave you with, to journal about whatever it is you happen to be doing. So let's get into it. This is how to break out and break free.

It's very easy to get comfortable, to build up your life exactly how you want it to be, to minimize inconveniences and hand off the stuff you don't like to do, to find what you enjoy where you enjoy it and never leave. A velvet rut is what this is called. It's nice, but the comfort tricks you into thinking that you're not stuck. And look, after a pandemic, after a period of inflation, bad news constantly screaming at you from your TV or timeline, after months of harsh winter, it's hard not to seek out that comfort,

to be relieved by it. It's been a long December, as the song goes, and there's plenty of reason to crawl into a velvet rut with a blanket or to jet off somewhere warm and radiate in luxury. But the Stoics knew that this was a kind of death, that as soon as we stop growing, we start dying, or at least we become more vulnerable to the swings of fate and fortune. Seneca talked over and over again about the importance of adversity,

of not only embracing the struggle that life throws at us, but actively seeking out that difficulty so you can be stronger and better and more prepared. It's funny over here at Daily Stoke, we do these challenges throughout the year. Maybe you've done one before. On the one hand, calling it a challenge is probably a bad marketing decision because people don't usually get excited by the thought of being challenged. In fact, what they usually want is a secret or a shortcut or a hack. They want someone to solve the challenges for them.

On the other hand, isn't embracing life's challenges what stoicism is all about? So naturally we couldn't call the Daily Stoke Spring Forward Challenge anything but, and it is a challenge 10 days straight of them starting right now. So yes, it's been a long December, but as the song also reminds us, there's reason

to believe that this year will be better than the next. And that reason is you. If you allow yourself to be, if you challenge yourself, if you decide to climb out of your velvet rut, a person who has never been challenged, Seneca said, who always gets their way is a tragic figure. They have no idea what they're capable of. They're not even close to filling their potential. Begin at once to live, he recommended, and count each day as a separate life. So as the seasons change, as the clocks change, we want to urge you one last time to join us and thousands of other Stoics. Join me as well in the Daily Stoic Spring Forward Challenge. Because one of the best ways to cure anxiety, to deal with stress,

to become present, is to really throw yourself into some means of self-improvement. Break out, break free, get cleaning, challenge yourself, literally turn the clocks and spring forward into the rest of your year and really the rest of your life. I'm recording this last little message from my kids' spring break. We went down to the beach and on the one hand, it was radiating in warmth and luxury, as I said, but I've also been challenging myself like crazy. My wife and I have been talking about what we want our lives to be, decisions we're going to make as we get back, pushing myself physically, really trying to get in shape, trying to break out of some old habits, a little bit of a slump I'm in. And that's what we made the challenge around. I think you're really trying to get in shape, trying to break out of some old habits,

a little bit of a slump I'm in. And that's what we made the challenge around. I think you're really gonna love it. I'm proud of this one. We did it once like four or five years ago and we re-imagined it and brought it back. And I've already been overwhelmed by the signups and I would like to have you in there with us.

You can sign up right now at dailystoic.com slash spring, or if you've been thinking about joining Daily Stoic Life, join that at dailystoiclife.com and. Or if you've been thinking about joining daily stoic life, join that at daily stoic life.com and get this challenge and all the challenges for free. It's going to be awesome. I'll see you in their daily stoic.com slash spring. But why don't you start spring off by not procrastinating anymore and join us in their daily stoic.com slash spring. If you want to focus more on your well-being this year, you should read more and you should

give Audible a try. Audible offers an incredible selection of audiobooks focused on wellness from physical, mental, spiritual, social, motivational, occupational, and financial. You can listen to Audible on your daily walks. You can listen to my audiobooks on your daily walks. And stillness is the key. I have a whole chapter on walking, on walking meditations, on getting outside. And it's one of the things I do when I'm walking. Audible offers a wealth of well-being titles to help you get closer to your best life and the best you. Discover stories to inspire sounds to soothe and voices that can change your life wherever you are on your well-being journey.

Audible is there for you. Explore bestsellers, new releases and exclusive originals. Listen now on Audible. Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoke podcast. We're doing some riffing from the Daily Stoke Journal this morning. I've got mine in my leather case. It says make time.

I got to make time to do that journaling. And when I don't, my psyche, my brain, my philosophy practice suffers. You can grab that at store.dailystoke.com. But today's entry is about the portable retreat. It is in the future on vacation, on our day off, when we plan to get out into nature, that we think we'll find peace and release from the crush of the everyday demands of life. But this never really seems to happen as often as we think, does it?

And when we do get that peace, it's difficult to keep it once we're back in the fray. Well, for the Stoic, all this is madness. The true retreat is in the freedom of our own mind and soul to consider the gifts we already have. It can be our refuge for all time if we take the time daily to do so. So good for you taking a little quiet time this morning or evening to listen to a podcast. It's not cramming you full of info, but it's a bit more philosophical. And then hopefully you've got the Daily Stoic Journal out or the Daily Stoic.

But we've got three quotes in this week's entry, one from Marcus, one from Epictetus, and another from Marcus. Marcus really is meditations for three. He says, people seek retreats for themselves in the country, by the sea or in the mountains. You are very much in the habit of yearning for those same things. But this is entirely the trait of a base person, when you can at any moment find such a retreat in yourself. For nowhere

can you find a more peaceful and less busy treat than inside your own soul, especially if on close inspection it is filled with ease, which I say is nothing more than being well ordered. Treat yourself often to this retreat and be renewed." Then Epictetus says, Remember, it is not only the desire for wealth and position that debases and subjugates us, also the desire for peace and leisure and travel and learning. It doesn't matter what the external thing is, the value we place on it subjugates us to another, where our heart is set, there are impediment lies. And then Marcus really says, remember that your ruling reason becomes

unconquerable when it rallies and relies on itself so that it won't do anything contrary to its own will, even if its position is irrational. How much more unconquerable if its judgments are carefully and made rationally. Therefore the mind freed from passions is an impenetrable fortress and a person has no more secure place of refuge for all time. That's meditations eight, four, eight. I'm thinking about this because I'm just doing a little recording here before I go to town. It's my kids spring break. We're going to spend a week down at the beach. And I look forward to this and I enjoy it. And I sometimes weirdly get more done there, more present there. You know, you are a different person on vacation, but the Stokes would say,

why does it have to be that way? What does it say that your life is something that you feel the need to escape from? So one of the things that I try to do, I mean, I like going down there. One of the perks of working for myself, I don't have to be in one location. And sometimes a change of scenery is good for things. But I ask myself, you know, what is it about my routine there that allows me to not feel so rushed in the morning, spend more time with the kids sort of right at leisure? Why do I seem to have more time in the morning, spend more time with the kids sort of right at leisure. Why do I seem to have more time in the day? Why am I always available to catch the sunset?

And what is stopping me from being able to do that at home? That's what Marcus is saying. He's like, look, the thing that's working here is you, like you're finding the retreat in yourself, that moment of stillness or whatever. and that's available to you anywhere. He says that inside your own soul, there is peace and not so much busyness. So why are you letting spring break or summer vacation or, you know, a three-day weekend? Why is that the only way you get it?

Why can't you get it now? Why can't you see the sunset where you live? I love taking my family to Big Bend a couple times a year, one of my favorite national parks. And you know what I love while we're there is looking up at this incredible sky. There's so little light pollution there. The stars just they feel like they you know just pop right out of the black sky. And I remember we went and then I was back a couple weeks later and I had to go take the trash out or something.

And I live out in the country. There's not a lot of light pollution where I live. And I sort of looked up for a second and I was like, this sky is almost as good as it is there. We drove eight hours to look at stars and how many nights do I walk to take out the trash or get something my kids forgot in the car and I don't take a minute to just step up and look, right? That's kind of what I'm thinking about here is so much of what we give ourselves on those retreats or those vacations or those time

away we could have inside ourselves anytime we choose. And indeed we deserve to do that. And I think about, you know, I read more, but I could read more here. I just, I throw my phone in the other room and I forget about it for a while. And I need to do that here. You need to do that here. Give yourself a staycation. Give yourself a life that's a little bit closer to that vibe where you're a bit more philosophical. You're taking the time. You're retreating into your own self. You're finding the refuge that is there inside yourself. That's what it's all about to me. That's what I think the Stoics are reminding themselves. And look, Marcus Aurelius had a country estate. Epictetus had a country estate. They all traveled. They all saw the world. They weren't saying you never do it. They're just saying, don't do it as an escape.

Don't do it fooling yourself that it's not something you could have now inside yourself at any moment. And in fact, you must do it. It just takes a bit more discipline. It's not as easy as, you know, buying a plane ticket and planning a trip. I just had Cal Newport on the podcast, who I love and I love his work. And he was talking about this too. You know, I was noting how busy my week was going up into this trip that I'm taking. And he points out, he's like, yeah, that's fake vacation, fake, you know, break, that's fake vacation, fake, you know, break because you're just the same amount

of work is being done. You're just concentrating on this week before and after. So you're not actually preventing any burnout. You're not actually getting any relaxation, aren't getting any stillness. You're not getting any quiet. You're just spreading it around, moving it around on the plate, right? And that's not a good way to do it. So I hope whether it's close to your spring break here or not, or what plans you have, you take this lesson from the Stoics seriously, because it's an important one. And it's one I'm struggling with and thinking about myself.

And I hope today's perspective was helpful. You can grab this cool cover we have for the Daily Stoke Journal at store.dailystoke.com. If you don't have the Daily Stoke Journal, you can grab them as a package and I'll sign it. And it's cool. It says make time on the front. And it's a reminder from Epictetus, every day and night, keep thoughts like this at hand, write them, read them aloud, talk to yourself and others about them. That's what I'm doing on this podcast. That's what you're doing by listening. And I really appreciate the opportunity to do that. I'll talk to you all soon. 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 obstacles away. You go as the enemy still. This is a key. The leather bound edition of the Daily Stoke. We have them all in the Daily Stoke store, which you can get them sent to a friend. The obstacles the way you go is the enemy still. And this is the key, the leather bound edition of the Daily Stoic. We have them all in the Daily Stoic store, which you can check out at store.dailystoic.com. Hey Prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic

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