The Daily Stoic - How To Make Better Use Of Your Time | Ask Daily Stoic

Episode Date: November 11, 2022

Years before he became president, Harry Truman owned a haberdashery that doubled as a local hang-out. A kid named Albert Ridge would often head there after his shift at the neighborhood grocery store. For the rest of his life, Ridge would tell the story of the time Truman gave him a list of ten books to read. It included books like Plutarch's Lives, Caesar's Commentaries, and Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography.✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See 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 Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we read a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you in your everyday life. But on Fridays, we not only read this daily meditation, but I try to answer some questions from listeners and fellow stoics who are trying to apply this philosophy, whatever it is they happen to do. Sometimes these are from talks. Sometimes these are people who come up to talk to me on the street.

Sometimes these are written in or emailed from listeners. But I hope in answering their questions, I can answer your questions, give a little more guidance on this philosophy. We're all trying to follow. [♪ Music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wonderree's podcast business wars. And in our new season, Walmart must fight off target,

the new discounter that's both savvy and fashion-forward. to Business Wars on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. How to Make Better Use of Your Time Years before he became president Harry Truman owned a clothing store that doubled as a local hangout. A kid named Albert Ridge would often head there after his shift at the neighborhood grocery store. For the rest of his life, Ridge would tell the story of the time that Truman gave him a list of ten books to read. It included books like Plutarch's Lives, Caesars Commentaries, and Benjamin Franklin's autobiography. Al Truman had said, you'll find a good deal in there about how to make use of every minute of your day

and a lot of horse sense about people. It's reminiscent of one of the formative scenes in Marcus Aurelius' life. As a young man, he was given a copy of the lectures of Epipetus. He would read through it again and again on his way to becoming one of the great kings of history. He would thank his teacher rusticist for changing his life with that single recommendation.

Albert Ridge's life was also changed by the books he was recommended. He learned a lot about people and how to make the most of his time, just as Truman had promised. He started going to law school at night and then went on to be a United States Circuit Judge under President Kennedy. From the neighborhood grocery store to the US Federal Court, from a promising young boy to the head of the Roman Empire, from a farm in Missouri to the presidency of the United States, that's the power of reading. As Truman also said, not all readers are leaders, but there is nothing better to start you on

the path to leadership than reading great books. I know my life was personally changed by a similar recommendation. I went to a conference and said, hey, you should read this book. I ended up getting turned on to the stokes. We would not be, you would not be listening to this right now. We're not for that recommendation. We're not for hundreds and hundreds of recommendations that I've gotten over the years. And I'd like to think that other people's lives wouldn't be the same without some of the recommendations I've given. And I know, as I've heard the feedback, that our read-to-lead challenge that we did here at Daily Stoic has had a

similar impact on people. We actually just ran through the course again, we made a bunch of awesome new videos and Q&As for you. If you want to build a reading practice, if you want to be a leader who reads or if you want to be a reader to become a leader, well, as Truman was saying, well, I can't recommend this course enough. The Daily Stoic Read to Lead Challenge, it's great. I think you'll love it. It's one of the best and far and away one of the most popular things we've ever done.

You can check that out at dailystowach.com slash read to lead. You can also just check it out at store.dailystowach.com or if you sign up for daily stoke life, you get not just that course for free and all of our courses for free including the upcoming New Year New Year challenge, but you get a bunch of awesome new bonuses that I think you will really like including a cloth-bound edition of the best of meditations we do each year. Check that out at dailystowoclife.com. So yeah, I had a question about this morning's reading and kind of focusing on worst-case scenarios of things.

With military training, it's like you kind of, that's what you do, you plan contingencies and then that relates more now in a different environment as more of a pessimist. And you get out of the present moment because all you're doing is focusing on the future and what are you gonna do? What is the next move? What is like a healthy way to allow yourself

to continue to stay in the present but also be prepared for things that are going to happen. Yeah, Senika says the only inexcusable thing for a military commander to say is I didn't think it would happen, right? Napoleon says a general should ask themselves three times a day, what would I do if the enemy appeared here, here, here. So on the one hand, yes, you're preparing, but I don't think that Napoleon is trying to

get his generals into a state of nervous agitation, because that itself is kind of a form of distraction, right, and vulnerability. So the idea of thinking about the things that could happen to me is not the same as anxiety. You're thinking about the plan, you're thinking about the possibilities, you're making plans, or it may just be thinking, hey, this could go horribly, horribly wrong. And let's say you're driving from San Francisco to Los Angeles. And it's supposed to take eight hours, but you know, hey, it could, it could take 15 hours because of traffic. You don't really necessarily have to have a plan for that other than it could take 15 hours. And I'm not going to be bent out of shape if it takes longer than I expect.

And in fact, part of what I'm doing here is just getting rid of the expectations. Like it is gonna be what it's gonna be and you're gonna respond to it. So me, to me, this idea of premeditatio morum is partly just like, hey, I'm not in control here and I've gotta be prepared to respond and to be flexible and to be adaptive.

And if my expectations or my entitlements are too strong, I'm gonna put myself in a vulnerable position. At the same time, your Santa Claus also talks about not being worried about all the troubles ahead. You know, he says some things are gonna happen for sure and so don't worry about them until they happen. You know, some things are going to happen for sure. And so don't worry about them until they happen. Some things are never going to happen. So don't worry about them.

And some things have already happened. So there's no point in worrying about them. And he says, often we suffer more in imagination than in reality. We suffer for things that are never going to happen. So I do think it's a balancing act. Someone mentioned the Tim Ferris' head talk about stoicism, where he talks about fear setting.

I think he has a nice sort of through line through this as well. That talk is definitely worth reading. So when we're properly doing it, we're actually staying in the moment and just ready for anything. It's not. I think that's right. Okay. Okay. okay, cool. Yeah. Magon?

Magon. I had a question about, probably tackling on with a couple of topics we talked about. I guess that dealing with regret or guilt. My question was in regards to how you would actually apply for example, the principles to it. Like if you know, for example, you willingly or unwittingly harmful and now you have to deal associate with that,

I know just from reading a little bit about those as if you would approach that with, okay, if it happened, I'll fix it and I'll move on by not doing it again. My question would be actually applying that. I know anytime you change with anything, there's a little bit of resistance, just like internally made like this, that's the emotional difficulty of sticking to that.

So my question to you would be, just in general, applying all of these police, would you just think like muscle memory? It's like you're just in the beginning, it's going to be resistance, which is continue to say, you know what, hey, this is it. I don't feel like it. I know this is right. Over time, your feeling would be more than lying.

What you believe that's not like the approach you should take. I think that's, I think that's well put. I like that. I would also say to you when I think about guilt, is the guilt for you or for them, you know? So you did something bad. You harmed someone. Now you feel guilty.

So you feel worse. Yes. But is the guilt contributing to making them feel any better? Is the guilt improving the situation in any way? Or is it just kind of a pity party or a distraction from the problem in front of you that could be improved by some sort of active engagement with the event events at hand. Great.

Joshua. Yeah, can you hear me? I can. So I think this is a prevalent question among, like, since we're in a time of information overload, I've been studying stoses for like a month and a half. And I've read meditations, and I'm reading letters from a stovie. How do we come about that feeling of like constantly needing to read the next book or like constantly

needing to gather information versus just being like content and still diving deep into our studies? Yes, it's a great question. I have a chapter about this and stillness is the key about sort of managing your information diet. It's something I think about a lot. You know, Senica himself, I don't know if you've gotten to the letter yet, but he talks about lingering on the works of the master thinkers.

So it's not about reading as many books as you possibly can. He talks about, you know, so you like drinking wine and you try to drink it as much as possible. He's like, okay, what are you, a barrel? You know, what are you, a sieve that the wine is just pouring through? And I think this is true with books, you know, I love books, you know, I'm surrounded by books. I'm literally talking to you from a bookstore. My career is writing books, but when I read, I try to ask myself, am I going to use this in some way? I try to read books. I mean, there's obviously a role for entertainment and books and pleasure and books and I get that too.

But when I read, I'm trying to read things that make me better as a human being. And that often means rereading or reading slowly. It's not a race. You know, you don't win. It's not something you're trying to rush through. It's supposed to be a meditative philosophical experience, right? And Marcus talks about the idea of leisure in meditations. And, you know, the root word of leisure in Greece is school. It's supposed to be... So I like the idea

that school is leisure and leisure is school. That that again, this isn't this isn't a race. You're not cramming for a test. You're trying to you're trying to get better. Troy. Actually, to Joshua's point, I was going to say it took me 18 months to get through meditations and I got you know teased a lot people, like it's a 99 page book, I was like, yeah, dude, but when you're reading it one line at a time, it'll take you a minute. Thank you, man, for doing this. I had a question about three, six specifically,

and I'm pulling from the, I think this is the translation that you dig. The last part where he says, but that which is useful is the better. Well, then it is useful to you as a rational being. Keep it to, keep to it, but if it is only useful to the better. Well, then it is useful to you as a rational being. Keep it to, keep to it, but if it is only useful to you as an animal, say so, and maintain your judgment without arrogance.

And I didn't know if I was interpreting that correctly, and it was curious what your interpretation of that was. Does that mean that sometimes you go, all right, I know that I've been digging into this, and I wanna be the best version of myself, and I wanna hold the four virtues, but for this moment, I'm just gonna be an animal. And I'm just going to lean into it. Is, do you think Marcus was saying that to kind of excuse his behavior to just kind of be a little lazy? Or what,

am I interpreting it incorrectly? Well, let's, let's, let's read the Hayes translation. We'll read one more. So he says, so take, so make your choice straight forward the once and for all and stick to it. Choose what's best. And it says, best is what benefits me. This is a, sometimes it's this thing where it kind of has a dialogue with himself. And it says, as a rational being, then follow through, or just as an animal, then say so and stand your ground without making a show of it. Just make sure you've done your homework first.

So then let's look at three, six here in. This is the new Robin Waterfield translation. Okay, so as I say, you must simply and freely choose the better course and stay with it. But what is better is what does me good. If it does you good as a rational being, don't dispense with it. But if it does you good as a rational being, don't dispense with it. But if it does you good as an animal, spurn it and keep to your original decision without

preening yourself on it, just make sure that you conduct your inquiry without coming to harm. And so he's saying, then the annotation, he says, Marcus here condemns the seeking of pleasure and avoidance of pain, which are due to our animal nature and therefore cannot fulfill us as human beings. So I don't think he's saying like, oh, you know, I'm an, this satisfies my animal urges there. Therefore it's good and I'm gonna be shameless about that.

I think what he's saying is, you think about what you're trying to do, what you're struggling with, what the decision is, what, you know, he says try to do it for the rational reasons. Try to ask, but ask yourself, am I doing it for the rational reasons? Or am I doing it for some sort of animalistic or emotional reason? And so I think he's trying to, trying to walk himself through what his reasons are for making a decision.

But I would say generally, the Stoics are probably not going to be in favor of those animalistic reasons. But I'm glad you brought this up because, and I don't know what translation you read, or if they were the same. But it should be illustrative how radically different those two readings were. So there's a lot of space. You know, there's kind of a reading of the sea leaves and I think depending on the author, depending on where you are in your life, you can take something totally different from it. And this goes to Joshua's point about, you know, sort of, you know, and your point about sort of taking your time, really reading

it and then reading it again and again and again because you get something different out of it every time. Copy that, man. Thank you for that. Nikki. Hi. Hi. Hi, everybody. Hi.

I have a question about how can you integrate stoicism with religion or at least dogmas. It doesn't have to be like a religion. But yeah, I fight with that because I'm an addiction therapist and I get a lot of people who are in AA. So I think that's very difficult to, you know, it's funny. The four virtues of Stoicism are also the cardinal virtues of Christianity. They're the same. So there might be a different reason or a different sort of metaphysical argument, but the virtue is the same, right? Courage,

justice, temperance, wisdom. So I think we're trying to get to the same place. I would actually argue that, you know, this sort of a spiritual stoicism is probably closer to what the ancient stoics believe. Let's say a supernatural or a higher power is easier to jive with stoicism, then atheism and stoicism. Because the gods or God, the logos, which also appears in the Bible the way, are through lines, through the stoic teachings. So I don't know how difficult it actually is to reconcile them. The idea of a higher power of something else being in control, God, or man proposes, God disposes, to me that's not a decent, or that's a pretty decent encapsulation of stoicism

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