The Daily Stoic - It’s Just Happening | Ask Daily Stoic

Episode Date: January 20, 2023

It feels terrible to hear that someone is breaking up with you. Or that your retirement portfolio has dropped significantly in recent months. To find out that the company you’ve invested your entire career in is laying you off. That your father doesn’t accept the person you love or how you live your life.We want it to be otherwise, so we’re disappointed. It hurts, so we take it personally. In Meg Mason’s novel Sorrow and Bliss (listen to our great podcast episode with Meg), Martha Friel's mother, who had always been unhappy and resentful, goes into recovery and stops drinking. With time, she comes to realize that she had been living life as if it was happening to her. The adversity. The losses. The frustrations. The disappointments. In actuality, none of this happened to her. It was just happening. It just was.In today's Ask Daily Stoic, Ryan answers questions after a presentation about applying Stoic principles to modern life. His answers cover which books about or by Marcus Aurelius you should read, and the events in Ryan's life that brought him closer to Stoicism.✉️ 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.

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, 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, 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, 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, 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, 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, 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, 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, music playing in background, music playing in background, music someone is breaking up with you or that your retirement portfolio has dropped significantly in recent months. To find out that the company you've invested your entire career in is laying you off, your father doesn't accept the person you love or how you live your life.

We want it to be otherwise so we're disappointed. It hurts so we take it personally. In Meg Mason's wonderful novel, Sorrow and Bliss, a great podcast episode of her, Martha's mother, who has always been unhappy and resentful, goes into recovery and stops drinking. With time she comes to realize that she had been living life as if it was happening to her, the adversity, the losses, the frustrations, the disappointments. In actuality, none of this happened to her. It was just happening. Just was.

This is what the Stoics want us to realize. Fortune is not out to get you. Life is not picking on you. This is just what's happening in period. It happens to involve you, but it does not revolve around you. The sooner we accept this, the less painful all of it will be. The less harm will feel,

and thus as Marcus really writes in meditations, the less harm we will be. What's happening in the world, what's happening in the economy, at work inside other people, we need to stop seeing the world through a lens, how it impacts us, because it doesn't have anything to do with us.

It's happening as it always has and always will. It's driven by forces we can't comprehend, decisions and factors we don't control. All we can do is step back and observe. All we can do is accept what is. All we can do is decide not to be upset, hurt, offended, broken or bitter. 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. I have so many takeaways from your wonderful presentation. ever you get your podcasts. I have so many takeaways from your wonderful presentation. Thank you very, very much. One of the ones that I love the most I think is asking for help is refusing to not give up. I thought that was really profound. Thank you so much. And I really never thought about reading the history to learn how to handle today's challenges.

I'm guilty of turning on the cable news and watching my internet. But you referenced Marcus and awful lot. Could you spell his last name and do you have any books or a reading that you would recommend? I very much do. This is like my favorite question to ask. So Marcus Arellius,

a-u-r-e-l-i-u-s, this is the old guy in the movie Gladiator that Joaquin Phoenix's character kills, if you need to remember. Mark Arellius is the emperor of Rome. He writes one book, this is Meditations, which he doesn't think would ever be published. It's a remarkable book because it is the private diary of a human being under enormous stress and difficulty writing notes to himself about how to be better. He's writing it on the campaign trail. He's writing it in his tent on the front lines of the battle. I prefer the Gregory Hayes translation here

from Marcus Aurelias from the modern library. It's one of my favorites. There's, let me see if I have another edition of it. It's usually, the edition now is black, has like a bird on it. Another edition I like, this is an annotated edition that came out this year. Marcus Rewis' Meditations translated by Robin Waterfeld.

Here, let me, I'll actually, I'm somewhat biased here. I have a bookstore and I carry this one here, so I'll put it in the chat and you guys can send it around as a link. These are my two favorite translations here, the Gregory Hayes translation and the Robin Waterfield edition. Now there's also a book that I enjoy quite a thing like by a guy named Donald Robertson called how to think like a Roman emperor, the philosophy of Marcus Aurelis, which I am linking to here. So if you guys could share that

with everyone, that would be great. But those are my three favorite translations of my three favorite books about Marcus Aurelis. I also have a book called The Daily Stillic, which I do one page a day about stoic philosophy, and an email about it, which you can sign up totally for free at dailystillic.com. The idea being that I think stoicism is not just a thing you do one time, but it's an active daily practice.

And so you should be returning to it always. I think in Meditations, Marcus Rios cites the philosopher, the poet, Heracles, who said that we never step in the same river twice. And the idea being that we perceive things differently when we come back to them. So when I say that Stoicism is something we should read about, I mean not just once,

but ideally again and again to come back to in moments of difficulty or crisis because you'll find that I think as you do when you read the Bible that there seems to be a way that this timeless work surfaces exactly what you need at exactly the moment you need it. Even though it of course has no idea who you are or what you're going through. Thank you very much. My pleasure. Well, I should ring for how near I'm saying next to the person who's guy. I see a

but thank you so much for being here today. It's been really informational and it seems a lot of things you're sharing with Stoicism seems to mark our lives quite closely. There are a couple of comments that you made. I think that would suit a lot of folks here in this room. And those were the ivory shoulders because the support that we provide to our other halves is

military members, is those who are around them that carry as much of the weight as those who are in the role. I think we feel that a lot. With a lot less credit as well. That's so true. The other half of it was and I don't know how much of this pertains to many of us because the longer we're in this the more we realize the responsibilities that come with this particular role. And when you mentioned that Marcus really is wet, realizing that he was chosen to be in this role,

he recognized the responsibility associated. I don't know that our other halves wet, but perhaps their other halves might have wet. And it realizing the role they were about to step into. So my question for you really is with stoicism as it parallels so much of our lives associated with the military, how in your world has stoicism? Was there an event for circumstance that kind of arose that brought you closer to What still is and is? How did you become so involved and how is it relevant to your life?

Well, thank you very much. Yeah, it's funny to go to the idea of the difference between the reception of the to go to the idea of the difference between the reception of the person and the spouse. I remember when I when I sold one of my books a few years ago, my editor called me to congratulate me on the deal and she called my wife to apologize. It was great news for me, but it meant an enormous amount of sacrifice and unpleasantness for her, which I'm sure all of you can relate to. You're quite proud and excited about the promotion or the new posting, but you also know all the back-end details and compromises and sacrifices and problems that come along with that. And one of the things I've tried to do as I've written about the Stoics,

there's a book I did a few years ago called Lives of the Stoics, which tried to look at who the Stoics actually were as people, because they worked just philosophers, they had to apply this practice. It is unfortunate because of the way that history has gone and sexism and patriarchy and all these things. History was primarily focused on the contributions or the achievements of men. There are a few exceptions. There's one explicitly, a female from the ancient world,ia Cato, who's the daughter of Cato, and women were allowed to study stoicism.

Misoni's Rufus, one of the early teachers of stoicism says virtue doesn't care about gender, but it strikes me that as history celebrates, let's say, the response of one stoic to the news that he has been exiled, or that his fortune has been confiscated by the government, or that he's forced to go out and fight on the battlefield. All these achievements that the literature focuses on of the Stokes, obscures the greater stoic act of the people that they left behind, the family who supported them, the family who had to pack up all the belongings,

the family who had less choice, who weren't being rewarded. There's a story I love from Robert Caro, the biographer of Lyndon Johnson. He and his wife wrote this worked on this epic series of about Lyndon Johnson. Of course, his name is on the cover and her name is in the acknowledgments. But in one of the scenes he's talking, he's exploring the Texas Hill country of Lyndon Johnson's childhood. And as he comes to understand the enormous difficulty of the lives of these women out there without electricity, without running water, worried for their safety, often home alone for days on end, he says,

we hear a lot about the gun fights and cowboys of the Old West, but we don't talk very much about a woman fetching water from the well while recovering from a perennial tear. Right? And so when I think about who's actually been the stoic throughout history, it's not just the person charging into battle or leading the empire. It's, as you said, it's the person behind the scenes, the person who's got the ivory

shoulders that the person with the ivory shoulders is leaning on or crying into. And so, I very much, again, acknowledge and celebrate your enormous contributions to not just our armed forces, but the safety of the world, upon which those armed forces are tasked with defending. For me, Stosis and with something I came to as a young, a zoom man in college, I was at a conference like this, and I asked for a recommendation about a book recommendation and I came to Marcus really this that way.

And it's been my sort of Bible over these last decade and a half, it's been what I've tried to base my life on. It's been what I've tried to live up to. And now it's, you know, my immense pleasure to be able to write about it and bring it to an audience that again, probably doesn't think that philosophy is accessible or practical to them, but in my view is exactly who should be, you know,

integrating these principles into what they do. Hey, Prime Members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic early and ad-free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and add free with Wondery Plus in Apple podcasts. Hey there listeners! While we take a little break here, I want to tell you about another podcast that I think you'll like. It's called How I Built This, where host Guy Razz talks to founders behind some of the world's biggest and most innovative companies, to learn how they built them from the ground

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