The Daily Stoic - Make Good On Your Promise | The Wake Up

Episode Date: January 17, 2022

Ryan discusses what we can learn from Martin Luther King Jr. about living philosophically, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast.Eight Sleep is the most advanced solution on the market for thermoregulation. It pairs dynamic cooling and heating with biometric tracking. Go to eightsleep.com/dailystoic to check out the Pod Pro Cover and save $150 at checkout.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://DailyStoic.com/emailFollow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and 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 Welcome to the Daily Stoke podcast each day. We bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stokes 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 stoke, 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. 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. Make good on your promise. Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day here in America. And it's worth taking a minute today to consider one particularly brilliant and inspiring part from King's approach to civil rights. What Martin Luther King didn't do in the 1950s and 1960s was simply point out how hypocritical

and flawed the United States was. He didn't use his immense skills as an order to paint a depressing bleak picture of the racial state of affairs. On the contrary, what MLK did was work hard to capture the true essence of what America was supposed to be. He picked up all the central beliefs of the founding fathers, justice, freedom, equality, and then he said, we can live up to this, we can do this together. We are capable of better. Of course, America did not hear this message immediately. In fact, huge swaths of the population

did not want to hear it at all. So King and his followers showed them. They took to the streets and through the new medium of television made it undeniable just how far short America had fallen from its ideals, how disgusting and disturbing segregation and racism were. Faced with this appalling spectacle, the country worked little by little to reach for that higher standard he set for us, to fulfill the vision of what the country was intended

to be. It should be said that the Stoics follow a similar tact, unlike some philosophies and religions which use their logic and intellect to make life seem meaningless and small, the Stoics sought to inspire the individual to reach their full human potential. Sure, they would point out the discrepancies and failures, but only to make a larger point to be able to say, look at you, you are better than this. You can do more. You need to do more.

And in Marcus Aurelius' writings, we find a man who in his private moments sought to say to himself, you studied this philosophy your whole life. Now you're in a position of power. Live up to it. Make good on your promises. Be what your fathers hoped you could be. And of course this is not easy to do. We will fall short along the way. We will fall embarrassingly and shamefully short. In the case of civil rights, it took hundreds of years for the full version of the equality laid out in the Declaration of

Independence and the U.S. Constitution to be made true. And we're still falling short today, just as we on an individual level will fall short of our potential and our and our ideals. Why is that? It's because we are human, because the standards are lofty and challenging, because what Martin Luther King Jr. said was true, that there is something of a civil war going on within all our lives. There is a recalcitrant south of our soul revolting against the north of our soul, and there is this continual struggle within the very structure of every individual life. But we have to keep trying. We can honor his memory and our potential today by making headway in that battle and then get up and do the very same again tomorrow.

The wake up, and this is from this week's entry in the Daily Stoic Journal, 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 Stalk Journal anywhere at Books or Sold. You can also get a signed personalized copy from me in the Daily Stoke Store. It's store.dailystoke.com. Each morning when you sit with the journal and think about stoicism, you are following in the footsteps of epictetus, markets are really us, and all the other great stoics. The stoics did not face each day on a whim, but instead with preparation and discipline. They spent real time thinking and anticipating what was to come over the course of a day of a week and of a year.

Each morning activity, including, journaling, including listening to this podcast, anything you do in the morning for the stoic is designed to make you ready to face the day, and you can be ready for the day as well. Ask yourself the following first thing in the morning. What am I lacking in attaining freedom from passion? What for tranquility? What am I? A mere body and a stateholder or reputation? None of these things. What then? A rational being. What then is demanded of me? Meditate on your actions. How did I steer away from serenity? What did I do that was unfriendly, unsocial and uncaring?

What did I fail to do in all these things? That's from Epic Titus' discourses 4.6. On those mornings when you struggle with getting up, keep this thought in mind. I am awakening to the work of a human being. Why then am I annoyed that I was going to do what I am made for for the very things for which I was put into this world? Was I made for this to snuggle under the covers and keep warm? So pleasurable. What then were you made for pleasure? Be sure to be coddled or to exert yourself. That's from Marcus Realis' Meditations, 5-1. I think maybe my, maybe the first passage it really hit me in meditations. Anyway, this idea of owning the morning, starting the day off right is really so important. There's

that expression, what is, what is well begun, is half done. And I think, you know, I don't know when you're listening to this, obviously, I hope it's in the morning, maybe it's on your commute, maybe it's as you brushing your teeth or you've got it on a sonos player, something you're walking around your house. The point is how you start the day is really important. For me, as I've said before, my number one rule in the morning is I don't check my phone. I don't sleep with my phone in the room. I sleep with it in the kitchen, plugged in. So when I go to bed like 10, 11, and then when I wake up, you know, six or seven, that's a good chunk of time without the phone, first and foremost. And then my wife usually gets up before, our new routine is my wife wakes up before she goes upstairs, she works,

I get up with the kids, I give them the snack, put on their jackets because it's been cold and Austin, and then we go for our walk out on the road by our house. We go for this walk. Depending on how light or foggy it is, it might change the route so I don't want to get hit by a car. But we usually do about three miles, and then we come back, give them their breakfast, and my wife is showering or on the peloton or maybe she's could practice for them. Whatever, I'd go back into the bedroom, I sit down with my

journals, including the Daily Stoke Journal, which the passage I just read is from. And then I do my sort of thinking. So the Daily Stoke Journal is supposed to be, you do a morning reflection and evening reflection, just because I've been busy lately. I typically, I'll do the evening reflection in the morning, so I'll reflect on how I did with the thing I was thinking about yesterday.

And then I sort of set my intention for the day as well. And so what I like about the journal is just the questions, right? So I'm reading this, I do these a little bit before, but so let's see what today's question was. I'm recording this on the... So it's just a wonderful little part of the morning, and it's been an integral part of my day. Epic Titus is every day, and night keep thoughts like these at hand, right them, read them

aloud, talk to yourself, and others about them. That's what Stoicism is, this sort of interplay, this engaging with the material and re-engaging it. You know, Epic Titus, I love all the questions he's asking himself. What am I lacking? Where what's you know, disrupting my tranquility? What am I? Like who am I? And I'm glad you're listening to this, but as we sort of wrapped up the year, it's not just about it's not that one way of conversation. It's not the stokes talking to you. It's not my writing and talking to you. It's not the about, it's not that one way of conversation. It's not the stokes talking to you. It's not my writing and talking to you. It's not the self improvement books you're reading.

It's not the podcast you're listening to. It should also be, what are you putting out there? What are you asking yourself? What are you thinking about? That's how we improve. That's how we grow. And I think that's a great habit for the year. So if you're not journaling, you should.

If you are journaling, I would push you to sort of ask yourself these questions. But then I'd also just make sure you have some of that time for that sort of stillness and reflection and contemplation in the morning. And make sure you're asking yourself questions in the morning. I think even the walk that I'm doing,

I'm thinking about stuff. My mind is engaged. And that's what helps me kick off a great day. And as we said, what's well begun is half done. So let's get out there. I wish you a great morning, whatever time zone you're in. I hope 2021 is off to a good start for you. And looking forward to connecting with you over the next 12 months and making this a great year. Thanks so much for listening to the Daily Stoke podcast. Again, if you don't know this, you can get these delivered to you via email every day. You just go to dailystoke.com slash email. So check it out at dailystoke.com slash email.

email. 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 ad 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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So if you want to get inspired and learn how to think like an entrepreneur, check out how I built this, wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and add free on the Amazon or Wonder yet.