The Daily Stoic - Nobody Gets Out Alive | Judge Yourself Not Others

Episode Date: November 15, 2021

Ryan talks about the importance of practicing memento mori, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast.LMNT is the maker of electrolyte drink mixes that help you stay active at home, work, the gym, or anywhere else. Electrolytes are a key part of a happy, healthy body. As a listener of this show, you can receive a free LMNT Sample Pack for only $5 for shipping. To claim this exclusive deal you must go to drinkLMNT.com/dailystoic. If you don’t love it, they will refund your $5 no questions asked.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 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. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wanderer's podcast business wars. And in our new season, Walmart must fight off target, 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.

Nobody gets out alive. This life thing, it's wonderful. We are sentient beings, the apex predators at the top of the food chain. We have brilliant technology, incredible pleasures, as well as talents and skills that bring us joy and success. And guess what? We're still going to die. Each and every one of us, that's the thing about life. As wonderful as it is, none of us get out of life alive.

We were born mortal, born fragile. We've had a terminal diagnosis since birth. They shouldn't detract from our sense of wonder or appreciation. It doesn't render everything pointless. Look at Seneca. He wrote often on the inevitability of death. He wrote. And yet, He wrote.

And yet, he wrote. That's the point. He published books. He cared about each and every word in them. He wanted them to find large audiences. He celebrated his successes. Marcus Aurelius was constantly meditating on those words, Memento Mori. And still, he raised his family.

He sat at the head of an enormous empire which he struggled and strove to maintain and protect. He also laughed and loved and hunted and read and went to the theater. The fact that we will die is not sad. It's just that. A fact. We have to be aware of it, but we don't have to let it crush us. Instead, we should be freed by it, freed to follow our talents where they lead us, but don't weep if they don't lead us to ever last in fame, freed to follow love and raise a family, but not to be crippled with anxiety and worry every second about the pain of losing them,

freed to have fun, but be careful not to waste our finite amount of time doing so. None of us are going to get out of this life alive. None of us will escape the get out of this life alive. None of us will escape the prophecy and that's okay. What we have is right now. What we have is plenty so seize it, embrace it, live it. And of course, Memento Mori, you can check out the Memento Mori coin that I carry in my left pocket everywhere I go at store.dailystoic.com. Judge yourself, not others.

There is nothing less philosophical than being a know-it-all. This is especially true of those who use their knowledge to scold others for their mistakes, while claiming the superiority of their knowledge or insight. The Stoics taught the behaving this way was to miss the entire purpose of philosophy as a tool for self-correction medicine for our own souls, not a weapon for putting down others. Seneca's letters twice employ the metaphor of scrubbing down or scraping off our faults. We need to see ourselves as in the care of philosophy's principles. He says, or as Epictetus put it later,

when referring to the philosopher's lecture hall, we need to see it as a hospital for our own therapy. So try not to write down a single complaint or problem of another person in your journal this week, focus on what ails you. We have two quotes from Seneca's moral letters and one from the discourses. When philosophy is wielded with arrogance and stubbornly, it is the cause for the ruin of many. Let philosophy scrape off your own faults rather than be a way to rail against the faults of others. That's Seneca letter 103. Some people with exceptional minds quickly grasp virtue or produce it within themselves, but other dim and lazy types hindered by bad habits must have their rusty souls

Constantly scrub down the weaker sorts will be helped and lifted from their bad opinions if we put them in the care of philosophy's principles That's epictetus is moral letters 95 and then epictetus is discourses 323 men The philosophers lecture hall is a hospital. You shouldn't walk out of it, feeling pleasure, but pain for you weren't well when you entered it. I think this is a tension here, and I've seen it. Some people maybe get it wrong, probably in bad faith when they reply to stuff I've posted or written, you know, who are you, you know, to criticize, I don't know, anti-vaxxers or who are you to say that have this political opinion or to say that this is right or wrong, you're not perfect, of course, right? Of course, I'm not perfect. Of course,

Asteoic is primarily focused on their own edification, their own improvement, they're trying to look in the mirror, they're trying to scrub off their own faults. That doesn't mean that we turn a blind eye to what's happening in the world. That doesn't mean we indulge in except and encourage ridiculousness or injustices by other people. I mean, some of the best stoic lines are quips or criticisms of other people, right?

The stoics were also teachers. Zeno, Seneca, Musoneus, Rufus, Epicetus. They were writers and thinkers. They were responsible for teaching philosophy to people. Of course, we have to make judgments. I think what the stoics are really talking about is not being a Monday morning quarterback at the expense of your performance on Sunday, right? When I study history, obviously part of my job is to make judgments and communicate these

ideas to you and to people and to myself. And that really is what I'm doing. And I have a chapter in courage is calling about why we don't judge another person's courage, right? We don't fully understand everything that's going on with them. But in another sense, we do judge their courage, but instead of criticizing them, instead of feeling better than them because they made this mistake, we try to look at them as cautionary tales, almost like we would in a Greek tragedy or a Roman play, a Shakespearean play, and

try to apply those lessons to our own lives. So the point is, when you see someone else doing something wrong, when you see something you don't like, when you see someone debasing themselves, when you see someone advocating a preposterous or dangerous opinion, you can criticize it, you can call it out for what it is. But don't feel superior for it. Try to learn from it. Try to apply lessons from that to your own life.

That's the journey that we're on here. Obviously, as a writer and a speaker, I have to draw on examples. My work would be not very compelling if I didn't do that. So I have to walk a slightly different razor's edge and I mean, look, that's what's so funny, right? This dog's just saying, don't criticize other people. And yet even in this quote from from Seneca, moral letters 95, he's saying, look, some people get this naturally, but there are other dim and lazy types hindered by bad habits. And they must have their rusty souls constantly scrubbed. So that does exist, right?

And somebody has to do that job and perhaps that's your job with a friend or a family member. Just remember that your real job is scrubbing down your own rusty soul. And if you ever think that it is not rusty, well, that is a compelling sign right there that it is. Just a funny note, I get this all the time because if ego is the enemy, people go, what do I do about my boss is ego? What do you do about all the egos in our organization? Baa, ba, ba, ba, ba. But much less often do I get the question I have in ego? What do I do about my ego? Right? The question we often are gravitating towards solving other people's issues, focusing on other people's flaws. But as they say in the Bible, don't worry about the splinter in your neighbor's eye, and you have a log in your own.

So that's what philosophy is about. You are not well. Treat yourself first. But of course, you may recognize similar symptoms in other people. If you need to point them out, go right ahead. 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. Hey, prime members, you can listen to the daily Stoke early and add free on Amazon music. Download the Amazon music app today, or you can listen early and add free

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