The Daily Stoic - None of Us Are Perfect | Judge Yourself, Not Others

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a stoic-inspired meditation designed to help you find strength and insight and wisdom into everyday life. Each one of these episodes is based on the 2,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women help you learn from them. to follow in their example, and to start your day off with a little dose of courage and discipline and justice and wisdom. For more, visitdailystoic.com. chip off the old block. Marcus Aurelius' son, the man he reluctantly made emperer in his place, all four of his immediate predecessors, not having had a male heir, was impulsive and fragile,

Starting point is 00:01:12 cruel, and bloodthirsty. We don't know exactly what comedist was like, but Joaquin Phoenix seems to have gotten close to his essence, the movie Gladiator. Was Marcus Aurelius a bad father, then? How did he not manage to pass on his stoicism, to say nothing of his kindness and sense of responsibility to his son. We don't know, and it does make some people doubt whether Marcus Eurelius was as great of a man as we'd like to think he was. Yet because of our focus on the men of history, we often miss an equally compelling example of Marcus Aurelius' parenting in the power of his example. In the year 212 AD, his daughter, Cornificia, was sentenced to death by the emperor calla-cala on what appears to be spurious charges. Here, the historians tell us, a child of Marcus

Starting point is 00:02:01 showed herself to be equal, not just to his example, but to Cato and his daughter, Portia. Her last words, the writer Horace White Parsons and Lucy Larkham explained in the Atlantic in 1888, were my poor unhappy soul trapped in an unworthy body. Go forth, be free, show them that you are the daughter of Marcus Aurelius. Then she took off her. ornaments, composed herself, opened her veins, and died. Cassius Dio, the ancient historian, said of her wistful words in serene self-possession that whether innocent or guilty of the unknown crime for which she suffered, she has at least established her claim to an imperial birthright. It is a risky thing to speculate about people's parenting, let alone someone

Starting point is 00:02:48 you didn't know who lived very long ago. Like all of us, Marcus Reelis clearly made mistakes as a parent. But he also clearly did something right. His male heir seemed to be a coward and a murderer. But his daughter? She was heroic and selfless in every bit the equal of her father. Indeed, one of the great stoics of history. I feel like we just got our Halloween decorations up, and now the next holiday season is here. It's hard to believe it, but Thanksgiving, is nearly here. We're big at decorating here at the holiday household, as you can imagine. And Wayfair can help make holiday prep easy by having all your home needs in one place.

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Starting point is 00:05:34 apply. If you're hiring, do it the right way with Indeed. Judge yourself, not others. There is nothing less philosophical than being a know at 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 that 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.

Starting point is 00:06:14 We need to see ourselves as in the care of philosophy, 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.

Starting point is 00:06:52 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 scrubbed 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's moral letters 95. And then Epictetus's discourse is 323. men, the philosopher's lecture hall is a hospital. You shouldn't walk out of it feeling pleasure

Starting point is 00:07:19 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 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 a stoic 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 and accept 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, Musonius Rufus, Epictetus, 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

Starting point is 00:08:34 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,

Starting point is 00:09:08 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,

Starting point is 00:09:49 right? The Stoics are saying, don't criticize other people. And yet even in this quote 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 of ego is the enemy. People go, what do I do about my boss's ego? What do you do about all the egos in our organization? But much less often do I get the question,

Starting point is 00:10:37 I have an 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 when 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. Hey, it's Ryan. Thank you for listening to the Daily Stoog podcast. I just wanted to say we so appreciate it. We love serving you. It's amazing to us that over 30 million people have downloaded these episodes in the couple of years we've been doing it. It's an honor. Please spread the word,

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The Daily Stoic - None of Us Are Perfect | Judge Yourself, Not Others

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