The Daily Stoic - Stillness Helps You Win | Cultivate Indifference
Episode Date: February 28, 2022Ryan talks about the way that Stoics view the tough moments in life, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal.Get a signed copy of Stillness Is The Key from The Painted... Porch.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://DailyStoic.com/emailFollow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and FacebookThis is Another Word for ObstaclesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic podcasts early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today.
Welcome to the Daily Stoic podcast. Each day we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, 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.
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Stillness helps you win. You'd have been pretty tight too, appearing in your first Super Bowl at age 33, and facing Bill
Bellicech in a less. And if you watched the Rams against the Patriots in 2019, it was visible.
They were nervous. They struggled to get going offensively. The team that had up till that
point been fluid and locked in was rattled and tight and frantic. As Greg Bishop wrote
in Sports Illustrated, the Rams came to believe that they had
overcomplicated the preparation from locking in for a full two weeks beforehand to the plan
that they had painstakingly put together. But because Sean McVeigh is a great coach he vowed
to learn from that. In the offseason last year, McKk. Red still misses the key. He and Les need
ignored the critics who attacked their roster moves and aggressively went after New Talent.
And when they made it to the Super Bowl again this year, they made a conscious effort
to relax, to let go, and be loose.
In the lead up to the Super Bowl, the Sports Illustrated story continues, the team altered
their approach
by not altering it at all. The team was relaxed in those days leading up to the kickoff against
the bangles. They didn't deviate from their routine, they made a conscious effort not to
tighten, to laugh, to hang out, to enjoy a dinner in town. And it worked. Despite all the
obstacles in the game, injuries, a blown face masking, and past interference call,
the Rams were remarkably self-possessed.
They stayed fluid, they kept it simple,
they didn't panic, they made changes,
and they pulled off an incredible performance,
and now they are super bowl champs.
Whatever it is that you're trying to do,
stillness must be a part of it.
It's what unlocks your true talent.
It's what prevents you from locking up.
In life, in the arts, in sports, we think better when we aren't thinking so hard.
We must become like the rock, Marcus, really, as writes, that lets the waves crash over it.
We must become like the sphere, he says, embracing our perfect
stillness. I was superflattered to hear that McVeigh had read stillness is the key
sent me a nice note about it and of course we had less need on the podcast we
talked about some of these things before the Super Bowl. You can check that out
on YouTube and the archives of the day is still a podcast and of course you can
get stillness is the key anywhere books are sold. There's a box set with stillness, obstacle ego.
And we have some sign copies in the Daily Stokes store as well. Check it out.
Cultivate in difference. And this is from this week's entry in the Daily Stoke Journal
366 days of writing and reflection on the art of living
by yours truly and my co-writer and translator, Steve Enhancelman. I actually do this journal
every single day. There's a question in the morning, a question in the afternoon, and 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 Stoke Journal anywhere books are sold.
You can also get a signed personalized copy from me in the Daily Stoke store at store.dailystoke.com.
Some people spend their lives chasing good things, health, wealth, pleasure, achievement.
Others try to avoid the bad things with equal energy, sickness, poverty, pain.
And these look like two drastically different approaches, but in the end, they are the same.
The stoics continually reminded themselves that so many of the things we desire and avoid
are beyond our control.
Instead of chasing impossibilities, the stoics train to be equally prepared and equally
suited to thrive in any condition.
They trained to be indifferent, and this is a great power,
and a cultivation of this skill is a very powerful exercise. Of all the things that are some are good,
others bad, and yet others indifferent, the good are virtues in all that share in them, the bad
are vices in all that indulge them, the indifferent lie in between virtue and vice and include wealth, health, life, death, pleasure, and pain.
Epictetus is discourses.
My reason choice is as indifferent to the reason choice of my neighbor and as to his breath
and body.
However much we've been made for cooperation, the ruling reason in each of us is a master
of its own affair.
If this weren't the case, the evil in someone else would become my harm and God didn't mean for someone else to control my misfortune. Marcus Aurelius'
Meditations, 856. There are things in life which are advantageous and disadvantageous, both
are beyond our control. That's Seneca moral letters, 92. This idea of good, bad, and then
a sort of a third category is this interesting debate.
I talk a little bit about this in lives of the Stokes. You know, the early Stokes were much more
cynical and I mean that like much closer to the cynics, the philosophical school, the idea that
like there's good and bad, there's virtue and vice. And everything is one of those categories.
And there's a lot of argument about this.
I think it's the later Stokes,
the more practical pragmatic Stokes that go,
I mean, sure, but there's also stuff in between.
There is such a thing as gray area
and it's impractical and unrealistic to assume that there's not.
You know, Sennaka talks about sort of preferred in difference.
Like, is it better to be short or tall?
I mean, it's not good or bad either way,
but he says, if you're short or tall, that's is what it is,
but if you had a choice, you'd probably pick tall, right?
You'd probably pick a rich over poor.
It doesn't mean that it's virtuous to be rich,
but if you had a choice, you'd choose it.
So that's just like a sort of an interesting side
stoked debate, but this main thing is like,
look, the stoke is good either way.
That, it's not that the stokes love misfortune
and the stokes don't want success or ease or happiness
or any of these things.
It's, no, the stokes are ready for whatever life throws at them.
This sets them up to not be disappointed
when life does throw adversity.
And it also puts them in a position
where they're not yearning for a craving something good
or ease or luck or success.
They're just cool with however it is.
That's what Zen means, right?
You're just philosophical about it.
You're just chill about it.
You've got an even keel.
And so this idea of indifference is not like nihilism.
It's actually this kind of resiliency, this ability to be good
with whatever happens, with whatever life throws at you. What I rather we not have been through
this pandemic, yeah, probably, but I manage to find my space inside of it. I focused on what I could
do inside of it. What I have loved for parts of my childhood
to be different, what I have loved to be a little bit taller,
what I have loved to be this or that.
Yeah, sure, if I had a choice, but I didn't have a choice.
So I adjust and I make do, you know,
Senna Kattox, and I think he's quoting from Crescippus,
but, or maybe it's Clientes, but he's saying, like,
look, a wise man wants stuff, but it doesn't need it, right?
We make do with what it is. a wise man wants stuff, but it doesn't need it, right?
We make do with what it is, we play the handword out, but if you're asking us what cards we want,
if you're, you know, as the cards are flipping over,
as the one we would prefer, probably.
So in difference is this complicated tricky thing
in stoicism, but I think at the end of the day,
it's pretty common sense, right?
You'd rather be tall, but you're cool being short.
You'd rather have use of all your limbs,
but if something happened, you'd keep going, right?
You know, Santa, because as you'd rather see,
but if you lost your eye and battle, that wouldn't be the end of it for you.
You'd adjust, you'd make do.
That's the power of stoicism.
We'll respond, we'll endure, we'll survive,
we'll make the best of everything,
and in that that were indifferent,
but we're actually quite strong and confident
because of that indifference.
So think about that this week,
if you want to journal about it in your Daily Stoke journal,
great, but try to cultivate the strength of endurance.
Thanks so much for listening to the Daily Stoke podcast.
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