The Daily Stoic - What Commands Your Attention?

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Starting point is 00:00:39 dell.com slash deals welcome to the daily stoic podcast designed to help bring those four key stoic virtues courage discipline justice and wisdom into the real world what commands your attention We'd like to think we're masters of our fate that we're in charge of our own lives. But are we? Aren't you constantly checking your phone every few minutes? Don't you crave the approval of other people? What about that pull for a drink, the lure of various temptations, those things you know you should stop doing, but just can't seem to quit?

Starting point is 00:01:26 Epictetus, who was born into slavery, told the students that the critical question of life, was who is my master? Because many free, even powerful people are actually slaves. Slaves to their ambitions, slaves to their urges, to their procrastination, to their emotions. Today we could add to this list, the news cycle, social media, caffeine, nicotine, pot, keeping up with the Joneses. Whatever controls what we desire or dislike, Epictetus warned, becomes our master. Whatever we obey, we serve. Look, if someone kidnapped you and threw you into slavery, that would be one thing. Self-imposed slavery, though, the Stoics believed with something else, something shameful. It's a surrendering of the little amount of control we have in this life.

Starting point is 00:02:17 So this question was what Epictetus encouraged his students to think about, to take action on, because it truly mattered, how they lived their lives, what they let or didn't let control them. And it was important advice 2,000 years ago. ago and it's utterly essential today. And it's one of the things that we're exploring here in Epictetus month. We're doing a deep dive into Epictetus, how to read Epictetus, how to understand him. We're doing a live session about it. It's awesome. I'm really looking forward to it. At the end of the month, thousands of stoaks all over the world are going to be diving into it. I'd love to have you join us. I'll throw the link into today's show notes. You get Epictetus's

Starting point is 00:02:57 discourses for 50% off. Then you get invited to our session. And you can walk yourself through the module as well. You can grab the guide and join us in the course. I'll link to that in today's show notes.

The Daily Stoic - What Commands Your Attention?

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