The Daily Stoic - What Would You Do More Of?

Episode Date: March 8, 2022

Ryan talks about why you should think about how you actually want to spend your time.Grab a Memento Mori pendant necklace from the Daily Stoic Store to remember this message.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://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 Stood Podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wondering'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. Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a passage of ancient

wisdom designed to help you find strength, insight, and wisdom in everyday life. Each one of these passages is based on the 2,000 year old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. For more, you can visit us at dailystoward.com. What would you do more of? Yesterday we talked about that indictment for Marcus Aurelius. None of us want to die, yet we spend so much of our time on things we hate doing. And the power of Memento Mori is the clarity that it offers. By thinking, by imagining that we have just been given

a few months to live, we can see immediately what we should stop doing. We realize that we don't have time to waste. And before you know it, there is this urgent, emergent need to do the things we love, place of the things we hate. This is the positive side of momento Mori. Not what would I stop doing, but rather what should I start doing?

How would I spend the limited time I have left? Where would I find a meaning and purpose and joy? To the uninitiated, the unfamiliar, the skeptical, this is, there is a certain nihilism to momentum worry, but that's a mistake. Momentum worry isn't nihilistic at all. It's the opposite. In Marcus' last days, he tried to prepare his son for power, just as Antoninus had

done for him. He cheered up his friends. Kato's last night alive, he had a long dinner party where philosophy was discussed for hours. Then he retreated to his bedroom and read one of Plato's works twice. In our interview with Kate Boller for the Daily Stood podcast, as well as in her wonderful book No Curse for Being Human, she talks a lot about how she spent her suddenly very

finite feeling time when she was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer in 2015. She finished an academic book she'd been working on and even encouraged her father to do the same. She spent time with her son and her husband. She laughed, she traveled. She did stuff that ordinarily she would have put on the back burner or told herself, she'd get to later.

The truth is that none of us know whether we will get to it later. And of course, the tricky part is that we don't know that we won't either. So we must use this as a test. If you knew you were dying, what would you do more of? What would mortality prioritize for you? Do more of that today because you are mortal, because you are dying fast or slow. Nobody knows which.

Hey, new MementoMory pendants in stock now in 14-karat gold. Remember, you could leave life right now, so make the most of every moment while you can. Check it out at dailystoke.com slash store. 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. Raising kids can be one of the greatest rewards of a parent's life. But come on, someday, parenting is unbearable. I love my kid, but is a new parenting podcast from Wondry that shares a refreshingly honest and insightful take on parenting. Hosted by myself, Megan Galey, Chris Garcia, and Kurt Brown-Oller, we will be your resident

not-so-expert experts. Each week we'll share a parenting story that'll have you laughing, nodding, and thinking, oh yeah, I have absolutely been there. We'll talk about what went right and wrong. What would we do differently? And the next time you step on yet another stray Lego in the middle of the night, you'll feel less alone. So if you like to laugh with us as we talk about the hardest job in the world, listen to, I love my kid, but wherever you get your podcasts.

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