The Daily Stoic - You Don't Have Unlimited Time | What's Up To Us, What's Not Up To Us

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. It's kind of funny. Even though we've been talking about it for weeks, even though it's a time when people are making resolutions to stop procrastinating, even though the deadline was clear, it's the last two days of the year where we see the most signups for the Daily Stoic New Year, New Year, New You challenge. Like far in a way the most registrations. As I said, it's funny, but it's also a little revealing because this is what we do, isn't it? Like, we think about doing something. We set a goal or an intention. We know there's something that would do us good, and then we put off actually doing it until the

Starting point is 00:01:35 last minute. Now, why is that? Is it to give ourselves an excuse to not have to follow through? Because we don't want to hear that we can't? Because maybe we want to hear that we can't, that the window has passed. Maybe since we're afraid we don't make the commitment. Or maybe it's just that timeless thing that all fools have in common, as Seneca said, that they are always getting ready to start. We say I'm going to get to it, just not quite yet. I'm going to do it. I just need to take care of some other things first. You know you'd like to eat better.

Starting point is 00:02:09 You know you'd like to get in better shape. You know you'd like to get more organized. You know you'd like to be able to complete that creative project or learn an instrument or reconnect with an old friend. You know you're capable of more. But when will we do this eventually? And then what happens is that time sneaks up on us. In meditations, Marx Reelius rebukes this tendency, not only as lazy, but as arrogant and

Starting point is 00:02:34 entitled. He says, we act as if we had endless years ahead of us. But no, he says, death overshadows you while you're alive and able be good. While you're alive and able, stop putting things off. Stop telling herself at some point. Stop being arrogant and entitled. Stop acting as if you have endless years ahead of you. You don't. Memento Mori, you are mortal. You don't have unlimited time. How many New Year's have you watched pass with the same list of things you'd get around to? How many times have you told yourself this is the year only to find yourself 12 months later in the exact same place? If you don't want 2026 to be another year of putting things off, well, that's what we created

Starting point is 00:03:21 the Daily Stoic New Year New Year New You challenge around. It's 21 actionable challenges, one email per day built around the best, most timeless wisdom in Stoic philosophy, and we'd love to have you join us. Join us and thousands of other Stoics doing it at dailystoic.com slash challenge. It's going to be three weeks of waking up each morning, opening the email, and taking real action towards becoming who you know you can be, and you should be that person while you still can. I'm pumped. My family's ready for it. We do it every year. I got a bunch of friends that do it too. It's been one of the best things that I have done over the last seven or eight years, not just because it's been fun to meet and talk with all of you, but because I get

Starting point is 00:04:03 better for doing these exercises. My spouse gets better. My sister-in-law was telling me something the other day that she learned in like one of the very first challenges we ever did. It was this habit she wanted to quit. And here she is all these years later's and she still staying strong on it. That's what we love about the challenge. I'd love to see you in there. And by the way, if you sign up for Daily Stoic Life, you get this challenge and all the challenges for free, dailystoic.com, challenge. I'll see you on January 1st. Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic podcast. I've got my Daily Stoic journal in front of me. This is the first week in the Daily Stoic Journal.

Starting point is 00:04:48 And it starts with the most important stoic task that there is. What's up to us and what's not up to us. Epictetus's handbook, the Incuridian, begins with the most powerful exercise in all of Stoicism, the distinction between things that are up to us in our control, and the things that are not up to us. It is this, the dichotomy of control, that is the first principle in the entire philosophy. We don't control many of the things we pursue in life, yet we become angry, sad, hurt, scared, and jealous, and we don't get them. In fact, these emotions, those are reactions are about the only thing we do control. If that is the only lesson to journal on and think about this year, consider it a year well and philosophically lived. And then Epictetus's

Starting point is 00:05:40 discourses, which we actually open the Daily Stoak with, so I'll riff on that in a second. But he says, look, the chief task in life is simply this, to identify and separate matter so that I can say clearly to myself, which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil, not in uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own? And then in Corridian 1-1, he rifts on what is and isn't in our control. He says, some things are in our control while others are not. We control our opinion, our choice, our desire, our aversions, and in a word, everything of our doing. We don't control our body, our property, our reputation, our position, and in a word,

Starting point is 00:06:24 everything not in our own doing. And even more the things in our control are by nature free, unhindered and unobstructed, while those not in our control are weak and slavish and can be hindered and are not our own. And then 122, he says, we control our reason's choice in all acts that depend on moral will. What's not under control are our body in any of its parts, our possessions, our parents, our siblings, our children, our country, anything with which we might associate. Look, I think what Epictetus is saying here is that not just the wisdom of the serenity prayer, you know, you separate things into the categories and you only focus on what's up to you, but that a lot of things that we think of as being up to us are not even up to us, right? Really at the absolute core of it, what we control are our thoughts, our emotions, our opinions. We don't control what happens, control how we respond to what happens, but even then within a constrained amount.

Starting point is 00:07:23 And this might seem kind of resigned or a sad way to start the year, but I don't think it is. I think it's the only way to start the year. It's certainly the only way I thought we could start the Daily Stoic, which I'll read to you the January 1st entry. The single most important practice in Stoic philosophy is differentiating between what we can change and what we can't, what we have influence over, and what we do not. A flight is delayed because of weather. No amount of yelling at an airline representative will end a stoichaelic. No amount of wishing will make you taller or shorter or born in a different country. No matter how hard you try, you can't make someone like you.

Starting point is 00:08:01 And on top of that, time spent hurling yourself at these immovable objects is time not spent on the things we can change. The recovery community practices something called the serenity prayer. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. addicts cannot change the abuse suffered in childhood. They cannot undo the choices that they have made or the hurt they have caused, but they can change the future through the power they have in the present moment.

Starting point is 00:08:31 As Epictetus says, they can control the choices they make right now. The same is true for us today, for the year that stands before us. If we focus on making clear what parts of our day are within our control and what parts are not, we will not only be happier, we will have a distinct advantage over other people who fail to realize. They are fighting an unwinnable battle. It's funny. I think when we're younger, we have an outsized view of what's in our control and what isn't. And as we get older, we ratchet that back, which is ironic because as we get older,

Starting point is 00:09:04 we're also more powerful, more successful, et cetera. But you just realize, like, look, you don't control what other people do. I mean, even the longer I've been a parent, it's something less strict I am, but I do feel the more chill I am because I've made the mistakes. I've tried to control things I don't control. I've seen where my anxiety or stress or worry or whatever gets me. And I cultivate the ability to step back to focus on what I control. I just control how I respond.

Starting point is 00:09:34 I just control whether I let my emotions get the best of me or not. Or when I catch myself, at what point in that process? And do I walk it back, right? What's up to us and what's not up to us? I feel like so many of things that I'm upset about, that I'm getting in arguments about. What I'm really saying is, I wish that hadn't happened. I want to undo that that happened.

Starting point is 00:09:56 That's not how life works. That's not something that's up to me. And so I'm practicing the idea of getting a little bit better at letting go of that thing, of moving on from that thing. And so must you. This is a year that we try to focus more on what's in our control. We argue less with reality. I have a whole set of note cards.

Starting point is 00:10:17 I often journal and think about how often I find a, we're in arguments with reality. We wish things were different. They weren't the way that they were. And this isn't like resigning yourself to the state of society. This is resigning yourself that something that did happen, happened. That's something that happened did happen. It is done.

Starting point is 00:10:36 It is in the past. Arguing and relitigating and relitigating. It doesn't change it. You don't have the power to make it unhappen. But you do have the power to decide how it's going to make you feel, whether it harms you or not, what you do about it, who you are because of it. That's the part of this that's up to us. That's where I'll leave you today. Hey, it's Ryan. Thank you for listening to the Daily Stoag podcast. I just wanted to say we so

Starting point is 00:11:06 appreciate it. We love serving you. It's amazing to us that over 30 million people have downloaded these episodes in the couple years we've been doing it. It's an honor. Please spread the word, tell people about it, and this isn't to sell anything. I just wanted to say, thank you. Hey, it's Ryan. I try not to make too many puns on my last name, because I've been hearing it my whole life. but if you want to give a holiday gift of me, Ryan Holiday, and The Daily Stoic, well, you can. We have a special offer. If you want to give Daily Stoic premium as a gift, you can do that.

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The Daily Stoic - You Don't Have Unlimited Time | What's Up To Us, What's Not Up To Us

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