The Daily Stoic - You Have Time, If You Make It | Focus On The Present Moment

Episode Date: January 31, 2022

Ryan talks about the importance of finding time to improve yourself, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal.Check out the Read To Lead Reading Challenge at: https://dailystoic.com/readSign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://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 Stoke podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the Daily Stoke podcast. Each day we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoke's 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 stoic 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. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wundery'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. You have time if you make it. Oh, but I'm too busy to read, we say, not now, not with the kids, not with the way things are at work, not while I'm finishing this up. You don't have time, really? As Julian Jackson writes in his incredible biography of the French liberator Charles de Gaulle, while he was president de Gaulle read two to three books a week, usually history,

novels or poetry, and made a valiant attempt to keep up with the contemporary literature, he always read the winners of the main literary prizes. The truth is, you aren't making the time to read. Meanwhile, the president of France found time to stay caught up on the greatest works of his day and of all time in between bouts of saving democracy in France and governing the country for more than a decade. You'd benefit so much if you made reading a priority. Think of Marcus Aurelius reading philosophy during his reign, just as other heads of state have benefited from reading Marcus Aurelius during their own reigns. Not only did De Gaulle make time for reading,

but as we talk about in our Read to Lead challenge, he even reached out and talked to authors he was reading. While still in office De Gaal would write a letter to one young novelist whose work he'd enjoyed. Your book drew me into another world, probably the true one, he said, like the main character DeGal loved the novel because it allowed him to traverse in zig-zag. Seneca said that the mind must be given over to relaxation from time to time. It cannot be hammered repeatedly like an anvil. Instead we need to be taken into a different world on a regular basis so we can explore, forget, zig and zag.

Books are perhaps the greatest portal ever created for entry into such a world. If you're not reading, you're not living. As Seneca said, it means your life is a tomb for a living person. And books are a key to unlock this tomb, and free you into different worlds. This one included, how simple and great is that? And how can you possibly say, you don't have time for such a wonderful, wonderful thing?

And of course, the daily stoic read-to-lead challenge is about this. Leaders have to be readers. They have to read all sorts of things. They have to read things that make their mind relaxed. They have to read things that make their mind relaxed. They have to read things that make their mind sharper and wiser. So we've built this great challenge. We have exercises about reading more fiction,

reading more literature, about keeping a commonplace book, about learning from history, about even connecting with authors, as we're saying. So check it out, dailystoke.com. Slash, read, to leave. It's one of the best things we've done. I think you'll like it. Check it out dailystalk.com slash read to leave to one of the best things we've done. I think you'll like it check it out Focus on the present moment and this is from this week's entry in the daily still 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 then there's these sort of weekly meditations. As Epictetus says, every day and night, we keep thoughts like this in hand, write them, read them aloud, and talk to yourself, and others about them.

You can check out the Daily Stalk Journal, anywhere books are sold, you can also get a signed personalized copy from me in the Daily Stalk store, it's store.dailystalk.com. Marcus Aurelius rules at a particularly turbulent time. Wars erupted on multiple fronts, terrible plagues ravaged Rome. His rule was certainly one of constant, unrelenting pressure, but he never let it overwhelm him.

From the Stoics and from the example of his adopted father, the Emperor Antoninus Pius, Marcus found a coping strategy in always sticking close to the present moment in the duties at hand. When our own stress boils over, we can remember his practices and exercises to stick with what is in front of us. Not everything that it might mean. At every moment, keep a sturdy mind on the task at hand as a Roman and as a human being. Stick doing it with strict and simple dignity, affection, freedom and justice, giving yourself a break from all other considerations. You can do this if you approach each task as if it is your last, giving up every distraction, emotional subversion of reason, and all drama, vanity and complaint over your fair share. You can see how a mastery over a few things makes it possible to live in abundant and devout life.

That's Marcus, real estate and meditations. Will you to live 3000 years or even a countless multiple of that? Keep in mind that no one ever loses a life other than the one they are living and no one ever lives a life other than the one they are losing. The longest and the shortest life then amount to the same for the present moment last for all and is all anyone Possesses. No one can possess either the past or the future for how can someone be deprived of what is not theirs? And that's Mark's realises, meditations again.

And then this is one of my favorite quotes from Mark. He says, don't let your reflection of the whole sweep of life crush you. Don't fill your mind with all the bad things that might still happen. Stay focused on the present situation and ask yourself why it is so unbearable and can't be survived. I was sitting on the porch with Richard Overton, who died almost two years ago now, and he was at that time one of the oldest men in the world. There's like 112. I remember asking, I said, Richard, how do you do it? You go day by day and he says, oh no, man, he says day by night. You know, for him, if he survived the night, that was a successful day. And, you know, it was, it was touch and go. There's a great, it's a great poem that says, I'm forgetting who it's by Odil and Thomas. He says, you know, every night it's touch and go. Look, the future is uncertain.

That's by definition, the future is unknown. It unfolds before us. And because of all the directions it could go, some of them are inevitably not what we want. And they're scary and intimidated and worrisome. And yes, Ennika talks about pre-meditashomalorum, thinking of the evils in advance. I think he means that specifically and generally, but that's about being prepared for what

might happen. Once you've done that, saying you got to zoom in and focus on what's in front of you, that's today, right? You know, 2020, as far as what happened to 2020, I mean, there have been decades where fewer things happened, right? Or centuries, in some cases, it feels like. But, you know, the way you get through that is you wake up and you do what you gotta do.

I mean, I think kids have helped me with this where it's like, look, all right, got them up, gotta do the morning routine. And I'm gonna go to work, I'm gonna do what I have to do, then I come home, then we're gonna play, then it's dinner, you know, then it's the after dinner chores, and then it's starting the bedtime routine, and then you get them to play, then it's dinner, you know, then it's the after dinner chores, and then it's starting the bedtime routine, and then you get them to bed, and then, you know, everything

that happens from there if you survive is a bonus. And so I think just that routine is helpful for focusing on the present moment, but I think Marcus's point of concentrating on the task before you like a Roman. It's just, you know, that's beautifully said. And if we could do that today, who knows what's what was in the news yesterday, you know, what the speculation about what's gonna happen next is nobody knows. Nobody knows, not even me. And, you know, as I'm recording this, if you, you know, weeks in advance, I know even less. But I'm not worried about it. Marcus Rios has another

great quote. he goes, yeah, you're worried about the future. He says, but you'll meet the future with the same weapons that you have now. So let's focus on what's in front of you right now. Let's use those weapons where they're most effective. Let's have the most impact where we can right now. Let's tackle this problem.

Let's not work on this problem with our eye towards the next problem and the next problem and the next problem and then what's going gonna happen when that next one doesn't work, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's so easy to start spiraling, and it doesn't help, doesn't make you happier, it doesn't make things better. So let's zoom in, and look,

do the stoics sometimes talk about zooming way out and seeing the big picture, yes. But right now, we're talking about zooming in, because zooming in is an effective tool, and it's what I want you to be thinking about today. So get out there, get after it, but stay focused, concentrate like a Roman. Keep your mind at the task at hand.

Do it with strict and simple dignity, affection, freedom, justice. Give yourself a break from all of their considerations. As Marcus says, approach this task as if it is your last, giving up every distraction, emotional subversion of reason, give up the drama and the vanity and all the complaints, master these few things and that will give you a good life. Talk soon. 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

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