The Tim Ferriss Show - #149: How to Live in The Moment

Episode Date: March 27, 2016

I once wrote, "We all like to appear 'successful' (a nebulous term at best) and the media likes to portray standouts as superheroes...Most 'superheroes' are nothing of the sort. They’re weird, neurotic creatures who do big things DESPITE lots of self-defeating habits and self-talk." Focusing on what people accomplish without understanding the mindset that allows them to experience that success leads to limited results. To help close the gap, I wanted to share On The Shortness of Life by Seneca the Younger. It's a short letter written roughly two thousand years ago, yet it's timeliness. This is an essay that I revisit at least once a quarter because it focuses on how much time we're given in life, and how it's oftentimes misused or wasted. You can listen to my favorite portion here, which begins with: "Why do you torment yourself and lose weight over some problem..." This is a fantastic reminder to mind the critical few and to ignore the trivial many. You can listen to this one and the rest of the collection via the Tao of Seneca at Audible.com/TimsBooks. Enjoy! Show notes and links for this episode can be found at www.fourhourworkweek.com/podcast. This podcast is brought to you by Boll & Branch. There is a lot of nonsense in the bedding business. For instance, did you know thread-count is not a good measurement of quality? It’s a total myth. The “Made in Italy” label? It isn’t something you should necessarily pay extra for because it generally means it’s just finished in Italy and woven in places like China. The general industry mark-up for bedding is 700 to 800 percent at most retailers. Boll & Branch creates incredibly high-quality bedding. They are the same sheets you’ll find at my home in San Francisco. The best part? You can try anything you order at home for 30 days. If you don’t love it, send it back and get a full refund. Go to Boll & Branch and use promo code “TIM” for 20% off your entire order. Whether sheets, towels, blankets, duvet covers, or anything else. Shipping is always free. This episode is also brought to you by Exo Protein. These guys are making protein bars using cricket protein powder. Before you look disgusted, I bet they taste better than any protein bar you’ve ever had before! With recipes that were developed by a three-Michelin-star chef, the bars are paleo-friendly, with no gluten, no grains, no soy, no dairy, and they won’t spike your glycemic response. In fact, they’re less processed than any other protein bars you’ll be able to find. Exo Protein is offering a deep discount to Tim Ferriss Show listeners — if you go toExoProtein.com/Tim today, you can try a sampler pack with all of the most popular flavors for less than $10. This is a startup with limited inventory that sells out all the time, so act fast!***If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. I also love reading the reviews!For show notes and past guests, please visit tim.blog/podcast.Sign up for Tim’s email newsletter (“5-Bullet Friday”) at tim.blog/friday.For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.Interested in sponsoring the podcast? Visit tim.blog/sponsor and fill out the form.Discover Tim’s books: tim.blog/books.Follow Tim:Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferrissFacebook: facebook.com/timferriss YouTube: youtube.com/timferrissPast guests on The Tim Ferriss Show include Jerry Seinfeld, Hugh Jackman, Dr. Jane Goodall, LeBron James, Kevin Hart, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jamie Foxx, Matthew McConaughey, Esther Perel, Elizabeth Gilbert, Terry Crews, Sia, Yuval Noah Harari, Malcolm Gladwell, Madeleine Albright, Cheryl Strayed, Jim Collins, Mary Karr, Maria Popova, Sam Harris, Michael Phelps, Bob Iger, Edward Norton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Neil Strauss, Ken Burns, Maria Sharapova, Marc Andreessen, Neil Gaiman, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Jocko Willink, Daniel Ek, Kelly Slater, Dr. Peter Attia, Seth Godin, Howard Marks, Dr. Brené Brown, Eric Schmidt, Michael Lewis, Joe Gebbia, Michael Pollan, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Vince Vaughn, Brian Koppelman, Ramit Sethi, Dax Shepard, Tony Robbins, Jim Dethmer, Dan Harris, Ray Dalio, Naval Ravikant, Vitalik Buterin, Elizabeth Lesser, Amanda Palmer, Katie Haun, Sir Richard Branson, Chuck Palahniuk, Arianna Huffington, Reid Hoffman, Bill Burr, Whitney Cummings, Rick Rubin, Dr. Vivek Murthy, Darren Aronofsky, and many more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

optimal minimal at this altitude i can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking can i ask you a personal question now what is the appropriate time i'm a cybernetic organism living tissue over metal endoskeleton this episode is brought to you by ag1, the daily foundational nutritional supplement that supports whole body health. I do get asked a lot what I would take if I could only take one supplement, and the true answer is invariably AG1. It simply covers a ton of bases. I usually drink it in the mornings and frequently take their travel packs with me on the road. So what is AG1? AG1 is a science-driven

formulation of vitamins, probiotics, and whole food sourced nutrients. In a single scoop, AG1 gives you support for the brain, gut, and immune system. So take ownership of your health and try AG1 today. You will get a free one-year supply of vitamin D and five free AG1 travel packs with your first subscription purchase. So learn more, check it out. Go to drinkag1.com slash Tim. That's drinkag1, the number one, drinkag1.com slash Tim. Last time, drinkag1.com slash Tim. Check it out. This episode is brought to you by Five Bullet Friday, my very own email newsletter. It's become one of the most popular email newsletters in the world with millions of

subscribers. And it's super, super simple. It does not clog up your inbox. Every Friday, I send out five bullet points, super short, of the coolest things I've found that week, which sometimes includes apps, books, documentaries, supplements, gadgets, new self-experiments, hacks, tricks, and all sorts of weird stuff that I dig up from around the world. You guys, podcast listeners and book readers, have asked me for something short and action-packed for a very long time. Because after all, the podcast, the books, they can be quite long. And that's why I created Five Bullet Friday. It's become one of my favorite things I do every week. It's free. It's always going to be free. And you can learn more at Tim.blog forward slash Friday.

That's Tim.blog forward slash Friday. I get asked a lot how I meet guests for the podcast, some of the most amazing people I've ever interacted with. And little known fact, I've met probably 25% of them because they first subscribed to Five Bullet Friday. So you'll be in good company. It's a lot of fun. Five Bullet Friday is only available if you subscribe via email. I do not publish the content on the blog or anywhere else. Also, if I'm doing small in-person meetups, offering early access to startups, beta testing, special deals, or anything else

that's very limited, I share it first with Five Bullet Friday subscribers. So check it out, tim.blog forward slash Friday. If you listen to this podcast, it's very likely that you'd dig it a lot and you can, of course, easily subscribe any time. So easy peasy. Again, that's tim.blog forward slash Friday. And thanks for checking it out, if the spirit moves you. Greetings, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferriss, and welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show. This is a shorter episode instead of a long format interview with an expert of some type. And we're going to focus on Seneca, my favorite Stoic thinker and author, Seneca the Younger. His writing that I'm going to highlight and excerpt is roughly 2000 years old, yet it is timeless. And we are going to listen to On the Shortness of Life. This is an essay that I revisit at least once a quarter,

along with all of his other letters that you can listen to, if you would like, through the Tao of Seneca at audible.com forward slash Tim's books. And this particular letter, I will highlight my favorite portion, which begins with quote, why do you torment yourself and lose weight over some problem? Dot, dot, dot. And on it goes. This is a fantastic reminder to mind the critical few to ignore the trivial many and much, much more. I hope you enjoy it. Letter 49. On the Shortness of Life. A man is indeed lazy and careless, my dear Lucilius, if he is reminded of a friend only by seeing some landscape which stirs the memory.

And yet there are times when the old familiar haunts stir up a sense of loss that has been stored away in the soul, not bringing back dead memories, but rousing them from their dormant state, just as the sight of a lost friend's favorite slave, or his cloak, or his house, renews the mourner's grief, even though it has been softened by time. Now, lo and behold, Campania, and especially Naples and your beloved Pompeii, struck me, when I viewed them, with a wonderfully fresh sense of longing for you. You stand in full view before my eyes. I am on the point of parting from you. I see you choking down your tears and resisting without success the emotions that well up at the

very moment when you try to check them. I seem to have lost you but a moment ago. For what is not but a moment ago when one begins to use the memory? It was but a moment ago, when one begins to use the memory? It was but a moment ago that I sat, as a lad, in the school of the philosopher Sotion. But a moment ago that I began to plead in the courts. But a moment ago that I lost the desire to plead. But a moment ago that I lost the ability. Infinitely swift is the flight of time, as those see more clearly who are looking backwards.

For when we are intent on the present, we do not notice it. So gentle is the passage of time's headlong flight. Do you ask the reason for this? All past time is in the same place. It all presents the same aspect to us. It lies together. Everything slips into the same abyss. Besides, an event which in its entirety is of brief compass cannot contain long intervals. The time which we spend in living is but a point, nay, even less than a point.

But this point of time, infinitesimal as it is, nature has mocked by making it seem outwardly of longer duration. She has taken one portion thereof and made it infancy, another childhood, another youth, another the gradual slope, so to speak, from youth to old age, and old age itself is still another. How many steps, for how short a climb! It was but a moment ago that I saw you off on your journey, and yet this moment ago makes up a goodly share of our existence, which is so brief we should reflect that it will soon come to an end altogether. In other years time did not seem to me to go so swiftly.

Now it seems fast beyond belief, perhaps because I feel that the finish line is moving closer to me, or it may be that I have begun to take heed and reckon up my losses. For this reason I am all the more angry that some men claim the major portion of this time for superfluous things, time which, no matter how carefully it is guarded, cannot suffice even for necessary things. Cicero declared that if the number of his days were doubled he should not have the time to read the lyric poets. And you may rate the dialecticians in the same class, but they are foolish in a more melancholy way. The lyric poets are avowedly frivolous, but the dialecticians believe that

they are themselves engaged upon serious business. I do not deny that one must cast a glance at dialectic, but it ought to be a mere glance, a sort of greeting from the threshold, merely that one may not be deceived or judge these pursuits to contain any hidden matters of great worth. Why do you torment yourself and lose weight over some problem which it is more clever to have scorned than to solve. When a soldier is undisturbed and traveling at his ease, he can hunt for trifles along his way, but when the enemy is closing in on the rear, and a command is given to quicken the pace, necessity makes him throw away everything which he picked up in moments of peace and leisure. I have no time to investigate disputed inflections of words or to try my cunning upon them.

Behold the gathering clans, the fast-shut gates, and weapons wetted, ready for the war. I need a stout heart to hear without flinching this din of battle which sounds round about. And all would rightly think me mad if, when grey beards and women were heaping up rocks for the fortifications, when the armour-clad youths inside the gates were awaiting, or even demanding, the order for a sally, when the spears of the foemen were quivering in our gates, and the very ground was rocking with mines and subterranean passages, I say they would rightly think me mad if I were to sit idle, putting such pretty posers as this. What you have not lost you have, but you have not

lost any horns, therefore you have horns. Or other tricks constructed after the model of this piece of sheer silliness. And yet I may well seem in your eyes no less mad if I spend my energies on that sort of thing, for even now I am in a state of siege. And yet in the former case it would be merely a peril from the outside that threatened me, and a wall that sundered me from the foe. As it is now, death-dealing perils are in my very presence. I have no time for such nonsense. A mighty undertaking is on my hands. What am I to do? Death is on my trail, and life is fleeting away. Teach me something with which to face these troubles. Bring it to pass that I shall cease trying to escape from death, and that life may cease to escape from me.

Give me courage to meet hardships. Make me calm in the face of the unavoidable. Relax the straightened limits of the time which has allotted me. Show me that the good in life does not depend upon life's length, but upon the use we make of it. Also, that it is possible, or rather usual, for a man who has lived long to have lived too little. Say to me when I lie down to sleep,

You may not wake again. And when I return, You may never go forth again. You are mistaken if you think that only on an ocean voyage there is a very slight space between life and death. No, the distance between is just as narrow everywhere. It is not everywhere that death shows himself so near at hand, yet everywhere he is so near at hand, yet everywhere

he is as near at hand. Rid me of these shadowy terrors, then you will more easily deliver to me the instruction for which I have prepared myself. At our birth, nature made us teachable and gave us reason, not perfect, but capable of being perfected. Discuss for me justice, duty, thrift, and that twofold purity, both the purity which abstains from another's person and that which takes care of one's own self. If you will only refuse to lead me along by-paths, I shall more easily reach the goal at which I am aiming. For, as the tragic poet says, the language of truth is simple. We should not, therefore, make that language intricate, since there is nothing less fitting for a soul of great endeavor

than such crafty cleverness. Farewell. every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend. And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up in the world of the esoteric as I do. It could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance. And it's very short. It's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend. So if you want to receive that,

check it out. Just go to fourhourworkweek.com. That's fourhourworkweek.com all spelled out and just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it.