A Measure Of Greatness | Accepting What Is

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2:48So let's get into it.

2:58A measure of greatness. Not everyone thinks Marcus Aurelius was so great. And it's true, his record is not unblemished. He fought in imperial wars. He didn't stop the persecution of the Christians. His son was disturbed and unfit to succeed him. So can we really call him a philosopher king? How great a stoic was he actually? These are all good questions to ask in theory, but in practice, they're quite unfair, especially when it comes to looking at leaders. As a more recent president with his own blind spots for his flawed son has put it, don't compare me to the almighty, compare me to the alternative.

3:35The measure of Marcus Aurelius' his greatness is that under an impossible test, being the emperor, he and his philosophy stood up pretty well. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, we're told, and yet with Marcus Aurelius, it didn't. He worked hard. He remained compassionate. He didn't indulge himself in pleasures. He sought peace. In the depths of Rome's financial crisis, he even sold off his own possessions to raise money for the country. He was especially good and decent in these ways compared to his predecessors, like Hadrian, who once stabbed a secretary in the eye with a pen for no reason, or Nero, who among a long list of monstrous crimes ordered the murder of his own mother, or Caligula, who killed a man's son and then forced the man to have dinner with him.

4:18Even a Stoic like Seneca, who we've stipulated was not perfect, was clearly less flawed and corrupt than the famous advisor of Tiberius. That's the most powerful case for the study of Stoicism, the effect it has on the lives of the people who decided to commit to it. It didn't make them perfect, but it made them braver, smarter, kinder. It made them do better work for a better world. And it's a measure of the effectiveness of this philosophy and the people who do their best to adhere to it that they seem to do much better at not being corrupted by power and success than people who don't. The same can be true for you if you give these ideas a chance, if you work them day and night like Seneca did, if you're still picking up your tablets and going to school to learn more about it, as Marcus Aurelius did even into old age.

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6:14Today's entry, Accepting What Is. Reinhold Niebuhr's serenity prayer is a mantra for many. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, it reads. Courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. The Stoics wanted to push past simply accepting what is. They wanted us to be grateful and happy with what is. Epictetus taught that we get a well-flowing life when we wish for what is going to happen, and not for what we want to happen. And Marcus Aurelius adds that we should meet anything that comes our way with gratitude. Not, I wish this was different, and I'll tolerate it, but I'm glad it happened this way.

7:00It's for the best. So let us try that on for size this week. And we have two quotes from Epictetus and one from Marcus Aurelius. Don't seek for everything to happen as you wish it would, but rather wish that everything happens as it actually will, and then your life will flow well. That's Epictetus's Inchiridion 8. And then from the Discourses 1.12, he says, To be truly educated means this, learning to wish that each thing happens exactly as it does. Marcus Aurelius's Meditation 9.6, all you need are these, certainty of judgment in the present moment, action for the common good in the present moment, and an attitude of gratitude in the present moment for anything that comes your way.

7:49One thing I wanted to point out because I was fascinated to learn this is the serenity prayer. One, it sounds like some sort of real hymn or prayer that must go back thousands of years. Honestly, it sounds like something that could come from the Stoics. But in fact, it really comes, and then obviously a lot of people associate it with the recovery movement, which it has become a big part of. But it really dates to like the 30s and 40s. They think that he composed the prayer somewhere around the time of 1932, 1933, which for some context is, you know, in the midst of the Great Depression. But again, one of the benefits of wisdom is that it is both timely and timeless at the same time.

8:39So this idea of the prayer, Father, give us courage to change what must be altered, serenity to accept what cannot be helped, and the insight to know one from another. Also, I think the difference between that as he first writes it and then what it sort of commonly gets rendered at is also a sign of, as Twain says, the difference between lightning and a lightning bug. Like just the perfect wording of it, the perfect encapsulation of the wisdom, it feels as soon as you see it, even though it's as old as some people's grandparents who are listening to this, or perhaps some people who are listening to this themselves, they may be well older than that short little prayer, but it feels as current and fresh and also as ageless and timeless as just about anything.

9:29But anyways, let's not nerd out too much on the history of the prayer. What I thought I would focus on today, because we've been talking about acceptance quite a lot here on the podcast, I tend to disagree a little bit with Epictetus. I find that Epictetus's life was so tragic and painful. I mean, his name literally means like enslaved. We know almost nothing about his family. We know nothing about his existence, except that he's born a slave. He has a cruel master who tortures him. He walks for a limp the rest of his life. And then after 30 years of slavery and, eventually getting his freedom, Epictetus is exiled by a cruel emperor.

10:12So it is a hard life. But I find it striking that nowhere in Epictetus's writings does he really question whether any of it was right or fair, whether anything could be done about it. Now, you might say this is him reaching this sort of sage-like level of wisdom. And I think there's truth to that. I mean, who am lie to question, obviously, such a great and brave and, you know, enduring spirit. But I guess, obviously, we live in a world now where people have more agency. And why do we have that agency? Because people were willing to fight for it and change. So obviously, the Stoics are mostly right that so much of what happens in this world is outside of our control.

10:55We should accept it, resenting it, crying over it, whining about it, simply wishing it was otherwise does not do anything. And then a lot of the things that I think this is referred to are things that you just, look, you were born five foot three instead of six foot three. That's just a reality. You're going to have to accept it, right? People in your family go bald. You're going to have to accept it, right? Your spouse turned out to be a jerk. They ran away with all your money, left you, broke your heart, it happened, right? That is true. But I just don't want Epictetus to be misinterpreted as some sort of rationalization or acceptance of profound injustices, including the injustices that Epictetus seemed relatively okay accepting, right?

11:46As they say, progress depends on the unreasonable man. I talk about this a little bit in the Courage book. We have to be accepting. We have to face unflinchingly the reality of our situation. But even as I read this paragraph that I have written, I would push back on it a little bit. And I do think it's important that we focus on what we're going to do about the situations that we find ourselves in. I feel like Epictetus could have done that a bit more himself. I'm still obviously a great man, better man than I. Certainly I could not have endured what he endured. But it's just a thought today.

12:18And I want you to be okay pushing back and questioning things from the Stoics as well. They weren't perfect. They were products of their time. They were products of their own experiences. And we can challenge and debate and argue with them as long as we think we're getting them closer to what they actually mean, what the wisdom of the Stoics actually mean. And that's today's message.

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