Be Strict with Yourself, Tolerant with Others | Ask Daily Stoic

0:00Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world.

0:14Remember that stoicism isn't about judging other people. It's not a moral philosophy you're supposed to project and enforce onto the world. No, it's a personal philosophy that's designed to direct your behavior. This is what Marcus Aurelius meant when he said, be tolerant with others and strict with yourself. Be open to the idea that people are going to be fools or jerks or unreliable or anything else. Let them be. That's their business. That's not inside your control. But you have to be disciplined with yourself and your reactions. If someone acts ridiculous, let them. If you're acting ridiculous, catch the problem, stop it, and work on preventing it from happening in the future.

0:57What you do is in your control. That is your business. Be strict about it. Leave other people to themselves. You have enough to worry about.

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3:37Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. I was in New York the first week of December. I got to go do a talk at the 92nd Street Y, or I got to be interviewed at the 92nd Street Y, which was really cool. Stephanie Ruhle of MSNBC, who's been nice enough to have me on her show a couple of times, agreed to be the Q part of the Q &A. She's the host of MS Now's The 11th Hour, and she was previously the managing editor and news anchor for Bloomberg Television and editor-at-large at Bloomberg News. I thought this was a lovely conversation. She asked me some awesome questions.

4:15We've talked stoicism a bunch over the years. And for today's Q &A segment, I'm going to bring you a little chunk of this Q &A. If you want to come see me in person and ask me some questions, I'm going to be in San Diego on the 5th and Phoenix on the 27th of February. You can grab those tickets at dailystoiclive.com, and I will see you there.

4:40What can someone possibly do with philosophy? Well, I also think about this in, you know, I'm a 19-year-old dude, and I'm trying to figure out what to do with my life. And philosophy was there, I think, to point me in a good direction. So now we're sort of talking about what to do with this sort of crisis for young men. And I do think ancient philosophy and these sort of classical virtues is exactly what we should be pointing young people towards, because it is a tried and true path that is endured for 25 or so centuries for a good reason. But I think what philosophy teaches us, real philosophy, not sort of theoretical or abstract philosophy.

5:19What does that mean? To me, it is the guide to the good life, like how to be a good person and how to live a good life. And so those were questions that I had that I think most young people have. And yet it's expressly what education does not want to wade into, right? Like education is designed to help you get, qualify for more education, right? High school is designed to get you into college, college to get a graduate degree or to get a good job. It's designed to, to sort of debunk certain myths or to teach you about historical things that happened, but not so much what they mean and how you should apply these lessons to your actual life.

6:03And what I think I was struck by with the Stoics is that they're sort of dispensing with all of that and they're just talking about how to be a person in the world. One of the things that Mark Shrivels talks about, he thanks his own philosophy teacher for teaching him not basically to do rhetorical tricks. He says not to chop logic, but to be a good human being, which is what I was interested in learning about. So define for us the Stoic virtues, because lots of people think they know what they are. Yeah, the four virtues of Stoicism are courage, temperance, which I think we can render as self-discipline or self-mastery, sometimes also moderation, and then justice and wisdom.

6:45And so those four virtues, the Stoics believed, every situation, every circumstance was a chance to practice some or all of those virtues. Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, who lays these virtues down, says they're distinct yet inseparable from each other. And I think that's exactly right. You know, courage is obviously different than justice. And yet, what good is courage if not in pursuit of justice? and what does wisdom do but tell us what is just and unjust and, you know, what to be courageous about and whatnot. So the virtues all inform and shape each other. It's very hard to have any one of them in isolation.

7:25Then where does decency fall? Under what umbrella? I would say very clearly under the virtue of justice. If we're talking about decency as far as how we treat other people, You know, the Stoics talk about kindness. They talk about compassion. They talk about how we're put here for each other. But then again, I think the line where they begin and end, you know, there's also the decency, I think, of self-restraint, right? And moderation. And so that gets us into temperance and self-discipline. But then stay there, because if it's about self-restraint and moderation, if you are practicing these virtues, what do you do when you see others behaving in ways that you don't approve of?

8:10Sure. So the stoic dictum is tolerant with others, strict with yourself. So as far as, you know, the sort of basic standards of like how to be a person, when we're not talking about right and wrong or good or bad, we're just talking about about basic lifestyle choices. I think the Stoics are going to be sort of libertarian in the sense of like, you do you, it might not work out for you, but that's, that's not my place to, like, the emphasis in Stoicism is on self-discipline, not discipline, I'm going to keep everyone in line because this is what I think is important. And then obviously we get into the place of justice where this is, I think, where the Stoic intervenes.

8:52But, you know, the founders were very influenced by the Stoics. And I think this is, America sort of embodies the tension of this. Our founding fathers. The founding fathers are all, you know, George Washington is the only founding father that only reads the Stoics in English, right? Like instead of French or in Greek or Latin. Jefferson dies with Seneca on his nightstand. That's like the degree to which the Stoics are influencing the founders. And in fact, the most famous play in the world in the 18th century is this play called Cato, which is like as popular as Hamilton is now, but it's about this Stoic philosopher named Cato.

9:27But anyways, the founders are creating a system based on personal liberty, right? You can do whatever you want. You are allowed to do quite a bit, but the sort of Stoic influence would say, but you obviously shouldn't, right? The First Amendment gives us the opportunity to do all sorts of things that I think most of us would agree are horrible or indecent or unkind. They're not illegal, but you shouldn't go around doing them, right? And so the idea for the founders was they're creating this system of government layered on top of which would be a strong sense of personal virtue and honor. And that's where I think we're struggling as a society.

10:09Are there leaders today or public people that people in the room would know of that you would point to that you believe, not necessarily perfectly, but you believe follow these virtues? Well, General Mattis, former Secretary of Defense. In Trump's first administration. In Trump's first administration, you know, famously carries Mark Serios' meditations with him on like 40 years of deployments. And he is, I think, as close to a modern stoic as we might come, you know, famously resigns on principle when he disagrees with the president. But never publicly fights with him and never says anything defamatory about him when he's part of the administration.

10:48Yes. And never leaks to the press. And that was his idea of restraint. Right. And he says, you've got to know your flat ass rules and stick to them. Like, what are your rules? This is who I am. This is what I believe. This is what I do and don't do. This is the code and honor of my profession. And I stick with that. And I do think that is increasingly becoming a bit of a relic. but we're going to miss it when it's gone. How hard is it for people to stay true to those values when we're living in a world where it feels like the people above you, the people below you, but most specifically, traditionally, or when you're growing up, you believe the people in leadership positions, right?

11:28Leaders in government, in business, in medicine, in media, right? These are these verticals that we would look to and trust for leadership. Yes. How do we guide people at a time when it feels like our leaders aren't leading or our trusted verticals are not trustworthy? How does the individual manage him or herself? Well, one of the things we can do is look backwards to the past, right? Who are our models? We're talking about Washington. You know, Washington has two heroes. His two heroes are Cato, the Stoic philosopher, and then Cincinnatus, the Roman general, who, by the way, may or may not have actually existed.

12:08But like when Washington resigns his commission, when Washington resigns the presidency after two terms, he is modeling what he learned from Cincinnati. This Roman hero who famously is made dictator, saves Rome, and then with unlimited power lays it down and returns to his farm, which is also the inspiration for the movie Gladiator. The idea is like sort of who are these historical models, these greats from history? And we sort of judge ourselves against them. Seneca, one of the Stoke philosophers who loves Cato, he says, you know, without a ruler, you can't make crooked straight. And so I think we certainly live in a time where...

12:46Say that one one more time. Without a ruler, you can't make crooked straight. And he was talking about, he says, you have to choose someone like Cato, an example or a model who you measure your choices against. What would Jesus do in this situation? What would Cato do in this situation? And the idea, I think, was you would have leaders in your society, in modern day, who embody and live up to these norms and expectations, who set down an example that calls us all to be better. But in the absence of that, I do think we have to look backwards, where we have no shortage of these historical figures who are, in many cases, flawed and did other bad things.

13:25And we can dissect that for sure. But we need to have these kind of heroes. And I think, again, one of the things that I struggle with today is the way that we teach history seems to be primarily about tearing down historical figures or stories. And then we don't replace it with anything. I guess what I'm saying is that we are a world in desperate need of heroes. like models of people who did the right thing when it wasn't in their interest to do so, who reached into the bag and sort of pulled out some level of superhuman strength or decency or honor. And then we can go, oh yeah, these are the kind of people we put statues up of.

14:08These are the people we tell our kids stories about. These are the people who inspire us in our own moments, usually lower stakes, we go, okay, yeah, I'm going to do this hard, right thing here because that's the tradition I am choosing to be a part of and to continue. Then let's talk about your most recent book in the series, Wisdom Takes Work. First, I want you just to explain that because I think the common way we think about wisdom is just this thing that inanimately grows with time, right? With gray hair comes wisdom. And you are saying, absolutely not. This is an action word, and you have to actually build towards it.

14:51Well, Aristotle believed that all the virtues were verbs and not nouns. They were actions. They were habits. They weren't something that you inherently possessed. They weren't something that you earned one time. And they certainly weren't something that you were born with. And so you've got to earn it, just like you earn the idea of being courageous by doing courageous things, doing things that scare you. I think wisdom is a byproduct of making certain choices, certain actions. It's not being smart. Certainly not. There's a lot of very stupid, smart people. And to go to your point about wisdom and age, although most wise people you meet will be advanced in years, not every person advanced in years is wise.

15:38I guess what I'm saying is I've met some stupid old people, as I'm sure we all have. But what do those years give us? Explain to us how this works. Look, I think one of the reasons that wisdom does tend to be associated with age is that you have more experiences. You have more time to have read and seen things. And then also it gives you something which I think is essential to wisdom, which is perspective. When you're 20, you have only experienced so much. You've only seen so much. And you can only put this in a somewhat limited perspective. You only have 20 years that you can place this in. And when you've been around for 40 or 60 or 80 or 100, you have a different perspective.

16:20I met this man. He used to live near me in Austin. His name was Richard Overton. And he was 112 when he died. How'd you meet him? He lived right down the street from me. And I read an article. They talked about him always sitting on his front porch. So I walked over and sat on his front porch and talked to him a few times. He was the world's oldest living veteran, the oldest man in the world when he died. And I remember one time I was asking him, I said, so, you know, what's the secret to being 112? Do you take it day by day? And he said, you know, at my age, I take it day by night. And his point was he'd just been around long enough that he didn't even get too far ahead of himself.

16:54He just sort of took it minute by minute. But, you know, like I remember I was sitting on his porch and there's this huge tree that was, you know, when the tree starts to get big enough, it can mess with the foundation of the house. So the house is all sort of, and he built this house after the Second World War. This is in East Austin, which was the segregated part of town. So he had to live in the segregated part of town. He's a black man. But I was like, oh, it looks like this tree is, you know, kind of messing up the foundation of your house. And he goes, yeah, I planted this tree. You know, he'd planted the tree 50 years earlier.

17:24And it was now raising up the foundation of his house. My point is, he could see things in a 50-year time span or a 60-year time span or 100. He had retired at 80, I think. And then he lived another 30 years. So my point is, I think one of the things you do get the longer you're on this planet is just a slightly longer time span. That being said, if you are still prey to biases, you give in to ego, there are many ways that you can work against this natural accumulation of wisdom. Just as you can work against having a great education or you can work against whatever natural gifts you've been given.

18:04Just because you're smart, just because you've seen a lot, doesn't necessarily mean you're going to be wise.

18:14hey it's ryan thank you for listening to the daily stoic podcast i just wanted to say we so 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

18:41Thank you.