BONUS: How Abraham Lincoln Proved The Obstacle Is the Way

0:05Welcome 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, to 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, visit dailystoic.com.

1:09day if I'd read any good books on Lincoln that I might recommend. And I was like, yeah, I got a couple. I took a picture. You can see it on Instagram. Let's see how many books are in this stack. We got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34. It's probably 10 ,000 pages, something like that. My wife just commented, are you okay? And I said, what do you mean? She was like, that is an unhealthy amount of books to read about Lincoln. But I mean, look, this has been over a long period of time. And I know that my understanding and evolution of Lincoln has evolved because, so I just did the 10 year anniversary of The Obstacle is the Way.

2:10And the part three of The Obstacle is the Way is about Lincoln. He's actually also the part three character in the Wisdom book, which title has not been announced, but I'm just finishing now. I was updating part three of Obstacle right as I was beginning to start this new section on Lincoln. So I thought, okay, I'm going to edit all this. This will be an easy part of the new book because I've read so much about Lincoln. And I immediately realized that I had not read nearly enough about Lincoln, did another deep dive, probably read another 2 ,000 or 3 ,000 pages. Every time I finish a book about Lincoln, I think, I'm so glad I did this.

2:51I learned more about him. I learned more about America. I learned more about humanity. I learned more about leadership. And so the last year has been sort of a deep dive and a re-deep dive into Lincoln for me. I even just read this. Gary Wills, who's a biographer I love, has a 350-page book just on the Gettysburg Address. There are more pages in this book than words in the Gettysburg address. But every page of it was incredible. So I'm a lifelong student of Lincoln. But in today's episode, I wanted to bring you a deep dive in sort of a stoic interpretation of Lincoln as a person who'd been knocked around by life.

3:33You know, Lincoln and Marcus Aurelius's trajectories are interesting. I don't think they ever expected to be president or head of state. I don't think it It was necessarily a lifelong ambition. Life was not kind to them. Their disposition was not necessarily the extroverted, gregarious, fun-loving, sort of political, glad-hander type that we tend to think of in modern politicians. These were introverted, private, some might say depressive or melancholic individuals. That's what I talk a lot about in The Obstacles Away. I was very influenced by this great book called Lincoln's Melancholy. Anyways, if you've read The Obstacles Away, listen to this because this is what's in the new edition.

4:23This is the extended meditation on Lincoln. And I just thought it was fitting today on President's Day. Lincoln's birthday is this month. and as America feels more divided than ever, as we need someone to solve vexing complicated, long deferred problems. I think there is a lot we can learn from Lincoln. And also, if you are a parent over on the Daily Dad YouTube channel, we just did a video on five parenting lessons from Lincoln, which we just recorded. So I'll link to that in today's show notes. But in the meantime, here is Lincoln, the power of will, and how a great man turned the great obstacles of his life into the fuel and the wisdom that made him a great leader.

5:17You can grab the 10th anniversary edition of The Obstacles Away anywhere books are sold. We've got signed copies in the painted porch. I'll link to it in today's show notes. Thanks to Toyota Trucks for sponsoring this episode. When I bought my ranch in 2015 out here in Bastro County, I drove my car about halfway down the dirt road that we live on, thought this isn't going to work, stopped, parked it, walked the rest of the way home, borrowed my wife's car, drove in Austin and bought a truck. What I bought was a Toyota Tacoma. And this truck wasn't just transportation getting me to and from my house.

5:50It unlocked a whole different style of living for us, not just on the ranch, but in our little Texas towns. There were places I could go now that I couldn't go before, especially out here in the piney forests, through the fields, and on the unpaved roads like the one that I lived in. We got to go deep into the hill country's wild beauty. We've driven all the way out to East Texas. We've driven across the country. And by we, I mean not just my wife, but both my kids who I drove home from the hospital in that truck. Toyota trucks are built for those who understand that the best adventures happen when you're willing to veer off course, because you never know when you'll end up on a Toyota adventure detour.

6:35And of course, this is stoicism, too, because every detour, every obstacle is an opportunity. But it's helpful if you can handle the difficulty inherent in that. If you've got the resilience and the right companion to make it wherever the road takes you. Discover your uncharted territory. Learn more at toyota.com slash trucks slash adventure dash detours. We just took our kids to an outdoor performance at the Nutcracker. They had a snow cone and then they went insane in the car ride home. And one of the things I try to remind myself when that's happening is that I don't control my kids' behavior, especially when they're too far gone like that.

7:12But I do control how I respond, right? That's stoicism, but it's also what Dr. Becky talks about. Dr. Becky is a clinical psychologist and a best-selling author, and she founded Good Inside, which is there to give parents practical, actionable tools for handling those everyday challenges with confidence. My wife introduced me to Dr. Becky's books. I love them. I've recommended them a million times. I've had her on the podcast. And as it happens, Dr. Becky is hosting two live Q &A events for Good Inside members. I am one of them. She signed me up for it about a year and a half ago. I've loved it ever since.

7:51On December 1st, you can join Dr. Becky for her How Not to Raise Assholes event, which is about avoiding entitlement and raising kind, empathetic kids. And on December 15th, she's hosting her How Not to Lose It over the holidays event, which I'm sure we could all use. As I said, I'm a big fan of Dr. Becky. She's been a great influence for me as a parent and just as a human being. And Daily Stoic listeners can join for 15 % off with code STOIC15. You just gotta head over to goodinside.com to catch the events.

8:34The Discipline of the Will Because he has become more myth than man, most people are unaware that Abraham Lincoln battled crippling depression his entire life. Known at the time as melancholy, his depression was often debilitating and profound, nearly driving him to suicide on two separate occasions. His penchant for jokes and bawdy humor, which we find more pleasant to remember him for, was in many ways the opposite of what life must have seemed like to him during his darker moments. Though he could be light and joyous, Lincoln suffered periods of intense brooding, isolation, and pain. Inside, he struggled to manage a heavy burden that often felt impossible to lift.

9:19Lincoln's life was defined by enduring and transcending great difficulty. Growing up in rural poverty, losing his mother while he was still a child, educating himself, teaching himself the law, losing the woman he loved as a young man, practicing law in a small country town, experiencing multiple defeats at the ballot box as he made his way through politics, and, of course, the bouts of depression, which at the time were not understood or appreciated as a medical condition. All of these were impediments that Lincoln reduced with a kind of prodding, gracious ambition and smiling, tender endurance.

9:56Lincoln's personal challenges had been so intense that he came to believe that they were destined for him in some way and that the Depression, especially, was a unique experience that prepared him for greater things. He learned to endure all this, articulate it, and find benefit and meaning from it. Understanding this is the key to understanding the man's greatness. For most of Lincoln's political career, slavery was a dark cloud that hung over our entire nation, a cloud that could and had to lift. Some ran from it, others resigned themselves to it, or became apologists. Most assumed it meant the permanent breakup of the Union, or worse, the end of the world as they knew it.

10:37It came to be that every quality produced by Lincoln's personal journey was exactly what was required to lead the nation through its own journey and trial. Unlike other politicians, he was not tempted to lose himself in petty conflict and distractions. He could not be sanguine. He could not find it in his heart to hate like others would. His own experience with suffering drove his compassion to allay it in others. He was patient because he knew that difficult things took time. Above all, he found purpose and relief in a cause bigger than himself and his personal struggles. The nation called for a leader of magnanimity and force of purpose.

11:18It found one in Lincoln, a political novice who was nevertheless a seasoned expert on matters of will and patience. These attributes were born of his own severe experience, as he often called it, and the characteristics were representative of a singular ability to lead the nation through one of its most difficult and painful trials, the Civil War. As crafty and ambitious and smart as he was, Lincoln's real strength was his will. The way that he was able to resign himself to an onerous task without giving into hopelessness, the way he could contain both humor and deadly seriousness, the way he could use his own private turmoil to teach and help others, the way he was able to rise above the din and see politics philosophically.

12:03This too shall pass, was Lincoln's favorite saying, one he'd once said was applicable in any and every situation. To live with his depression, Lincoln had developed a strong inner fortress that girded him, and in 1861 it again gave him what he needed in order to endure and struggle through a war that was about to begin. Over four years, the war was to become nearly incomprehensibly violent, and Lincoln, who'd found it hard at first to avoid, would fight to win justly and finally to end it with malice towards none. Admiral David Porter, who was with Lincoln in his last days, described it as though Lincoln seemed to think only that he had an unpleasant duty to perform and set himself to perform it as smoothly as possible.

12:49We should count ourselves lucky to never experience such a trial or be required, as Lincoln had been, to hold and be able to draw from our own personal woe in order to surmount it. But we certainly can and must learn from his poise and courage. Clearheadedness and action are not always enough in politics or in life. Some obstacles are beyond a snap of the fingers or a novel solution. It is not always possible for one man to rid the world of a great evil or stop a country bent towards conflict. Of course, we try, because it can happen. But we should be ready for it not to, and we need to be able to find a greater purpose in this suffering and handle it with firmness and forbearance.

13:34This was Lincoln, always ready with a new idea or an innovative approach, whether it was sending a supply boat instead of reinforcements to the troops besieged at Fort Sumter, or timing the Emancipation Proclamation with a union victory at Antietam to give it the appearance of strength, but equally prepared for the worst, and then prepared to make the best of the worst. Leadership requires determination and energy, and certain situations, at times, call on leaders to marshal that determined energy simply to endure, to provide strength in terrible times. Because of what Lincoln had gone through, Because of what he'd struggled with and learned to cope with in his own life, he was able to lead, to hold a nation, a cause, an effort together.

14:25This is the avenue for the final discipline, the will. If perception and action were the disciplines of the mind and the body, then the will is the discipline of the heart and the soul. The will is the one thing we control, completely, always. Whereas I can try to mitigate harmful perceptions and give 100 % of my energy to actions, those attempts can be thwarted or inhibited. My will is different because it is within me. Will is fortitude and wisdom, not just about specific obstacles, but about life itself and where the obstacles we are facing fit within it. It gives us ultimate strength, as in, the strength to endure, contextualize, and derive meaning from the obstacles we cannot simply overcome, which, as it happens, is a way of flipping the unflippable.

15:19Even in his own time, Lincoln's contemporaries marveled at the calmness, the gravity, and the compassion of the man. Today, those qualities seem almost godly, almost superhuman. His sense of what needed to be done set him apart, as though he was above or beyond the bitter divisions that weighed everyone else down, as though he was from another planet. In a way, he was, or at least he had traveled from somewhere very far away, somewhere deep inside himself, from where others hadn't. Schooled in suffering, to quote Virgil, Lincoln learned to comfort those who suffer too. This too is part of the will, to think of others, to make the best of a terrible situation that we tried to prevent but could not, to deal with fate with cheerfulness and compassion.

16:10Lincoln's words went to people's hearts because they came from his, because he had an access to part of the human experience that many had walled themselves off from. His personal pain was an advantage. Lincoln was strong and decisive as a leader, but he also embodied the stoic maxim, sestine et abstine, bear and forbear. Acknowledge the pain, but trod onward in your task. Had the war gone on even longer, Lincoln would have led his people through it. Had the Union cause lost the Civil War, he'd have known that he'd done everything he could in pursuit of victory. More important, had Lincoln been defeated, he was prepared to bear whatever the resulting consequences with dignity and strength and courage.

17:00Providing an example for others, in victory or in defeat, whatever occurred. With all our modern technologies come the conceited delusion that we control the world around us. We are convinced that we can now, finally, control the uncontrollable. Of course, that is not true. It is highly unlikely we will ever get rid of all the unpleasant and unpredictable parts of life. One needs only to look at history to see how random and vicious and awful the world can be. The incomprehensible happens all the time. Certain things in life will cut you open like a knife. When that happens, at that exposing moment, the world gets a glimpse of what's truly inside you.

17:42So what will be revealed when you're sliced open by tension and pressure. Iron or air or bullshit. As such, the will is the critical third discipline. We can think and act and finally adjust to a world that is inherently unpredictable. The will is what prepares us for this, protects us against it, and allows us to thrive and be happy in spite of it. It is also the most difficult of all the disciplines. It's what allows us to stand undisturbed while others wilt and give in to disorder. Confident, calm, ready to work regardless of the conditions. Willing and able to continue, even during the unthinkable, even when our worst nightmares have come true.

18:27It's much easier to control our perceptions and emotions than it is to give up our desire to control other people and events. It's easier to persist in our efforts and our actions than to endure the uncomfortable or the painful. It's easier to think and act than it is to practice wisdom. These lessons come harder, but are in, the end, the most critical to wrestling advantage from adversity. In every situation, we can always prepare ourselves for more difficult times, always accept what we are unable to change, always manage our expectations, always persevere, Always learn to love our fate and what happens to us Always protect our inner self Retreat into ourselves Always submit to a greater, larger cause Always remind ourselves of our own mortality And of course, prepare to start the cycle once more

19:32look ads are annoying they are to be avoided if at all possible i understand as a content creator why they need to exist that's why i don't begrudge them when they appear on the shows that i listen to but again as a person who has to pay a podcast producer and has to pay for equipment and for the studio and the building that the studio is in. It's a lot to keep something like the Daily Stoic going. So if you want to support a show but not listen to ads, well, we have partnered with Supercast to bring you a ad-free version of Daily Stoic. We're calling it Daily Stoic Premium. And with Premium, you can listen to every episode of the Daily Stoic podcast completely ad-free, no interruptions, just the ideas, just the messages, just the conversations you came here for.

20:27And you can also get early access to episodes before they're available to the public. And we're going to have a bunch of exclusive bonus content and extended interviews in there just for Daily Stoic Premium members as well. If you want to remove distractions, go deeper into Stoicism and support the work we do here. Well, it takes less than a minute to sign up for Daily Stoic Premium, and we are offering a limited time discount of 20 % off your first year. Just go to dailystoic.com slash premium to sign up right now or click the link in the show descriptions to make those ads go away.