Discipline is Doing It Anyway | The Power of Mantra

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.

0:15Discipline is doing it anyway. You're tired, you're busy, looks like it's going to rain, be easier to stay home. It's not going to be fun. It's not a big deal. It's the perfect excuse. Unless, of course, you're disciplined, because that's what discipline is. it's doing it anyway. Just that you do the right thing, Mark Sturelis writes in meditations, the rest doesn't matter. Cold or warm, tired or well-rested, despised or honored. That's what makes the virtue, indeed any virtue, but especially discipline, so impressive. When the person does it anyway, does what they need to do anyway, even when it's going to be rough, even though it might not make a big difference, even though no one will notice.

1:01And we're all capable of this self-discipline. You just have to choose to do it, right? You have to decide that right now, things are going to be different and that this is the time you're going to stop waiting for life to change and take control. I don't know how your new year has gone so far. Mine's been a little disrupted. It was a little crazy. Basically, we were sick for like the first two and a half weeks of the year. So some of my plans, some of my resolutions got thrown sideways. Maybe it went like that for you. Maybe you came back late from a trip. Maybe this was actually the crazy busiest time of the year for you.

1:40And only now are things just slowing down. But we decided as a result, I needed this as much for myself as you guys did. We're going to do another go of the Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge. We did it all as a group for the first 21 days of the year, but some of us fell off. Some of us got interrupted. Life got in the way, right? And that's why we're going to run it again. It's not too late for you to join us in the New Year New You Challenge. You're not behind. You can still get all the stuff. It can be awesome. We've had some absolute rave reviews of it. I think you're really going to like it.

2:15I'm going to be doing it again myself. If you want to join us and thousands of Stoics all over the world in the Daily Stoic New Year new you challenge well let's do it you can sign up right now at daily stoic.com slash challenge also if you're thinking about joining daily stoic life this is a great time because you get to all the challenges for free as part of being a daily stoic life member so i will see you in there let's join let's not write the year off just yet and let's get after it daily stoic.com slash challenge i'll see you in there

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3:49store.dailystoic.com. Our quote today is from Marcus Aurelius' Meditations 829. Erase the false impressions from your mind by constantly saying to yourself, I have it in my soul to keep out any evil, desire, any kind of disturbance. Instead, seeing the true nature of things, I will give them only their due. Always remember this power that nature gave you. Anyone who has taken a yoga class or been exposed to Hindu or Buddhist thought has probably heard of the concept of mantra. In Sanskrit, it means sacred utterance, essentially a word, a phrase, or a thought, even a sound intended to provide clarity or spiritual guidance.

4:35A mantra can be especially helpful in the meditative process because it allows us to block out everything else while we focus. It's fitting then that Marcus Aurelius would suggest this stoic mantra, a reminder or a watch phrase to use when we feel false impressions, distractions, or the crush of everyday life upon us. It says, essentially, I have the power within me to keep this out. I can see the truth. Change the wording as you like. That part is up to you. But have a mantra and use it to find the clarity you crave. I've talked about this before, but it is funny, right? It's called meditations, but he's not doing meditation in the sense of it we think today.

5:20But then again, he also is, right? He's using mantras. What meditations is, is Mark Sreos talking to himself. That's what it translates to in Greek. And then he is reminding himself over and over again of the same ideas. In fact, that's one of the criticisms, ironically, of meditations that Marcus Sprelius is repetitive. That's what he's doing. He's repeating to himself what he feels needs to be repeated. This isn't what he thinks the reader needs to hear or what he thinks would be most compelling or entertaining to the reader. He's not thinking about the reader at all. He's thinking about himself.

5:55And yet what he's saying and what I was trying to say there is actually something very similar to what they talk about in meditations, that you have this power over your own thoughts. Even that idea, like, I am not my thoughts. I don't have to identify this with detachment, presence, connection, breath. Some of the things that are popular in the meditation community or in meditation practices is what Marcus is doing there. And I really do feel like stoicism is a philosophy built around a series of mantras, or that's the stoicism that I like, that I'm attracted to. I mean, I have a couple in my arm.

6:31I have stillness is the key. ego is the enemy, the obstacle is the way, little reminders, aphorisms. And even when I sign the books, I tend to write the same things over and over again. I'll write a Morphati. I'll write one of my favorite quotes from Marcus, I think another great mantra. He says, fight to be the person philosophy tried to make you. So the idea is what's your mantra? What are you repeating to yourself? What are you reminding yourself when you feel like the lower self taking over, when you feel yourself drifting, when you feel yourself going in the wrong direction? What do you repeat to yourself?

7:06What do you remind yourself? What do you need to know? And like, maybe it's cliche, maybe it's lame, but I like to write these things down. I mean, as I said, I literally have been tattooed. Mark Surrealis is writing them in his journal. Like, if you were to read my journals, you'd think it's cheesy or even like weird how often I'm having to say the same things over and over again. It's like, does he get it? Yeah, I get it. That's why I am having to write it down. And I'm usually like, if they were easy and natural, well, then I'm probably not pushing myself enough. So I'm trying to say these things over and over and over again.

7:39And you're hoping that it kind of becomes part of who you are, becomes part of your muscle memory, becomes second nature so that in the big moments, it's there, right? That you just go there, right? That the training kicks in. That's what Marcus is doing. That's what I'm trying to do. That's what I hope you do. So maybe think as a big picture, what's a mantra for the year, right? For you, as we're wrapping up January here, what's your mantra? But then also like, just what are some day-to-day mantras, reminders, little phrases that come to you from the Stilics that you can turn to always, right?

8:18Is this in my control? Is it outside my control? The serenity prayers, kind of a longer mantra. There's just so much of it. I mean, Epictetus said all of Stoic philosophy could be reduced down to this mantra of persist and resist. There's so many of them. Pick the ones that resonate with you. Repeat them to yourself. Write them down as Epictetus says. Talk to others about them. Let them become part of you and part of the training. That's what we're doing. I'll talk to you soon.

8:51Hey, 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 of 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.

9:21Thank you.