Have You Tried Asking For This?

0:02Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength, insight, and wisdom in everyday life. Each one of these passages is based on the 2 ,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. For more, you can visit us, dailysteak.com.

0:29We 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, but 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.

1:05My 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. On 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.

1:42Becky. 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 got to head over to goodinside.com to catch the events. Have you tried asking for this? You wanted the election to go a certain way. You want the economy to be good. You want the world to be safe. You want people to be good and helpful and honest. Well, you can want these things until you're blue in the face. You can pray for them. You can try with all your might to make them the way you want them to be. Or what if you prayed and worked for something different?

2:19The Stoics remind us that the best thing to ask for is strength, that adaptability is the ultimate advantage, that virtue and resilience will get you further than even the most ideal conditions, and that you're never going to get those ideal conditions anyway. Don't wish for things to be a certain way, Epictetus says, but wish for them to be as they are, because you can handle them, because you're going to do your job either way, which is to say to be good, because you are going to make good of it.

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