Here’s The Deal | Balance The Books Of Life

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1:05I'm picking my kids up from school today and then doing our weekly routine, which is I take them over to Whole Foods. We get all our groceries for the week. Then we have dinner. It's one of their favorite things to do. It's one of my favorite things to do. And then my wife loves it because she doesn't have to take care of it. This holiday season, whether you're a guest or hosting the big dinner Whole Foods Market, has what you need to delight everyone at your table. They even have heat and eat sides from the prepared foods department. You can make Whole Foods, your one-stop shop. Everything follows Whole Foods Market's strict ingredients standards so you know it'll be delicious and good for you.

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1:51Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast. Each day we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, illustrated with stories from history, current events, and literature to help you be better at what you do. And at the beginning of the week, we try to do a deeper dive, setting a kind of Stoic intention for the week, something to meditate on, something to think on, something to leave you with, to journal about, whatever it is you happen to be doing. So let's get into it.

2:23We got together with family. We reminded ourselves what was important. We enjoyed the bounties of the earth. Perhaps when we took the rolls out of the oven, we noted, as Mark Surrealist did in meditation, the way that did in meditations, the way the bread cracks open on top, a nod to nature's inadvertence. We gave thanks. And then the next day, what did millions of people do? They rushed out to get a deal on a flat screen television or crowded into department stores to take advantage of Black Friday deals. And then today they sat down at their computer or their phones to spend even more money for Cyber Monday.

2:58In the book of Genesis, Abraham is told that he's been a blessing and thus must be a blessing to others. That's the essence of Christianity and Stoicism, that the deal that comes with being a person in this world. We've been given a free gift, life and talent and success, and we must give freely in return. Marcus Aurelius' meditations is not filled with lists of items he wants to buy, nor platitudes about gratitude. Instead, he talks actively about helping others, lending a hand, doing his part. The great fortune of his life, Marcus Aurelius says at one point, is not just that he himself has never known serious want, it's that he's been lucky enough to be able to help so many people.

3:40The world held up its part of the deal, and he tried to do the same. Which is why for the fourth year now, we're inviting you to join us in putting energy towards helping people, not engaging in hand-to-hand combat over deals at the mall. You enjoyed a day of fullness. You have been blessed in so many ways, from the Thanksgiving meal to the company of family and friends to the fact that you know where your next meal comes from. But it's important that you realize that not everyone is feeling that way. In fact, many people are experiencing the exact opposite. More than 700 million people around the globe go to bed hungry every night.

4:14More than 44 million people in America are food insecure, including 13 million children. This is a tragedy, but it's also an opportunity and an obligation. It is our duty to help others, to serve others, to illustrate those virtues of courage and justice toward and for and through others, to help people from going hungry, to alleviate someone's worry and fear, to put food on the table. And we can do this together. Last Last year, the Daily Stoic community came together with Feeding America and provided over 2.1 million meals. We didn't quite hear a goal of 3 million, but we're keeping that goal this year with the hopes that you can help us get there.

4:54I'm personally putting up the first$30 ,000 with the overall goal of trying to raise 300 ,000. Every dollar that we raise together provides 10 meals. So if we hit our goal, that'll be 3 million meals. and if you head over to dailystoic.com slash feeding together, we can make a small dent in a big problem. We can prove that we're not just talking about these ideas, but really applying them. So let's do it. Rather than let the Black Friday spirit of materialism and selfishness infect us, let's contribute to something bigger than ourselves. Let's be great stoics today. And look, if you live outside the US, you can check out Action Against Hunger.

5:32It's a global humanitarian organization that does the same thing at the global level across nearly 50 countries. So check it out and let's do this together. DailyStoic.com slash beating.

5:46Balance the books of life daily. One of the reasons we journal is as a way of gathering up life's experiences, its insights, its frustrations, its unexpected struggles and triumphs and more. And in all of this, we are making a reckoning of our progress on life's way. Seneca, whose father-in-law was in charge of keeping the books on Rome's granary, liked the metaphor of balancing life's books each day. Rather than postpone, our impulse each day should be to bring things as much as possible to completion. Why? Because we never know what tomorrow might bring. Epictetus too would tell his students that the important thing was that they had begun to practice, to learn, to get better.

6:35So give yourself some credit this week for the journey that you're on and reflect on how far you have come and how far you have left to go. And we have three quotes, two from Seneca, one from Epictetus. Seneca says, let us prepare our minds as if we'd come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life's books each day. Life's greatest flaw is that it is always imperfect, and a certain portion of it is postponed. The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time. And that's from Moral Letters 101. And then Seneca, and he's writing this to his father-in-law, he says, believe me, it's better to produce the balance sheet of your own life than of the grain market.

7:23He says this on the shortness of life. And then Epictetus says, I am your teacher and you are learning in my school. My aim is to bring you to completion, unhindered, free from compulsive behavior, unrestrained, without shame, free, flourishing, and happy, looking to God and things great and small. Your aim is to learn and diligently practice all of these things. Why then don't you complete the work? You have the right aim, and I have both the right aim and the right preparation. What is missing? The work is quite feasible. It's the only thing in our power. Let go of the past. We must only begin.

7:59Believe me, and you will see. I was thinking about this idea of keeping life's books with the fact that I just finished my fourth go-around on the Daily Stoic Journal, and I know some of you have been on that path with me as well. So as I cracked open a fresh one, that was pretty cool. And I'm about to finish my first go-round all the way through of my five-year one-line-a-day journal. So I've been doing it every day for five years. And just to have that finished is like an incredible and cool experience. and to think of the reflection that went into this. And so when we talk about journaling, it's not just a sort of a cathartic thing.

8:51It's not just a moment of stillness in the morning or the afternoon or whenever you happen to do it. To me, the power of it is that it is recording your progress as you go. when I look at some of the things that I wrote five years ago, when I think about what I was going through five years ago, right? I just, I am proud of myself for the work that I have been putting in on myself. There's a great line that's not in today's entry, but Epictetus says, some people delight in improving their farm. Me, I delight in my own improvement day to day. And I think that's what the journal is really capturing is that day to day improvement, that work that I've been putting in.

9:41And listening to this podcast is a little bit of work. Your journaling is a little bit of work. The reading you're doing is a little bit of work. The conversations you're having with a spouse or a friend or in the Daily Stoke Life Group, that's a little bit of progress. And all of this, it might not seem like much as you're doing each individual thing. But as George Washington liked to say, many mickles make a muckle, or as Zeno said, well-being is realized by small steps, but it's not a small thing. And so as we chip away at this stuff as we make a little bit of progress. It might not feel like much today or in the moment, but cumulatively, it is adding up.

10:17It is taking you somewhere, and that is not to be underrated. Yeah, when I did the journal four years ago now, I didn't know where it would go. I didn't know how it would work. I didn't have this kind of daily journaling practice like prompt-based, but it's been a wonderful addition to my routine. And I've heard from so many people who've had the same experience. And anyways, it's been wonderful. I hope you can do more than just follow along with the podcast, but you can grab a version of it yourself.

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12:15That'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.

12:58And 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.