How To Find Peace | 8 Stoic Lessons You Can Start Today

0:01You hear that? That's not just a Toyota truck that's the sound of no crowds no alerts no distractions and no telling what you'll find next you know like a detour so why would you ever take a tour when you could take a detour Toyota Trucks my family owns a 2023 Toyota 4Runner and honestly it's my favorite vehicle that I've ever owned Around town, it's smooth and reliable, but where it really shines is on our trips into the backcountry. We've taken it on backpacking adventures to Colorado and New Mexico, loaded it up with gear, and never had to think twice about whether it could handle the terrain.

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1:30Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic Podcast. On Sundays, we take a deeper dive into these ancient topics with excerpts from the Stoic texts, audiobooks that we like here or recommend here at Daily Stoic, and other long-form wisdom that you can chew on on this relaxing weekend. We hope this helps shape your understanding of this philosophy, and most importantly, that you're able to apply it to your actual life. Thank you for listening.

2:09Okay, I want to take you way back to March 2020, right? There's some news coming out about things happening on the other side of the world. People are starting to get nervous about this pandemic thing that's happening. Well, I was also nervous and stressed out because I was in the middle of starting construction on what would become the Painted Porch bookstore. So there were these sort of ominous clouds on the horizon. And then there was also just the reality of the stress and chaos surrounding me. Like literally our office was getting torn up. Like there were supplies everywhere. There were invoices.

2:42This whole project that we were dumping a good chunk of our life savings into was sort of also there on the horizon. So I worked on this piece about finding peace inside that. It was called How to Find Peace, Eight Stoic Lessons You Can Start Today. And it's just like wild to me to think that I wrote this in the days before the world basically shut down for COVID. But like so much of what's in stoicism, it's both timely and timeless. And I thought I would bring it to you today. Well, actually, not me. Katie McGurl, who is the associate editor of Daily Stoic. She's the one that helps bring these emails and these podcasts to you every single day.

3:23She did the narration. So I think you're going to like this. It's a treat. You can get a break from my obnoxious voice and listen to Katie. So take some time on this Sunday to apply these lessons and get in the right mindset before the work week begins tomorrow. Enjoy.

3:40How to find peace. Eight Stoic lessons you can start today. Peace of mind is something many look for, but few achieve. How wonderful it would be if we could be one of those fortunate souls that seem to be disturbed by nothing and nobody. People like Fred Rogers, the children's television show host, who always seemed to have a serene expression on his face, and a reputation for treating everyone he met with the utmost kindness and patience. The misconception with these types of people is that all of them are like that naturally, with little to no effort made on their behalf. While it is true that this equanimity comes more easily for some people than others, almost all of them are like this because they develop methods of emotional control and rationalization, which they practice daily.

4:26Rogers himself woke up at 5 a.m. every day to spend an hour alone in reflection and prayer. This was what brought him peace in all other areas of his life and helped him to maintain a steady frame of mind. But this isn't the only way that you could start to build up a foundation of stillness into your life. And Rogers certainly wasn't the first person to see the value in drawing from certain lessons and rituals daily as a means of cultivating the inner peace that would serve him in all other areas of his life. Nearly 2 ,000 years ago, Stoic philosophers were also trying to find peace. Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor, made it a point to spend time alone with his journal every morning before dawn.

5:08Epictetus, the former slave-turned-philosopher, admonished his students to constantly keep in mind that men are disturbed not by things, but by the principles and notions which they form concerning things. For these men, practicing philosophy was a necessity, something they could constantly come back to to remind themselves what was in their control and help them view outside events with more detachment. And this is why the writings of the Stoics have endured for so long and continue to teach people from all walks of life how to be less reactive, more reflective, and more level-headed. With that in mind, here are eight stoic lessons you can learn and apply to feel more tranquil, free, and at peace, no matter who you are or where you're from.

5:54Don't suffer imagined troubles. There are more things likely to frighten us than there are to crush us. We suffer more often in imagination than in reality. Seneca. How often do we tie ourselves up in knots over imagined troubles? How often do we let anxiety and worry get the better of us? How much of our pain is real, and how much of it is fear about pain that might or might not actually happen? Seneca's remedy is found in his letter on Groundless Fears. What I advise you to do is not to be unhappy before the crisis comes, since it may be that the dangers before you which you paled as if they were threatening you will never come upon you.

6:40They certainly have not yet come. Some torment us before they ought, and some torment us when they ought not to torment us at all. We are in the habit of exaggerating or imagining or anticipating sorrow. Don't let worry get the best of you. Stay in the present. Stay with your actual troubles. There's plenty there. Accept your own mortality. No man can have a peaceful life who thinks too much about lengthening it. Seneca Death is something that hangs over all of our heads. It follows us everywhere, and yet we try to avoid even thinking about it. Turn on the news any night of the week, and you're sure to see a story reported of somebody who tragically dies before their time.

7:22The thought gives us so much anxiety that we do anything possible to shut it out. We'll spend hours playing video games trying to keep ourselves unaware that our time is running out, minute by minute and second by second. The only antidote to this malady then is to accept our mortality. By accepting our own mortality, we can make peace with the only thing in life that we can take for granted. We're going to die and so is everybody we love. Humans have been dying for tens of thousands of years and they will continue to die long after we're gone. But this thought shouldn't depress us, quite the opposite.

7:58It should inspire us. It should motivate us to live each day to its absolute fullest and to stop taking our current abilities to make our lives great for granted, and to not obsess over lengthening our lives, but rather use the time we do have to appreciate the gift of being alive. Remember whose opinion matters. It never ceases to amaze me. We all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinions than our own. Marcus Aurelius. In a hyper-connected world, it's never been more important to stop caring about the opinions of others than it is today. And there's a simple reason for this.

8:36There are almost 8 billion people in the world. All of them come from different backgrounds, all of them have different experiences, and all of them have different interests and priorities. If you were to try to take all 8 billion of these opinions into account when choosing how you're going to live your life, you'd go insane. And this is nothing new. 2 ,000 years ago, Seneca was admonishing his friend Lucilius to disregard the world's opinion of him because it's always unsettled and divided. Seneca knew that the only things we should be focusing on are those that concern us and those that are right.

9:12And this is something we should all keep in mind as well. Instead of worrying what everyone thinks of us, we should only focus on doing what we know to be true. We should focus on being consistently kind, caring, patient, tolerant, disciplined, wise, and understanding. Because if we constantly keep these things before our eyes, then we will always know that no matter what happens or what other people say, we were doing the right thing. Schedule stillness into your life. Nothing, to my way of thinking, is a better proof of a well-ordered mind than a man's ability to stop just where he is and pass some time in his own company.

9:55Seneca In the 21st century, the pace of life seems to be accelerating more and more with each passing day. Most of us are on the move and in a rush from the minute we wake up, rushing to do the things we need to get done and then filling in every spare moment with social media and cheap entertainment. We can't stand to be bored, and because of this we reflexively run from anything that entails reflection or solitude. Viktor Frankl once said, Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. But we can't have this growth and freedom if we're so anxious over having a moment alone with ourselves that we have to resort to mindlessly checking our Instagram feed every time we get the chance.

10:45So, instead of using every spare moment to try to suppress your thoughts, become friends with them. If you have a spare five minutes, go for a walk and practice experiencing the peace that can only come from being completely comfortable with yourself and accepting your lot, no matter what it is. Find the beauty in everyday life. Observe the movements of the stars as if you were running their courses with them, and let your mind constantly dwell on the changes of the elements into each other. Such imaginings wash away the filth of life on the ground. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations No matter how much Stoicism can teach us about how to act in the world and how to treat our fellow human beings, it will never be able to explain why we exist or why the universe exists.

11:33For Marcus Aurelius, this wasn't a source of stress or anxiety. In fact, it was the exact opposite. Although thinking about the nature of our existence isn't what Stoicism concerns itself with, taking the time to appreciate what does exist is. It's why there are passages all throughout the meditations where Marcus appreciates the little things that most of us look so often, like, when a loaf of bread, for instance, is in the oven, cracks appear in it here and there, and these flaws, though not intended in the baking, have a rightness of their own and sharpen the appetite. Figs, again, at their ripest, will also crack open.

12:16When olives are on the verge of falling, the very imminence of decay adds its peculiar beauty to the fruit. The beauty of these observations is in their simplicity. Despite being emperor, in no part of the meditations do we find Marcus obsessing over luxury or over things that aren't just as easily available to all of us. What we do find him consistently appreciating, though, is the vastness of the universe and all the things it contains. It's why that particular passage ends with Marcus noting that those simple things are beautiful precisely because they, in their own unique way, contribute to the macrocosm that encompasses all of us.

12:58So anytime you feel anxious or stressed, try to take a moment, even if it's just two minutes, but take a moment to look at the sky and think of how many people look at the same sky as you. How many people draw peace from the same simple things, whether it be a walk in the park or the smell of their mother's cooking. And let that thought comfort you.

13:27Thanks 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 into 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. It 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.

14:06and 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. And 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.

14:47If 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.

15:04Take the view from above. Think of substance in its entirety, of which you have the smallest of shares, and of time in its entirety, of which a brief and momentary span has been assigned to you, and of the works of destiny and how very small is your part in them. Marcus Aurelius When embroiled in our affairs and the events of our lives, it feels like the most important thing in the world. They feel like this because we rarely decide to step out of our habitual manner of looking at the world, which, because of all the things we're constantly dealing with, often revolves exclusively around our immediate surroundings.

15:45Because of this, we forget just how much more there is going on in the world, not to mention the universe. And we also make the mistake of thinking that all of the things we habitually concern ourselves with actually have anything to do with us. In the second lesson of his phenomenal video course, Living from a Place of Surrender, the author Michael Singer urges us to consider the fact that the moment in front of us is 13.8 billion years in the making. Furthermore, he urges us to consider just how big the universe is, how many atoms, molecules, distant galaxies, and other humans exist, and just how much is going on right now that has absolutely nothing to do with us.

16:27Doing this can have a powerful effect on the average human being because it puts all of our problems into perspective. It also makes us realize that our problems are only so big because we make them so. And it is something we can regularly think about and practice in order to benefit from the peace that results from becoming conscious of the fact that we're all part of something so much bigger than ourselves as to be unfathomable. Live by a code. If it is not right, do not do it. If it is not true, do not say it. Marcus Aurelius The best part of Stoicism is that it gives us a framework by which we can live our lives.

17:08If we decide to accept this framework, then we no longer have to spend time on the daily decisions that normally tire us out throughout the day. The reason for this is that now, instead of considering whether we should give in to the temptation of caring what other people think or sleeping in when we have to work, things we know are bad for us aren't even a question. If they don't align with our moral code of conduct, then we don't even consider them. For some, this might seem like too restrictive a way of living, but for the Stoics, it was the opposite. Having this code released them from the anxiety and uncertainty that results from having to obsess over every little decision they made.

17:46And by doing this, you can experience the peace that results from discarding everything outside the few things that you choose to focus on. Things that are hopefully right, good, and true. Reflect often. The unexamined life is not worth living. Socrates. Out of all the lessons we've laid here on finding peace, this is perhaps the most important. If we don't schedule reflection into our days, then we risk falling prey to our basest impulses and bad habits. The way the Stoics did this was through journaling. Marcus Aurelius did it in the morning as a way to prepare himself for the difficulties of the day, and Seneca wrote in the evening, noting that the sleep which follows this self-examination is particularly sweet.

18:35According to Donald Robertson, psychotherapist and author of How to Think Like a Roman Emperor, one of the main benefits of journaling is that it facilitates being able to look at your thoughts objectively, if done correctly. Indeed, scattered throughout the writings of the Stoics are their attempts to bring situations down to size, to decatastrophize them, as Robertson likes to call it. Because by journaling and making it a point to not let anything that goes by us unobserved, then we can exercise the most important power a human being possesses, our reason. And by constantly exercising this reason, both in our reflections and throughout the day, we'll gain a greater level of awareness over what is and isn't in our control, and therefore, more peace.

19:23There are so many ways the Stoics can teach us how to find inner peace, and we can only discover them all by continuing our study of this philosophy. But for now, take these lessons to heart to get started on, or continue on, your journey for that inner peace we so desperately crave. It's worth it.

19:47Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and it would really help the show. We appreciate it. And I'll see you next episode.

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