How To Live in an Imperfect World | Practice Gentleness Instead of Anger

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1:03Welcome 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.

1:42How to live in an imperfect world. The world of virtue and rationalities that the Stoics read and wrote about, this was not the world they lived in. They lived, as Cicero said, not in the utopia of Plato's Republic, but in the dregs of Romulus. That's what Rome was, an imperfect place, a real place with real people with real problems. It would have been easy for the Stoics to become cynical about this. It also would have been easy for them to turn away in disgust, as the Epicureans largely did. It would have been nicer in Epicurus' garden, that's for sure, much nicer than the grimy streets of Rome or the snake pit of the imperial palace.

2:18We might have predicted Marcus Aurelius, of all people, to be like this. Marcus didn't want to be emperor. He wanted to be a philosopher. So he must have been led by this impulse. Could have been holier than thou. In the amazing and must-read 1946 novel, All the King's Men, the character Adam Stanton is like this. Because he is a romantic, Jack Burton, the narrator, explains, he has a picture of the world in his head. And when the world doesn't conform in respect to the picture, he wants to throw the world away, even if that means throwing out the baby with the bath, which it always does mean.

2:52It is remarkable then that Marcus Aurelius did not do this. In fact, he specifically counseled himself to avoid the disappointment that Cicero had pointed out. Don't go around expecting Plato's Republic, he said. While Adam Stanton was throwing the baby out with the bath, Marcus Aurelius was writing, if the cucumber is bitter, throw it out. If there are brambles in the path, go around. He was saying that as a politician, as a leader, he had to be pragmatic and realistic. He had to work the situations he was in, make the most of them. And that's what life is all about. That's what leadership demands.

3:22We are in an imperfect world populated with flawed people. We ourselves are flawed. We can't afford to feel or act superior. We have too much work to do. There's too much good we can do. And if we don't do it because we're cynical or because we retreat to more pleasant pastures, who are we seeding the field to? For thousands of years, the Stoics have not only been leaders, but the resource for other leaders like George Washington and John Adams and Admiral James Stockdale. That's who they turn to for advice and guidance. Basically, the Stoics show us that leadership isn't a position, but a process.

3:52And it's that process that we tried to build the ancient wisdom for modern leaders course around, the Daily Stoic Guide to Leadership. Becoming a better leader for your team, family, business, platoon, it makes us better. It makes the people around us better. and you can realize your potential as a leader if you sign up right now. I'll link to that in today's show notes. But remember, if you join Daily Stoic Life at dailystoiclife.com, which is filled with all sorts of leaders, just like yourself, you get this course and all the Daily Stoic courses for free. I think it's definitely worth it. So check that out.

4:32Practice gentleness instead of anger. It's easy to imagine Marcus Aurelius losing his temper. His responsibilities were vast, and his job required him to work with many frustrating, difficult people. As such, he had an acute sense of the problem of anger, knowing just how counterproductive it can be and how miserable it can make its users. He often repeated a simple exercise designed to preserve goodwill for others by simply replacing anger with gentleness. We can't allow ourselves to desert our goodwill, and we must remind ourselves that no one makes mistakes willingly. Each time you feel anger this week, remember Marcus, and see how you might replace it with gentleness.

5:11And write some examples down. This is from this week's entry in the Daily Stoic Journal, 366 Days of Writing on Reflection in the Art of Living. I think I'm on my fourth or my fifth way through the book. Every day I do the little prompt. For instance, tomorrow's prompt is, to what service am I committed? July 17th is, where have I abandoned others? Can I mind my own business and not be distracted? This is a great question to meditate on each day and write about. And we have some quotes here from Marcus. As you move forward along the path of reason, people will stand in your way. They will never be able to keep you from doing what's sound, so don't let them knock out your goodwill.

5:51Keep a steady watch on both fronts, not only for well-based judgments and actions, but also for gentleness with those who would obstruct our path or create difficulties. For getting angry is a weakness, just as much as abandoning the task or surrendering to panic. That's Marcus Aurelius' Meditations 11.9. Then in Meditations 7.6.3, he quotes Plato. As Plato said, every soul is deprived of truth against its will. The same holds true for justice, self-control, and goodwill to others, every similar virtue. It's essential to constantly keep this in your mind, for it will make you more gentle for all.

6:29And finally, Meditations 1118, he says, Keep this thought handy when you feel a fit of rage coming on. It's not manly to be enraged. Rather, gentleness and civility are more human and therefore manlier. A real man doesn't give way to anger or discontent. such a person has strength, courage, and endurance. So let's put aside these sort of gender preconceptions, because the Stoics are obviously from a long, long time ago. But I think he's saying it's not impressive to lose your temper, to be aggressive, to be mean, to be domineering, to destroy or dunk or own on someone. He's saying that the most impressive thing is to keep under the body, as the Bible says, to keep in self-control, to not lose your temper.

7:15Because to lose your temper is almost invariably to make the situation worse. Not only is it impotent and pointless and never solves the problem, but it usually makes things worse. That's another thing Marcus says. He says how much worse the consequences of anger are than the things that caused it. And I've said this before, but I've never lost my temper and then felt so glad that I did that. Actually, just yesterday, I was going back and forth with this person that we hired to do something, a very expensive person. And they'd been like jerking us around for months. And I finally laid out in very clear, simple language, this is what I want.

7:54This is what has to happen. Stop wasting our time. And then three seconds later, they responded like, well, actually, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Let's get on the phone and discuss. And I've said this before, but I hate getting on the phone, especially with things that don't need to be gotten on the phone about. And so, you know, there's part of me that wanted to write this really angry email. And instead, instead of doing that, instead of calling this person and yelling at them, I called someone I work with and I said, look, I'm calling you instead of yelling at this person. Here's where I am.

8:25Here's what I want. It's obvious that I'm upset. This person knows I'm upset. Why don't you call them and just work out a solution so we never have to talk about this again, right? Just make this go away, solve it. I don't need to get the last word here. I just want this to go away. And that's how I try to solve things that are upsetting to me. And I try to have some self-awareness of like, I know what I'm going to do is this. And then what they're going to do is this. And then I'm going to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then I will be unhappy. And this person probably won't feel any of it because if they were aware of what's happening, we wouldn't be in this mess to begin with.

9:03So that's how I try to think about it. You want to catch yourself before you go through it. You want to use it as an opportunity for the next level. I'm not quite there, as Marcus is saying, is try to respond with gentleness. Where is this person coming from? And that's actually something that I talked about with my partner. We were like, there's got to be something going on with this person because it doesn't make any sense. This is ridiculous. And I suspect that is maybe they're going through a divorce. Maybe their kid is sick. Their business is falling apart. Just you don't know what people are going through.

9:33So to scream at them and yell at them, not only is it probably not going to solve anything, but they're probably overwhelmed already. And that's why you're in this mess. So take a minute. Remember, it's more impressive to be controlled. You don't have to say, you don't have to get the last word. You don't have to get angry. Solve the problem. Move on. Practice gentleness instead of anger. I'm heading over to Australia in a couple of weeks. I'm going to be in Sydney on July 31st. I'm going to be in Melbourne on August 1st. Then in November, I'm doing Vancouver and Toronto, London, Dublin, Rotterdam, all awesome cities I'm really excited to go to.

10:11If you want to come to those talks, they're open to the public and you can grab those tickets at ryanholiday.net slash tour.

10:47We'll see you next time.

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