Investigate Yourself First

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1:09and she founded Good Inside, which is there to give parents practical, actionable tools for handling those everyday challenges with confidence. My 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.

1:46And 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. Becky. 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.

2:24Investigate yourself first. The world is full of mysteries. There's so much to learn, so much to discover. There are libraries of things to read about. Every day brings countless news stories to follow. Do UFOs exist? What's going on with this scandal or that one? Who do you think is to blame for this or that? And while the Stoics were certainly curious and intellectual people, they tried to ignore a lot of that. Why? Because they had plenty of other questions they needed answers to first, questions that pertain more to self-awareness and self-actualization than being informed. In fact, I am dealing with those more important issues, Seneca wrote, the ones that soothe the mind, and I investigate myself first, and then, he said, the cosmos.

3:09Look, the man was a plugged-in power broker who also published a multi-volume series on natural history and biology, so he was hardly ignorant. He just tried to remind himself that his first job was to understand himself, was to solve the problems of living, before he then distracted himself with the issues of the universe. In our very busy, very noisy, and very confusing modern world, this is a great model to follow. We ought to investigate ourselves first, get to the bottom of what's happening in here first, rather than obsess about and despair over what's happening out there.

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