It Does Make Sense

0:05Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a Stoic inspired meditation designed to help you find strength and insight and wisdom into everyday life. Each one of these episodes is based on the 2 ,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women, to help you learn from them, to follow in their example, and to start your day off with a little dose of courage and discipline and justice and wisdom. For more, visit dailystoic.com.

1:09but 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. 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.

1:48On 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. 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. It does make sense. It seems baffling. It seems like it doesn't make any sense. It drives you nuts, the things some people believe and do and say.

2:33But here's the thing. It does make sense. It makes sense to them because they're not as informed as you, because they haven't had the advantages you have, because they haven't been blessed with the philosophy the way you have. That's why they're superstitious. That's why they make the same mistakes over and over. That's why they can't see through various fears or biases. That's why they fall for demagogues. One of the insights in meditations is the idea of really putting yourself inside other people's thinking, getting inside their brain. What you'll find is that this isn't always a pretty experience.

3:11What you'll also tend to find is that it's a lot less baffling once you get in there, that there actually is a kind of logic. It's just that the logic is defined by different influences, by a different education. and often the inability to do this very active empathy that you are in the middle of trying to practice. So look, they can't imagine what it's like to be someone else. That's why they're racist or cruel or so certain about certain things. But you can't. And this demands that you understand why they're acting this way, that you understand that even though the belief or the action might not be acceptable, it comes from a human place.

3:48It demands, as Marcus Aurelius lays out in the first part of book two of meditations, that you figure out how to both avoid being infected by this ugliness and still find a way to work with this fellow human being, because that's our job.

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