It’s A Thinking Person’s Game

0:00I'm recording this on a Monday, and Monday is our grocery store day in our family. I usually pick my kids up from school and we go over to Whole Foods, get all our groceries for the week. Although here very shortly, we're going to go over there to get our Thanksgiving turkey because they've got a bunch of great options. Turkeys start at$149 a pound if you have Prime with organic birds at$299 a pound. And they only carry no antibiotic ever turkeys that will bring quality to your table at a great price. Whole Foods has great everyday prices on all your Thanksgiving essentials, whether you celebrate with a massive family or just a few close friends.

0:37Everything they sell has high standards to help you shop with confidence. Enjoy so many ways to save on your Thanksgiving spread at Whole Foods Market.

0:50Welcome 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.

1:41Life is a thinking person's game. Life is hard. Life is complicated. Life is full of choices. It's full of dilemmas. It's full of complex problems and confusing situations. It's full of obstacles and opportunities. It's full of grifters and liars and con artists and smooth talkers, as Marcus Aurelius said. It's also full of wonderful, fascinating, and incredible ideas and topics that you can't possibly be satisfied with just getting the gist of. In short, life is a thinking person's game. And it's why the Stoics stressed the pursuit of wisdom. Because we need it. We need it right now. And we'll need it later.

2:29We'll need it when we face ethical dilemmas. We'll need it when we're tested by anger or greed or fear. We'll need it when we decide whether to speak up or stay silent, whether to act or hold back, whether to endure or change. You cannot have a good life without wisdom. Not only will problems overwhelm you, even eat you alive, but you'll leave so much unexplored. You will only do a fraction of what you are capable of doing. Yet this wisdom, the kind the Stoics were often seeking and have come to be known for, it does not come easily. As we said recently, you can't spell learned without earned.

3:11Wisdom takes work. That's not just the title of the new book, which came out Tuesday, and we still have the bonuses. And thank you to everyone who supported the book. I'd love it if you could check it out if you haven't yet. But Wisdom Takes Work is the truth. Like, wisdom takes work. That is a fact. It is the work of your life because life is a thinking person's game. Will you be able to make the most of the time you have here? Will you have the wisdom you need when you face complexity and difficulty, misinformation and partisanship and distractions? Will you be able to see the opportunities and be of service to others?

3:49Will you have the perspective required to know what matters and what you ought to do? Will you have the skill and the focus to explore what can be explored? That's why we do this work, why we study this philosophy, me why we read these books and continue to talk, as Zeno said, to the dead who came before us. If you haven't checked out Wisdom Takes Work, again, it would mean so much to me if you could. It came out Tuesday. I was in New York doing The Daily Show and The Breakfast Club and Stephanie Rule and a bunch of other stuff talking about it. I think it's doing great. I can't wait to hear what you think of it.

4:26We've still got the bonuses. I'll honor those. If you go over to dailystoic.com slash wisdom. You can buy one copy, you can buy five copies, you can buy a hundred. You can even have dinner with me to talk about the ideas in the book. All of that. I can't wait for you to check it out. And I'm really excited to hear what you think. I'm proud of this book. I'm glad to have wrapped up the Virtue series. And anyways, we'll talk soon.

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