It’s Nothing Without This | with Judge Not, Lest...

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.

1:09It has always been thus. The virtue of courage, the first of the four Stoic virtues, is essential, not just for a good life, but for a good world. And yet, as we've talked about before, none of the Stoic virtues are possible without the moderating and clarifying influences of the other virtues. As Myron says to his son Alexis in the historical novel The Last of the Wine, set not long before Zeno would lay down the virtues of Stoicism, courage without conduct is the virtue of a robber or a tyrant. He is saying that courage separated from justice, separated from wisdom, is hardly a virtue at all.

1:50In fact, it may well be a recipe for evil. Cato's defiance, if paired with Caesar's selfish ambition, would have been a path to an even worse dictatorship. If Stockdale's courage in the Hanoi Hilton was solely about self-preservation, as opposed to selfless leadership on behalf of his fellow prisoners, it would have been shameful instead of admirable. Stoicism, we must never forget, was not merely a tool for resilience and determination. It was resilience and determination in pursuit of what was right. Courage is a virtue only when aligned with just and honorable conduct. It is only admirable when part of a fuller package of decency, honesty, integrity, and a commitment to the common good.

2:37The call to courage is not simply the call to conquer fear. It is the call to conquer fear in service of something greater than yourself, to speak the truth even when it costs you, to do what's right even when it's hard, to act not for glory or for gain, but because virtue demands it.

3:04sponsoring 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, and on the unpaved roads like the one that I lived in.

3:48We 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. If you've got the resilience and the right companion to make it wherever the road takes you.

4:27Discover your uncharted territory. Learn more at toyota.com slash trucks slash adventure dash detours. Look, when you're hiring, you don't want just anyone. You need the right person with the right background who can move your business forward. And when I need candidates who match what we're looking for at Daily Stoic for any of my businesses, we trust Indeed sponsored jobs because when you're hiring, Indeed is all you need. You can give your job the best chance to be seen with Indeed's sponsored jobs. They can help you stand out and hire quality candidates who can drive the results you need. And according to Indeed, data-sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed are 90 % more likely to report a higher than non-sponsored jobs because you reach a bigger pool of quality candidates.

5:17And you should join the 1.6 million companies that sponsor their jobs with Indeed. People are finding quality hires on Indeed right now. In the minute we've been talking, companies like yours made 27 hires on Indeed. Spend more time interviewing candidates who check all your boxes, less stress, less time, more results now with Indeed Sponsored Jobs. And listeners of this show will get a$75 sponsored job credit to help you get your job, the premium status it deserves at Indeed.com slash Daily Stoic. Just go to Indeed.com slash Daily Stoic right now to support the show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast.

5:54Indeed.com slash Daily Stoic. Terms and conditions apply. If you're hiring, do it the right way with Indeed.

6:04Judge not lest you be judged. That's the November 17th entry in the Daily Stoic. And our quote today is from Seneca's Letters 103. When philosophy is wielded with arrogance and stubbornly, it is the cause for the ruin of many. Let philosophy scrape off your own faults rather than be a way to rail against the faults of others. And the meditation for today is remember the proper direction of philosophy of all things we're doing here. It is to be focused inward, to make ourselves better and to leave other people to that task for themselves and their own journey. Our faults are in our control, and so we turn to philosophy to help scrape them off like barnacles from the hull of a ship.

6:58Other people's faults? Not so much. That's for them to do. Leave other people to their faults. Nothing in Stoic philosophy empowers you to judge them, only to accept them, especially when we have so many of our own. You know, it's interesting, both Seneca and Jesus have some observation around this idea of like, why focus on the splinter in your neighbor's eye when you have a log in your own? Seneca talks about why judge the pimples on someone else's face when you yourself are covered in sores. Judge not lest you be judged. This sort of essence of Christianity and also of Stoicism, I think, is the idea that you've got enough trouble at home, man.

7:48You don't need to be going around judging, condemning, critiquing, questioning what other people are doing. And I think it's important that we remind ourselves of this because one of the things that I think social media does is give us so much more insight into what other people are doing. You know, you see some celebrity's marriage implode and you shake your head. But are you thinking about and working on your own, right? You think this behavior or that behavior is improper. Okay, don't do it then, man. Right? Right. That's the end of where you control things. This idea that we should be up in other people's business, that we should be policing, shaming, canceling, etc.

8:37is so often a distraction from our own work. Right. That's what I think is so beautiful about Lincoln's second inaugural address. He says, both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes his aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not that we be not judged. His point was that slavery was as close to an indisputable evil as one could possibly get. And yet even there, right, what defines Lincoln in the Civil War is his understanding of the fact that if people from the North had been born into the South, they'd almost certainly think and act differently.

9:32And if many of those people from the South had been born in the North, they would certainly think and act differently. And so by approaching it with this kind of empathy, right, that doesn't mean that he doesn't make very clear decisions about what he's okay with. That doesn't mean that he doesn't make very clear decisions about what he can change that is within his power, right? He's the president, so he has a lot more power than, say, your average person. But he realizes that judging and condemning and writing people off is not a constructive attitude, and it certainly does not make us better.

10:09So I just try to take a cue from Marcus Aurelius here. Marcus Aurelius is famously very strict with himself, has very strong standards, but he works really hard not to project those onto other people, not to demand from other people things that they didn't sign up for. right? He's tolerant with others, but strict with himself. He judges himself quite harshly, holds himself to very high standards, but then he understands that other people are on another journey. He tries to have a very clear understanding of where his circle of control begins and ends, which is what we must do. And then we must have empathy and kindness and patience and love for other people, even when they're wrong, even when they're doing things we disagree with, even when they do things that we don't like.

10:57We can't cast them out, cast them aside, act as if we are superior to them. We've got to leave those mistakes, as Marcus says, to their makers. I'll leave that there and I'll talk to you all soon.

11:13Hey, it's Ryan. Thank you for listening to the Daily Stoic Podcast. I just wanted to say we so appreciate it. We love serving you. It's amazing to us that over 30 million people have downloaded these episodes in the couple years we've been doing it. It's an honor. Please spread the word, tell people about it. And this isn't to sell anything. I just wanted to say thank you.

12:06American Giant's clothes work harder and are wearable season after season. Their greatest hoodie ever made is made of the highest quality materials that are cut and sewn right here in the United States. So you're investing right back into your local community. Choosing American Giant means taking a stand for American manufacturing and hardworking Americans, something other megacorporations don't care about. From fleece to knit, all in a range of colors for versatile daily wear, American Giant delivers everyday pieces designed for everyday life. Feel the difference of quality made-to-last clothes from American Giant.

12:42Get 20 % off your first order with code STABLE20 at American-Giant.com. That's 20 % off your first order at American-Giant.com with code STAPLE20. Look, ads are annoying. They are to be avoided, if at all possible. I understand as a content creator why they need to exist. That's why I don't begrudge them when they appear on the shows that I listen to. But again, as a person who has to pay a podcast producer and has to pay for equipment and for the studio and the building that the studio is in. It's a lot to keep something like the Daily Stoic going. So if you want to support a show but not listen to ads, well, we have partnered with Supercast to bring you a ad-free version of Daily Stoic.

13:32We're calling it Daily Stoic Premium. And with Premium, you can listen to every episode of the Daily Stoic podcast completely ad-free, no interruptions, just the ideas, just the messages, just the conversations you came here for. And you can also get early access to episodes before they're available to the public. And we're going to have a bunch of exclusive bonus content and extended interviews in there just for Daily Stoic Premium members as well. If you want to remove distractions, go deeper into Stoicism and support the work we do here. Well, it takes less than a minute to sign up for Daily Stoic Premium, and we are offering a limited time discount of 20 % off your first year.

14:10Just go to dailystoic.com slash premium to sign up right now or click the link in the show descriptions to make those ads go away.