It’s Really That Simple | Ask DS

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2:45Some of these come from Zoom sessions that we do with Daily Stoic Life members or as part of the challenges. Some of them are from interactions I have on the street when there happened to be someone there recording. But thank you for listening, and we hope this is of use to you.

3:08It's really that simple. Sometimes we are so stuck, so in our own heads, so down on our own luck that improvement, let alone a full recovery, seems impossible. Our business has been slowing down. We're not throwing the ball like we used to. Our significant other walked out after 20 years of marriage. What do we do? Well, first thing is that we don't despair. There's a lot of things we don't control in life, but our attitude is something that is up to us. Giving up is up to us. And then next, we do what Super Bowl-winning NFL coach Sean Payton is getting ready to do in Denver. the Broncos had an absolutely terrible year last year, especially at the quarterback position, which is held by future Hall of Famer Russell Wilson.

3:56Number one job for us coaches, he explained in his first press conference, is evaluating players in what are the things they do well, and let's try to put them in those positions, highlight their strengths, and minimize their weaknesses. We discussed this very approach on the Daily Stoke podcast recently with Chicago Cubs Golden Glove left fielder Ian Happ. It seems almost too simple that at a high level, a coach would just look at what's working well and what isn't and then design an offense that does more of the former and less of the latter. But that's really it. That's what champions do. It's what turnaround consultants and businesses do.

4:36It's how Epictetus boiled down the entirety of his philosophy. It was as simple as two words. He said, persist and resist. That is, keep doing the stuff that's good and stop doing the stuff that's bad. Last year might have been an abysmal season. Your sales might be in the tank. You might feel like your relationship is falling apart. Don't despair. Look at what is working. Look at what isn't. Explore why it's working and figure out how to get more consistent with it, go towards your strengths. And then, when you're operating from a position of strength, apply that energy towards improving your weaknesses.

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6:07Here's an interesting question. Ryan, in 2022, who would you say is the best example of a Stoic? Yeah, look, I wish I could give you a long list of Stoics. And I think part of the reason we're in the mess that we're in is that there aren't nearly enough examples. So that's why, That's why I tend to look to the past, certainly less controversial, a little less politically charged. But I did just read, I read Katie Martin's biography of Angela Merkel. Again, I don't know enough about German politics to get too, you know, to have too much of a strong opinion. But I found there to be some very stoic ideas running through Merkel's career, right down to a little paperweight she has on her desk that just says, calmness is strength.

7:07And I found that to be a very stoic idea that, unfortunately, a lot of our leaders these days don't ascribe to. Certainly an example of a great leader, for sure. Here's another interesting question. How do we reconcile the persecution of Christians during the reign of Marcus Aurelius and his understanding of justice? Yeah, I don't think we do. The Stoic persecution of the Christians is an abomination. It's a shameful thing, just as many of their wars of conquest and the widespread acceptance of slavery is. It's particularly bad. Marcus Aurelius' philosophy teacher, Junius Rusticus, who he makes effectively the mayor of Rome, is the one who adjudicates and then sentences to death and persecution just in martyr.

8:10So even the concept of martyrdom comes to us from the Stoic persecutions. Now, I guess we could look at the fact that the Stoics themselves were persecuted under many of the prior and previous emperors. You know, we could say that it was a misunderstanding, that it was a clash of religions and understandings. I think it's just inexplicable. It was wrong. But again, I think my impulse is not to go, how are the Stoics hypocrites because of this example or that example? And I try to go, how can I reconcile my understanding of Stoicism and these socks that I'm wearing and where they were probably produced?

8:58Right. And so I try ultimately to just try to get a little bit better in my life. I try to become a little bit more ethical, try to try to practice justice as best I can in my own decisions and actions. And I think we shouldn't be afraid to question or criticize or indict entirely the mistakes of the past. I think one of the things we're reckoning with in the United States is our inability to look at things that this country has done and go, I don't like that. That was wrong. And not be so identified with things that people we've never even met did. and our failure to do that prevents us from not just learning from it and rectifying those wrongs, but also I think makes it more likely that we'll do those things again in the future.

9:51Some say the age of enlightenment began as a result of the moral and philosophical implications of the Industrial Revolution. How can we find ways in our current society to help guide people towards focusing on stoicism instead of conflict and division during such times of uncertainty in our view? You know, that question might be a little bit above my pay grade. I'm not sure I have a good answer. I think the stoic, you know, the simplest stoic action, and I have a quote on my wall from Mark Surrealis. He says, let us waste no more time talking about what a good person is like. Just be one. You know, I think the very simplest basic level, what's most in our control is what behaviors, values and ideas are we modeling in our own day to day life, particularly in front of our children or the people who work for and with us or live near us.

10:51To me, that's where we probably will have the most impact evangelizing or spreading these ideas that we're talking about. This one's an interesting one. While amor pati encourages our indifference and acceptance of events and outcomes outside of our control, how do the Stoics approach preferences in the sense of preferred versus dispreferred indifference? Yeah, this gets a little into the weeds about Stoics, but, you know, the Stoics talk about the idea of being indifferent, like don't care, accept whatever it is. But then Seneca and some of the other Stoics come up with a little semantic twist, they say, but there are also preferred indifference.

11:33So that's indifference with a T, preferred indifference, meaning it's probably better to be rich than poor, he says. It's not being rich or poor. It doesn't say anything about you. But if you had to choose, you'd probably choose to have more resources than less resources. Just as he said, you know, you'd probably prefer to be tall than short, to have both your eyes than only one eye or, you know, both all your working limbs compared to only one working limb. And so I think for the Stoics, the idea is like indifference means I'm good, whatever the cards are, right? I'm going to play whatever the hand I'm dealt is.

12:18But still, if you had to choose or if you're sitting there hoping, you know, you want to be dealt a good hand or you want to be dealt a hand with the most options. And I think that's the idea with strategy, right, or any sort of position, any sort of leadership position, which is that you're probably not going to get to choose, but you want to choose the path with the most optionality as possible, right? Your job is there's all the constraints of the situation you're in, but, you know, you want to choose optionality where you have it. So that's kind of how I think about that. We have two similar questions.

13:01So they relate to you personally. Okay. What are the exercises or personal, what do you do in your personal life to make your more reasonable self more accessible in times of stress? that you're less reactive, what tools do you use? To me, the biggest one, and I think the most stoic, sort of practical philosophical exercise is journaling. Meditations, Remarkable Realist, is effectively a journal. But, you know, paper, as they say, is more patient than people. I like to put my thoughts down, have a little distance from them, have reflective, quiet time, whether it's in the morning or the evening, where I sit down and I just think and I get it all out on the page.

13:47So I'm not carrying it around. So I'm not vomiting it on other people. So I'm working through the ideas. I'm reminding myself of what I believe. Like something like a gratitude journal. What's so effective about that is you're just by forcing you to say, I am grateful for this. You are reminding yourself explicitly that that's a thing to feel good about and that you feel grateful for it. And just the process of doing that repeating it, reminding it to yourself kind of like a mantra or just working it out is just really beneficial. So if I had one philosophical practice to leave you with, it would be journaling.

14:24I know that doesn't, you know, it's probably not as magical as meditation, but it is a meditative experience for me and it's helped me through a lot of difficult times. Thank you. I think that's something that's accessible to most folks. Here's a tough one to close this out. All right. Okay. Do you not need an objective and preferably true source of what constitutes right and just? If not, is not everything then relative and justice simply boils down to each of our own opinions of what is just? Yeah, I think. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what that source would be. I gather from the question that they probably do have a sense of what that source is.

15:15Um, but I think sometimes we can over overthink these things, uh, and, and end up almost in a place of like nihilism. Like, how do you know, what about this? What about that? Um, when really what I think society needs more of is those sort of basic, almost cliche values of, of decency and humanity and honesty, charity, kindness, you know. So, you know, what is the source of that? What makes it good? How do you know? Yeah, look, it gets really gets really complicated. We could sit here and talk about the trolley problem and work or twist ourselves into knots and not know what's good or bad or right or wrong.

16:06But I also think we and I think this is a stoic idea. There There is like an inherently, the Stokes talk about living in accordance with nature. I think there is a natural sense of goodness and justice in us. The problem is stuff gets in the way. We always have our reasons. We always have the ability to overthink it. We always have our self-interest. But if we can just get a little bit closer to that, I think it would make a difference in the world. I think it's an interesting line of inquiry. And if we're trying to keep in line with nature, maybe looking towards stuff like evolutionary psychology or behavior of primates and that sort of thing might help us point towards some of those answers.

16:54I think that's right. It's definitely interesting. And I don't think there's any short answers that we can get to in three minutes. I don't either. do you think you understand the story you are living in uh your personal myth oh that's a good question i i try not to think of life in terms of story or narrative because i find it to be a little misleading or disorienting you know if you uh if you one of my favorite novels is uh the moviegoer uh one of my favorite books about los angeles is this book ask the dust by John Fonte. The people who believe they're living in some epic movie or novel tend to be very egotistical, often preposterously delusional or silly.

17:44You know, it's sort of an aggrandizing, overdramatic, grandiose way of living. I try to live more in the moment. I try to live day to day. I try to live sort of objectively. I try to strip things of all of that narrative and just sort of see them for what they are. I don't think that means that nothing matters and it's all meaningless. I think it's the opposite of that. But I do try to generally resist that kind of idea of my life is a story or something like that. I just try to do what I need to do day to day.

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