It’s Strange How Cowardly We Sometimes Are | We Are A Product of Our Habits

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.

1:09anything but himself. Yet what did most of Rome's senators do? They did nothing. They were not like Thrasia, defying and challenging, insisting on the truth, refusing to obey. No, they went along to get along. They rubber-stamped his policies. They indulged his fantasies, accepted his lies. Even though they were supposed to represent the people, even though they were supposed to protect and preserve the empire's institutions, even though they were entrusted with considerable means and influence, they declined to assert their prerogatives. They obeyed instead of led. What an unbelievably strange life the journalist Ezra Klein would recently observe of the American Senate to rise as far as they have in politics, to wield as much power as they could, and to be as afraid as they are.

1:57It is a shame. It will end again in disaster. But you know what? As we've said here many times, the problem is not limited to politics. We all have more power and influence than we choose to wield, whether we're talking about getting involved in our homeowners association or standing up to our boss or using hard-won leverage in a business negotiation. Too often, we are just far too cowardly. Courage calls us, and what do we do? We ignore it. We let it ring. we leave it for later. And it's a shame. And it's also very strange. I talk about this, obviously, a lot in Courage is Calling, but also in Right Thing Right Now.

2:39These are, I think, two interrelated Stoic virtues that are more timely and in shorter supply than ever. You can grab both those books wherever books are sold. And you want me to sign your copy, just go to store.dailystoic.com.

3:01I'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$1.49 a pound, if you have Prime, with Organic Birds at$2.99 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.

3:38Everything they sell has high standards to help you shop with competence. Enjoy so many ways to save on your Thanksgiving spread at Whole Foods Market. We are a product of our habits. This comes from this week's entry in the Daily Stoic Journal, 366 days of writing and reflection on the art of living. Journaling, of course, is a critical exercise to the Stoics. It's really hard to separate journaling from Stoicism. Meditations is Marcus Aurelius journaling and talking to himself. And so today's entry comes from the prompt and the sort of meditative part of the Daily Stoic Journal for this week's, and it's all about habits.

4:18The Roman Stoics put a heavy emphasis on dealing with habitual behavior in order to make progress in the art of living. The great Roman Stoic educator Musonius Rufus, he's Epictetus' teacher, held that all the theories in the world couldn't trump good habits, and they couldn't overcome bad habits either. Epictetus followed Musonius in this focus on habit with an eye on not reinforcing bad habits, such as anger, and finding a way to replace them with better ones. We all recognize bad habits when they see them in others, but it's harder to see them in ourselves. So this week, meditate on the habits and recurring behaviors that are holding you back and even ask others around you for their view.

5:02And the first quote comes to us from Epictetus. He says, every habit and capability is confirmed and grows in its corresponding actions, walking by walking and running by running. Therefore, if you want to do something, make a habit of it. If you don't want to do that, don't, but make a habit of something else instead. The same principle is at work in our state of mind. When you get angry, you have not only experienced an evil, but you've also reinforced a bad habit, adding fuel to the fire. Sepictetus's Discourses 218. Then he also says, if you don't wish to be a hothead, don't feed your habit.

5:36Try as a first step to remain calm and count the days you haven't been angry. I used to be angry every day and now every other day. then every third and fourth. And if you make it as far as 30 days, thank God, for a habit is first weakened and then obliterated. When you can say, I didn't lose my temper today or the next day or for three or four months, but I kept my cool under provocation, then you are in better health. That's again Epictetus's Discourses 218. And then this is the funny one. He says, what assistance can we find in the fight against habit? Try the opposite. The point is the Stoics thought a lot about habits.

6:12They had to, right? It's not just enough to think philosophical thoughts to sort of have high principles or standards, but how do you make them real in your life? How do you turn them into muscle memory, right? An athlete can watch videos, can be coached, can review painstakingly their swing or their shot or their throw, and then they're going to get tweaks and thoughts, but then that has to become habit. That has to become part of the routine. That's why they sit in the gym and take a thousand free throws or a thousand jump shots. That's why they practice doing this or that so that under immense amounts of pressure, under the stresses of life in the game, they can revert back to that training.

6:55They can do what they need to do. And I love this little expression from Seneca about how bad habits, the old way of doing it, first we weaken it, then we obliterate it. You don't just magically do the new thing, you weaken it. And he's saying one way to weaken it is to try the opposite. You know, it's like you have a piece of paper with a crease in it or a bend in it. You can fold it the opposite way and it kind of flattens it out. I just think that's an interesting way of thinking about it. But look, habits make the man, right? The habits that you do, the things you habitually do day in and day out, that's who you are.

7:28Who you say you are, who you want to be, Who cares, right? The habits you habitually do, the choices you regularly make, that's what make you who you are. That's what make you beautiful. As we also talk about from Epictetus, we are a product of our choices, our routines, our habits. As a writer, how does it work? You create a routine. You create a structure. You follow it every day. Work comes out the other side of that. It's not about fits of inspiration. It's not about genius. And I think this is true for all crafts that one seeks out to master. It's about habit. But I've also found even as a parent, if you want to do good, if you want to manage this or that, you create habits, you create routines, you create structures, and then you stick to it.

8:11That's the key. Habits will make you happier. They will give you a better life. I'm not saying they're easy. They're very difficult. But habit is everything. It's also the hardest thing. But let's keep working on our habits.

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