Let’s Be Good Stoics Today | with To Have A More Peaceful Home, Have Fewer of These

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.

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1:19Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast. On Friday, we do double duty, not just reading our daily meditation, but also reading a passage from The Daily Stoic, my book, 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance in the Art of Living, which I wrote with my wonderful collaborator, translator, and literary agent, Stephen Hanselman. So today, we'll give you a quick meditation from the Stoics with some analysis from me, and then we'll send you out into the world to turn these words into works.

2:00Let's be good Stoics today. Marcus Aurelius would have recognized the feeling that you have right now. So would Seneca and Cato and many of the other Stoics. The Romans, like Americans, loved a good feast. They loved wine. They loved breaking bread with their family. We know this because their writings abound with descriptions of overflowing tables and dinners that went long into the night. But you know what doesn't appear in their writings very often, just as it does not occur to us often enough? How some people don't know this feeling at all. In fact, they are far more familiar with the opposite of it.

2:36While some of us sit here with stomachs filled with as many Thanksgiving foods as we could manage, there are those feeling the rumblings of an empty stomach instead. If you're wondering if you'll ever be able to eat again, they are in a very different way thinking the same thing. According to Feeding American, one in seven people in the United States face hunger today, and one in five are children. A number of factors have led to an increase of 13 million people in need of food assistance over the last two years. That's across 100 % of U.S. counties. Although this might not feel so close to home, it very much is.

3:14And up to 750 million people globally go to bed on an empty stomach. So today, instead of contributing to corporate overindulgence in the form of doorbusters and lightning deals, let us instead put our energy towards helping the less fortunate. Though, as Epictetus reminds us, we don't control a lot in this world. We can help keep at least some people from going hungry. We can alleviate someone's worry and fear. We can put food on their table. I've always felt weird about Black Friday stuff with Daily Stoic. So about five years ago, I decided to do a food drive instead. On the day after Thanksgiving, we do a food drive.

3:57And so with Feeding America, we're trying to come together and feed 3 million people. And the last four years, with your help, we raised more than$550 ,000, which provided meals for 5 million people. We didn't solve the enormous problem, but we made a dent felt by 5 million people. you did that. I did that. You did that. We did that together. Every year, Daily Stoic puts up the first 10 % of the goal. So this year, I'm personally putting up the first$30 ,000 with an overall goal to raise$300 ,000. And because each dollar provides 10 meals with Feeding America, if we hit our goal, that would be 3 million meals.

4:38So let's not give ourselves over to indulgence this Black Friday, or at least entirely. Let's be good Stoics and choose virtue, Choose generosity. Choose justice. Let's contribute to something larger than ourselves. And you can do that. Just head over to dailystoic.com slash feeding. That's where we're all doing it together. You can make a small dent in a big problem. And if you live outside the U.S., check out Action Against Hunger. It's a global humanitarian organization that fights hunger across nearly 50 countries. And I'll link to that in today's show notes. Or just go to dailystoic.com slash feeding to make a donation.

5:10Seriously,$1 will feed 10 people, provide 10 meals. That's pretty nuts. So let's do it together. Happy Thanksgiving.

5:21Thanks to Toyota Trucks for sponsoring 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.

6:06We 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.

6:45Discover your uncharted territory. Learn more at toyota.com slash trucks slash adventure dash detours. Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoke Podcast. as you know, on Fridays, we normally do a riff from the Daily Stoic, right? I read the entry from the day, then I riff and I tell you a bit more about it. But I'm not going to do that today. I'm going to read from a very similar book. I don't know if you can hear this. I just took this out of the box. This is the leather edition of the Daily Dad, which I'm really proud about. We've been working on for a long time. I want to read you an entry from the Daily Dad.

7:29That is stoic inspired and then tell you a bit about it you can get this new edition by the way at dailydad.com slash leather if you have the leather the sort of high-end edition of the daily stoic you know what i'm talking about just something that'll stand the test of time uh just talking to someone who has this copy they read it every single night which is just like amazing for me to hear but i'm going to read the april 8th entry from the daily dad because it is stoic inspired to have a more peaceful home have fewer of these. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone.

8:05Marcus Aurelius. At the core of most of the conflict between parents and children and so often spouses is one thing. Judgment. We have opinions. They have opinions. And these opinions are the source of disagreement. If we as parents would like to have a better relationship with our children, there is one simple thing we can do. We can have fewer opinions. Do you really need to have an opinion on what kind of food is served at your daughter's wedding, even if you're paying for it? Do you need to have an opinion on the way they do their hair? Their friends are their friends. What does it matter what you think of them or their parents?

8:42So what if they like music that sounds weird to you? So what if they want to raise their own kids a different way? Few things in life are better off with your judgment hovering over them, your family, most of all. What Marcus says in this Fuller quote is that we always have the power to have no opinion. And this is a habit I'm working on practicing more in my own life. Look, I don't get video games at all. I don't get why they're fun. I definitely don't get why watching someone else play them is fun, especially these idiots who play on YouTube that get millions and millions of views. But you know what?

9:19My kids like them. There's a ton of things that my kids like that I like or that I like that they like, right? That's awesome. Do I need them to like everything that I like? Do I need to have an opinion on the fact that they like this? No, I don't. And by having the opinion, my fundamental lack of curiosity or judgment, you know what it's preventing me from doing? From just sitting next to them on the couch and having a good time together, from entering their world, from understanding what gets them excited, understanding what's happening in the world today, what lights young people up. I was talking to someone on the podcast the other day about, like, my kids are really into Pokemon.

10:02But like, I remember Pokemon not being cool. And so that judgment, that opinion is getting in the way between me understanding and sharing this thing with them, right? Look, maybe it's not actually possible to have no opinions. But as parents, as stoics, as human beings, you know what we can get better at? Expressing fewer of these opinions, keeping these opinions to ourself, not yucking as they say someone else's yum, right? The more open-minded, the more chill we are, the more we appreciate that someone else's opinion is their opinion and you don't have to have an opinion on their opinion. It's not right or wrong.

10:40This is how you have a more peaceful home and a more peaceful life. I find this even with people that don't like Daily Stoic, right? They're going, someone doesn't need to read these books. They can read the originals. Right. Some people don't. Maybe that's them. But some people do. Who needs a Memento Mori coin? Probably not them. But you know what? Lots of people are interested in it. They do like it. That's fine, right? Why are you getting upset that other people like things or are benefiting from things? And what makes you think that condemning and judging is going to open their mind to anything?

11:19No, it's not. I'm just trying to get better at this in my life, just allowing things to exist. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Your opinion about them doesn't matter. Someone wrote in, they read this entry and they said, well, what are my sons hanging out with this person? you know, blah, blah, blah. Look, are there some times, okay, this person is a criminal, you know, this person is X, Y, or Z. Sure, maybe, but more often than not, we're making up justifications for what is fundamentally a subjective thing. And by the way, we could have that opinion and still not express it so directly.

11:55We could try to help our kid come around to see what we see, understand what we see. Look, again, sometimes for matters of safety or you know whatever sure maybe there are some exceptions to these rules but generally fewer opinions is better more openness is better more understanding is better support is better let them like what they like try to understand why they like what they like support what they like you'll have a more peaceful home you'll have a more connected home you'll have a more fun home that's what today's message is i think there's so many parenting lessons in the Stoics because in part, many of the Stoics were parents, almost more Stoics were parents and not parents probably.

12:36So anyways, if you want to check out the new edition of the Daily Dad, it makes a great gift. We use the same bindery that we make the Leatherbound Daily Stoic with. We really put a lot of time and energy on it. It's got, I'm just looking at the back. It's got this awesome little sort of embossed drawing of my two sons and I walking over this bridge down in the panhandle of Florida. Just sweet. I love this thing. I can't wait for you guys to see it, you can check out the new book. You can grab it at dailydad.com slash leather. I'll link to it if you want to pick it up in the Daily Stoic store as well.

13:07We're signing copies also. And I hope you have a great Friday. I'll talk to you all again very soon. Be well.

13:20Thanks so much for listening to the Daily Stoic podcast. If you don't know this, you can get these delivered to you via email every day. Check it out at dailystoic.com slash email.

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