No One is Self-Made | What Expensive Things Cost

0:00You probably heard the headlines about all the different cuts to foreign aid and food benefits. This is having a profound impact on the world's poorest people and the world's poorest communities. But, you know, just hearing about that, that's not what stoicism is about. Stoicism is, to me, what you're going to do about it. And that's where GiveWell comes in. GiveWell is trusted by tens of thousands of donors each year because they provide free and independent research that helps you understand how to have a big impact. GiveWell has spent the last 18 years researching global health and poverty alleviation, and they direct funding to the highest impact opportunities.

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1:13To claim your match, go to GiveWell.org and pick Daily Stoic from the drop-down menu under podcast. That's how they know that you heard about GiveWell from the Daily Stoic and you'll get your donation matched. That's GiveWell.org, code the Daily Stoic to donate or find out more. I'm picking my kids up from school today and then doing our weekly routine, which is I take them over to Whole Foods. We get all our groceries for the week. Then we have dinner. It's one of their favorite things to do. It's one of my favorite things to do. And then my wife loves it because she doesn't have to take care of it.

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2:14Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast. Each day we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, illustrated with stories from history, current events, and literature to help you be better at what you do. And at the beginning of the week, we try to do a deeper dive, setting a kind of stoic intention for the week, something to meditate on, something to think on, something to leave you with, to journal about, whatever it is you happen to be doing. So let's get into it.

2:50No one is self-made. Marcus Aurelius opens meditations reflecting upon what he has learned from various influential individuals in his life. It's titled Debts and Lessons, and the 17 entries spanning nine pages and more than 2 ,000 words make up nearly 10 % of the entire book. Marcus Aurelius writes with the humility of someone in the final act of their life, taking stock about how lucky they are to be where they are. And it's beautiful. It totally dispenses with the notion of the self-made man, the idea that someone got somewhere all on their own. Marcus Aurelius knew that he was a product of so many mentors, influencers, advisors, and teachers.

3:29And debt is the operative word in that title. He owed them so much. When we talked to Arnold Schwarzenegger on a recent episode of the Daily Stoic podcast, he talked about this very idea. And in fact, he references how inspired he was by meditations in the final chapter of his new book, Be Useful. Based on the surface, Arnold Schwarzenegger's life story is a classic example of the self-made man. Born and raised in a small village in Austria, seemingly by his own sheer will and determination, he achieved extraordinary success in the worlds of bodybuilding, acting, business, and politics, ultimately becoming a global icon.

4:05But he didn't do this on his own, Arnold told us. I have been the creation of hundreds of people, he said, thousands of people. I had Kurt Marnell, Mr. Austria, say to me when I was a scrawny 15-year-old kid, you can become Mr. Austria in a few years from now. Go to the gym with me, he said, and I'll show you how to exercise. For the next two minutes in the episode, Arnold went on talking about all of the people who had helped him throughout his life. It's unbelievable the amount of people that helped me and pushed me, he said. Ultimately, each of us is the sum of our surroundings. We are products of our influences, of our environments, our family and friends.

4:42Success is a collaborative effort. The myth of the self-made man is just that, a myth. You must embrace the idea that we are all interconnected and our achievements are a collective effort. We are, in the end, a reflection of the support and guidance we received from the countless people who shape our lives. And do listen to the episode I did with Arnold. I thought it's great, and I think I'll really enjoy it.

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6:21What expensive things cost. From the cynics, the Stoics learned the powerful practice of focusing on the true worth of things. That the cost of an item isn't simply what it's sold for, but what it costs the owner to own. So much of our desire for material goods comes at the great price of both anxiety and the loss of our serenity. And even when gained, these things often leave us more anxious and less serene. So today, spend some time reflecting on what the things you buy actually cost you and see if they are really worth what you have been paying. And that's from today's entry in the Daily Stoic Journal.

7:02We have some quotes from Seneca and Epictetus here. So concerning the things we pursue and for what we vigorously exert ourselves, we owe this consideration. Either there is nothing useful in them or most aren't useful. Some of them are superfluous, while others aren't worth that much. But we don't discern this and see them as free when they cost us so dearly. That's Seneca's moral letters. Then we have Epictetus. If a person gave your body away to some passerby, you'd be furious, yet you hand over your mind to anyone who comes along so that they may abuse you, leaving it disturbed and troubled.

7:40Have you no shame? Epictetus asks. And then we have Diogenes Laertes quoting Diogenes of Sinope. That's Diogenes the Cynic. He says, we sell things of great value for things of very little and vice versa. You know, they say the best things in life are free. That's not really true, But I would say that a lot of things are much more expensive than they appear. Right. So we chase these things. We want these things. We want a fancy car. And then we're worried about making sure nothing happens to that fancy car. I remember a few years ago, I put new floors in my house. And on the one hand, I hated the old floors and it made the house look better.

8:27And they were easier to walk on and improve my life. But then we had kids and now all of a sudden there's this part of me that worries about the floors all the time, right? I don't want them to get scratched. I don't want water to sit on them. And the dog went to the bathroom. And so this thing that cost me money, it was not cheap to put new floors in the house, didn't just cost what it cost. It cost all the anxiety. It cost the arguments between me and my wife about who's to blame for this scratch on the floor from the couch. You know, it costs goodwill between me and my kid because I'm like, hey, why did you spill, you know, that part of you that just blurts out, you know, trying to protect things?

9:08And the truth is, it really doesn't matter. I remember I was talking to a therapist about some version of this and she said, just write it off, like write it off in your head. You spent the money. It's gone. You can't try to keep it all together. Right. You can't try to keep it pristine. It's like the people who buy a toy and then they want it in mint condition. I mean, this is not just a violation of the law of entropy. It's a violation of the law of happiness. You will not be happy if this is how you're spending all your time trying to keep everything in one place, trying to keep them together.

9:42It's an illusion. It will not last. You cannot do it. You have to be able to let go. That's the old Zen saying that, you know, the cup is already broken. The cup is already broken. The Stoics knew that expensive things cost even more than their price tag. That's why there's the great story of Epictetus. He has this lamp. It's stolen. And the next day, he says, I'm going to go get a cheaper lamp so I don't have to worry about it getting stolen ever again. And I don't have to be sad that it's missing ever again. So for the Stoics, remember, not just what actually is valuable and isn't. You know, a lot of times we ascribe value to things that are superficial and meaningless and pointless.

10:19but also it's realizing that you are spending even more money than you think on things. You're spending your happiness is really what you're spending on. And so I want to leave you with that thought. It's not that you live in a pigsty. You don't care about anything. You should try to keep your things nice and not unnecessarily wear them down. But you also cannot resist entropy. You cannot resist time. You cannot resist wear and tear. And if you do so, it comes at the expense. The most important thing, which is time. And the other most important thing, which is your happiness. And the other most important thing, which is the relationships, the people in your life.

10:56So you only have so much time to think or worry or spend time on things. Are you going to spend it trying to preserve your floors? You're not even going to live there forever. You're probably going to tear them out at some point anyway. No, focus on what matters.

11:15Thanks for listening to the Daily Stoic Podcast. Just a reminder, we've got signed copies of all my books in the Daily Stoic store. You can get them personalized. You can get them sent to a friend. The obstacle is the way you go is the enemy. Stillness is the key. The leather-bound edition of the Daily Stoic. We have them all in the Daily Stoic store, which you can check out at store.dailystoic.com. The world is full of tours. But you don't choose a Toyota truck to follow the beaten path. You choose it to find the places in between. the detours where each adventure pulls you toward the next and wrong turns turn out right so why would you ever take a tour when you could take a detour toyota trucks my family owns a 2023 toyota 4runner and honestly it's my favorite vehicle that i've ever owned around town it's smooth and reliable but where it really shines is on our trips into the back country.

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