None of Us Are Perfect | with Judge Yourself, Not Others

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0:55None of us are perfect. It's clear that Commodus was no chip-off-the-old block. Marcus Aurelius' son, the man he reluctantly made emperor in his place, all four of his immediate predecessors, not having had a male heir, was impulsive and fragile, cruel, and bloodthirsty. We don't know exactly what Commodus was like, but Joaquin Phoenix seems to have gotten close to his essence in the movie Gladiator. Was Marcus Aurelius a bad father then? How did he not manage to pass on his stoicism, to say nothing of his kindness and sense of responsibility to his son? We don't know, and it does make some people doubt whether Marcus Aurelius was as great of a man as we'd like to think he was.

1:39Yet because of our focus on the men of history, we often miss an equally compelling example of Marcus Aurelius's parenting in the power of his example. In the year 212 AD, his daughter Cornificia was sentenced to death by the emperor Calacalla on what appears to be spurious charges. Here, the historians tell us, a child of Marcus, showed herself to be equal not just to his example, but to Cato and his daughter Portia. Her last words, the writer Horace White Parsons and Lucy Larcombe explain in The Atlantic in 1888, were, My poor unhappy soul trapped in an unworthy body, go forth, be free, show them that you are the daughter of Marcus Aurelius.

2:23Then she took off her ornaments, composed herself, opened her veins, and died. Cassius Dio, the ancient historian, said of her wistful words and serene self-possession that whether innocent or guilty of the unknown crime for which she suffered, she has at least established her claim to an imperial birthright. It is a risky thing to speculate about people's parenting, let alone someone you didn't know who lived very long ago. Like all of us, Marcus Raelus clearly made mistakes as a parent, But he also clearly did something right. His male heir seemed to be a coward and a murderer. But his daughter?

3:02She was heroic and selfless and every bit the equal of her father. Indeed, one of the great Stoics of history.

3:17Thanks to Toyota Trucks for sponsoring this episode. When I bought my ranch in 2015 out here in Basko 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.

4:02We 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.

4:41Discover your uncharted territory. Learn more at toyota.com slash trucks slash adventure dash detours. We just took our kids to an outdoor performance of the Nutcracker. They had a snow cone and then they went insane in the car ride home. And one of the things I try to remind myself when that's happening is that I don't control my kids' behavior, especially when they're too far gone like that. But I do control how I respond, right? That's stoicism, but it's also what Dr. Becky talks about. Dr. Becky is a clinical psychologist and a best-selling author, and she founded Good Inside, which is there to give parents practical, actionable tools for handling those everyday challenges with confidence.

5:25My wife introduced me to Dr. Becky's books. I love them. I've recommended them a million times. I've had her on the podcast. And as it happens, Dr. Becky is hosting two live Q &A events for Good Inside members. I am one of them. She signed me up for it about a year and a half ago. I've loved it ever since. On December 1st, you can join Dr. Becky for her How Not to Raise Assholes event, which is about avoiding entitlement and raising kind, empathetic kids. And on December 15th, she's hosting her How Not to Lose It over the holidays event, which I'm sure we could all use. As I said, I'm a big fan of Dr.

6:02Becky. She's been a great influence for me as a parent and just as a human being. And Daily Stoic listeners can join for 15 % off with code STOIC15. You just gotta head over to goodinside.com to catch the events.

6:21Judge yourself, not others. There is nothing less philosophical than being a know-it-all. This is especially true of those who use their knowledge to scold others for their mistakes while claiming the superiority of their knowledge or insight. The Stoics taught that behaving this way was to miss the entire purpose of philosophy, as a tool for self-correction, medicine for our own souls, not a weapon for putting down others. Seneca's letters twice employ the metaphor of scrubbing down or scraping off our faults. We need to see ourselves as in the care of philosophy's principles, he says, or as Epictetus put it later, when referring to the philosopher's lecture hall, we need to see it as a hospital for our own therapy.

7:06So try not to write down a single complaint or problem of another person in your journal this week, focus on what ails you. We have two quotes from Seneca's moral letters and one from the discourses. 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. That's Seneca, letter 103. Some people with exceptional minds quickly grasp virtue or produce it within themselves, but other dim and lazy types hindered by bad habits must have their rusty souls constantly scrubbed down.

7:43The weaker sorts will be helped and lifted from their bad opinions if we put them in the care of philosophy's principles. That's Epictetus's Moral Letters 95. And then Epictetus's Discourse is 323. Men, the philosopher's lecture hall is a hospital. You shouldn't walk out of it feeling pleasure but pain, for you weren't well when you entered it. I think this is a tension here, and I've seen it. Some people maybe get it wrong, probably in bad faith when they, you know, reply to stuff I've posted or written, you know, who are you, you know, to criticize, I don't know, anti-vaxxers or who are you to say that have this political opinion or to say that this is right or wrong?

8:24You're not perfect. Of course. Right. Of course, I'm not perfect. of course a stoic is primarily focused on their own edification their own improvement they're trying to look in the mirror they're trying to scrub off their own faults that doesn't mean that we turn a blind eye to what's happening in the world that doesn't mean we indulge and accept and encourage ridiculousness or injustices by other people i mean some of the best stoic lines are quips or criticisms of other people right the stoics were also teachers zeno seneca Musonius Rufus, Epictetus. They were writers and thinkers. They were responsible for teaching philosophy to people.

9:04Of course, we have to make judgments. I think what the Stoics are really talking about is not being a Monday morning quarterback at the expense of your performance on Sunday, right? When I study history, obviously part of my job is to make judgments and communicate these ideas to you and to people and to myself. And that really is what I'm doing. And I have a chapter in Courage's Calling about why we don't judge another person's courage, right? We don't fully understand everything that's going on with them. But in another sense, we do judge their courage. But instead of criticizing them, instead of feeling better than them because they made this mistake, we try to look at them as cautionary tales, almost like we would in a Greek tragedy or a Roman play, a Shakespearean play, and try to apply those lessons to our own lives.

9:53So the point is, when you see someone else doing something wrong, when you see something you don't like, when you see someone debasing themselves, when you see someone advocating a preposterous or dangerous opinion, you can criticize it. You can call it out for what it is. But don't feel superior for it. Try to learn from it. Try to apply lessons from that to your own life. That's the journey that we're on here. obviously as a writer and a speaker, I have to draw on examples. My work would be not very compelling if I didn't do that. So I have to walk a slightly different razor's edge. And I mean, look, that's what's so funny, right?

10:30The Stoics are saying, don't criticize other people. And yet even in this quote from Seneca, Moral Letters 95, he's saying, look, some people get this naturally, but there are other dim and lazy types hindered by bad habits. And they must have their rusty souls constantly scrubbed. So that does exist, right? And somebody has to do that job. And perhaps that's your job with a friend or a family member. Just remember that your real job is scrubbing down your own rusty soul. And if you ever think that it is not rusty, well, that is a compelling sign right there that it is. Just a funny note, I get this all the time because of ego is the enemy.

11:10People go, what do I do about my boss's ego? What do you do about all the egos in our organization, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But much less often do I get the question, I have an ego. What do I do about my ego, right? The question we often are gravitating towards solving other people's issues, focusing on other people's flaws. But as they say in the Bible, don't worry about the splinter in your neighbor's eye when you have a log in your own. So that's what philosophy is about. You are not well, treat yourself first. But of course, You may recognize similar symptoms in other people if you need to point them out.

11:47Go right ahead.

12:11I just wanted to say thank you.

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