Put The Suitcase Away | Try The Other Handle

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0:56Put the suitcase away. Travel has always been part of the job. Seneca's letters don't just talk about travel, they clearly feature him on the road. He writes from Rome and the countryside, from the sea and from the provinces. Marcus Aurelius spent years traveling the empire, inspecting the troops, visiting with different philosophers in Greece. Life, he once said, was a journey far from home. And this continues to this day. We travel for work. We travel to see family. We travel to learn. And as always, re-entry into our regular life, sleeping in our own bed can require some getting used to. In a recent episode of the Daily Stoic podcast, Benj Gershman, he's the bassist for that band OAR, who I've loved since I was in high school, he talked about the semi-nomadic life of a touring musician.

1:47His secret to adjusting when he gets home, he said, is simple. For me, it's whether or not I put the suitcase away. Yes. You know, and if it's away, I feel like I'm actually settling in. But if the suitcase stays out, half unpacked, waiting for the next trip, his mind, like ours, stays scattered and unsettled in fight or flight mode, no matter how long he's home. And there's a powerful idea there, I think. We may not be touring musicians, but we all travel. And there's a metaphor here, too. We all leave out suitcases in our life, open tabs on our computer, overflowing email inboxes, cluttered desks, unfinished tasks left in limbo, dishes piling up.

2:27And these things create a kind of mental weight we're not always conscious of. An unpacked suitcase, an orderly workspace, a decluttered inbox, a cleaned out car. This is less about spit and polish than it is about creating space for focus, presence, and peace of mind. It's about stillness. So settle the mind, put the suitcase away, and come home.

3:00I'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, everything they sell has high standards to help you shop with competence.

3:40Enjoy so many ways to save on your Thanksgiving spread at Whole Foods Market. Try the other handle. Epictetus offered a powerful tool in his handbook, the Inchiridion, which the Stoics use as an exercise in decision-making about difficult events. Everything, Epictetus says, has two interpretations or handles by which it can be grabbed. One that will make it harder, one that will make it easier. Do you take offense or do you focus on a common ground? Do you focus on all that's gone wrong or what has gone right? Ask yourself these questions about everything you see and feel, try to always grab the right handle.

4:19That's from this week's entry in the Daily Stoic Journal, 366 Days of Writing and Reflection on the Art of Living, which you can get anywhere books are sold, including, of course, my bookstore, The Painted Porch, which you can check out thepaintedporch.com or come see us on Main Street, Bastrop, Texas. Let's listen to Epictetus drill down on this. Every event has two handles, he says, one by which it can be carried and one by which it can't. If your brother does you wrong, don't grab it by its wrongdoing, because this is the handle incapable of lifting it. Instead, use the other, that he is your brother, that you were raised together, and then you have hold of the handle that it carries.

4:56Zepictetus in Caridian 43. And then he says in Discourses 4.1, know it is events that give rise to fear, when another has power over them or can prevent it, that a person becomes able to inspire fear. How is the fortress destroyed not by iron or fire, but by judgments. And it is here that we must begin. And it is from this front that we must seize the fortress and throw out the tyrants. So this idea of grabbing things by the handle, in fact, there's this interesting list, you can Google it. Thomas Jefferson wrote a bunch of rules for one of his young relatives. And he says, somewhat elusively, he says, always grab things by their smooth handle.

5:34And I think it was Donald Robertson who pointed out to me that he's referring to Epictetus grabbing by the right handle. Instead of the rough handle, grab the smooth handle. The point being, stuff happens. Are you going to try to say this was done to me, or are you going to say this is done for me? Are you going to say, look at all I've lost? Are you going to say, look at all I've gained? As Epictetus says, you're going to say, look at my brother. What did he do? What an asshole. Are you going to say, this is my brother. I love him. He would never hurt me on purpose. You grab the handle that makes you stronger, the one that gives you agency, not the one that strips you of agency.

6:08You grab the one that gives you hope, not the one that strips you of hope. You grab the one that gives you a path forward, not the one that freezes you hopelessly in place. What's the right handle? That's what we're thinking about. And every situation has a handle. And are you going to get mad? Are you going to use it as an opportunity? I think about this with my kids. They do something. Am I going to lose my temper and show them that I lose my temper and that they should be afraid of me or that they should hide things from me? Or am I going to use it as a chance to talk to them, to teach them something?

6:37Famously, the story of George Washington and the cherry trees, teaching this lesson. His father catches him chopping down the cherry tree. He asks who does it. George Washington tells the truth. His father could be angry. He just has a confession from his son that he chopped down a priceless cherry tree. Instead, the moral of the story is, I'm glad that you told me the truth. And you can trust me, I'm not going to punish you for having told me the truth, I'd rather you chop down my trees than tell a lie, right? What handle are you going to choose as a parent, as a teacher, as a boss? By grabbing the right handle versus the wrong handle, are you making the relationship stronger, better, based on trust, based on aligned incentives, based on shared history, or by grabbing the wrong handle, are you showing them to lie?

7:21Are you showing them to hide things? Are you showing them that you should be feared, that you should be ignored, that you can't be taken seriously, that you're not really their ally or friend, right? The handle we choose matters. Even Epictetus, you've got to imagine, he's trapped in slavery. It's horrible. He spends the first 30 years of his life that way. Does he choose to see this as the worst thing that could have possibly happened, or does he learn from it? Even the so-called Stockdale paradox. I knew that I would survive, he says, if I did, I would turn this into the very best thing that happened to me.

7:52that's choosing to grab the right handle. That's choosing to grab the smooth handle, which is what you must do, which is what we must all do in any and all situations. Talk soon.

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