Stoic Reminders for Thanksgiving | with Gratitude, Forgiveness, and Amor Fati

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$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.

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1:22Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, a short passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength and insight here in everyday life. And on Wednesdays, we talk to some of our fellow students of ancient philosophy, well-known and obscure, fascinating and powerful. With them, we discuss the strategies and habits that have helped them become who they are and also to find peace and wisdom in their lives.

2:07Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. So I'm researching now for the wisdom book and Lincoln's gonna be part three of the book. and I've read so many books about Lincoln. I was like, I got this one. It was like the light at the end of the tunnel for me. Like the first two are gonna be really hard, a lot of original research, but this one, I got this. Especially because I had just updated the Lincoln part that's in part three of the 10 year anniversary of Obstacle. So I was like, I got this. And I brought one big Lincoln book with me to Australia. And then I just almost immediately got bogged down.

2:46I was like, I don't have this. And I had to read a ton. So I had to read like 2 ,000 pages on Lincoln, maybe. And anyways, in one of the Lincoln books I read, there was this amazing story about how Lincoln started the tradition of pardoning the turkey in American history. I knew about the president pardoning the turkey. And I'm going to run a chunk of that story for you really fast because it's the Daily Dad email that we're doing for Thanksgiving tomorrow. So let me run this for you.

3:15This is why you take it seriously. Their games are noisy. Their insistences can be inconvenient. It's sweet how much they love their pet bunny, but it's made a mess in your house. That game of pretend is exhausting. But you know what? Stick with it, because you never know. We talked recently about Lincoln's relationship with his son, Tad. Tad was a slow learner who had had a hard life. Lincoln went out of his way to indulge his son's requests, asking for a flag from a cabinet member for Tad's room, letting his son interrupt important cabinet meetings and sit on his father's lap, and he played along with many of his games.

3:56In 1863, Tad had grown attached to a turkey that had been sent to the White House to be served on a special occasion. Tad named the turkey Jack and was distraught when he learned that it was to be eaten. Storming into one cabinet meeting, Tad begged his father to intervene, which Lincoln promptly did, ignoring the monumental issue of state as if this was the most important request in the world. Just as he had gainfully gone along and written an official pardon for one of Tad's toy soldiers a few months before, Lincoln pardoned the turkey and thus beginning an enduring American tradition, which has continued every Thanksgiving since.

4:36He could have had no idea that the practice he'd come up with to placate his son would lead to such a cultural touchstone. He was just doing his job as a father. He was meeting his son where he was, taking his big emotions seriously. Like the best Thanksgiving memories, this lovely moment between father and son was one they were still talking about and joking about years later. Does he vote, Lincoln said to Tad the next year when he saw the turkey on election day? No, Tad said with a smile. He is not of age. You never know what the experience is going to mean, but you can rest assured that generosity, kindness, and fun matter.

5:13They create moments that stick with people. And though we'd never be able to predict it would be such, it's these moments that form the traditions that bond and unite our families through the years.

5:29Also, I wanted to point out, we are starting our annual Daily really stoic fundraiser for feeding America tomorrow instead of doing cyber Monday or black Friday to traditions. I hate and I think are disgusting for the most part. Look, I'm not going to fault you if you have a small business and you got to participate, but I don't, and I don't want to. So we're going to raise a bunch of money for people who aren't going to be stuffing themselves tomorrow because they are living in a food scarce environment. Money is tight. and I just love feeding America. Every dollar you donate helps provide something like 10 meals.

6:03So we're going to try to raise 300 ,000 bucks. If we hit that goal, that'll provide over 3 million meals for families across the country, which leads me to today's episode. I want to talk about gratitude because I think gratitude is important. I wanted to put together like a compilation of stoic reminders to think about for Thanksgiving. I don't want tomorrow just to be stuffing yourself or a break from work. Great things to be grateful for, but I wanted to do a deeper dive. And I mentioned Daily Dad earlier. So Daily Dad's another podcast I have. We do a daily message like we do with Daily Soak.

6:35And then on the weekends, my wife and I sit down and talk some parenting things. And she and I were talking about how to incorporate more gratitude in our lives. And that's going to be section one of today. So here's my wife, Samantha, and I discussing gratitude.

6:55You were saying something when we went for a walk the other day about like consciously calling out things that you see. So I don't actually know if that's mindfulness, but it struck me as interesting. Yeah, I'm more of like forcing yourself to be in the moment. Well, when I do it for myself, if I'm narrating a little bit, it kind of forces me to focus in on what it is that I'm doing. Okay, so what's an example? So I'm going to use like filling a water bottle at the refrigerator or whatever. The number of times that I've overfilled or underfilled my water bottle, just because I'm like trying to get it done really quickly and like running around and I'm thinking about the next 10 things I need to do.

7:32Instead of I'm just like right now I am filling up my water bottle. So do you say this aloud to the kids or this is just for you? So I'm doing it with myself, but like one of our kids does this a little bit more naturally where they're just like kind of in the moment more. And the other one is like four days ahead. Yeah. And I've noticed that he does it a little bit more naturally and it maybe needs to be taught to our other child So he they're always what's next what's next what's next when do we get our ipads? When are we doing this if i'm like right now we are Doing this thing and we're going to put our full focus on this thing And for me, it's been a big shift with like bedtime because it's not that i'm racing through bedtime Necessarily I try to like have the attitude with one of our kids who takes forever to go to sleep like i try to have the attitude of like how lucky i am that i get to spend an extra 30 minutes with him i sometimes think about that when they pop out of their room like they tricked you and i'm like yeah i get to see you again today yeah i get to do it again that's just like a reframe and so now and when i'm like putting him down to bed instead of like okay after he goes to bed i need to like handle these five things and then like i don't want to be using my phone when i'm like in bed with him but then i'm having these thoughts pop up and i'm like i need to write them down or i need to look this up right now.

8:40I'm just thinking the other day I walked in and you were just like on your laptop and you just clearly decided you're like, this is going to take forever. I'm just going to do this other thing. No, okay. We had an agreement, the child and I, I say to myself, right now I am putting you down to bed. This is all I have to do. Everything else will, it's, you know what it reminds me of the way my brain is. My dad taught me this lesson when I'm learning to drive you're speeding but then you're you're still stopping at the same stoplight as the people who are driving the speed limit like you're it's that sounds like something a slow driver that sounds like a rod no no you're right yeah driving consciously and driving safely and like you're gonna get like getting to the destination is the goal not like getting first to the destination and like i see that all the time especially where we're driving on like a two lane road it's like okay i might be like rushing to get in front of somebody and then rushing to a stop and we're rushing to a stop if i'm consciously like saying those things like do you remember we were swimming in the pool one day and you're like you bring this up a lot it's a scar to my memory you're you're like cleaning the edge and talking about like things we could do to fix the pool and then like things we could get no no i was suggesting that we swim laps and you said you said you know we could just be in the pool yes and so we could just be on a walk.

10:00The reason you're thinking of that is... Did you bring it up all day? No, no. My dad had visited recently and we'd watched him like scrub the pool while he was in it. And so we're like, oh, this is just my version of that. I sometimes think about that like on travel days where it's like, I have a flight at three in the afternoon. I've already kind of written that day off in my head. So I don't like schedule a day of stuff. I'm just like, literally all I have to do today is like get to the airport. That's the success for the day is that I get to the airport to do the destination. And so it does help me not feel the need to necessarily squeeze in a bunch of stuff.

10:38And then I can just kind of be present with the time that I have. Is that what happens? Sometimes. You don't just like pace around nervously all day until you have to leave for the airport. That's you being present. But it's like, you know, when you're on the plane, you're not like i should be doing 50 other things you're like the traveling is the thing that's like the main thing right and so you're just doing it so the the narrating what we're doing so we're calling attention to what we're doing is like i think how i'm trying to teach like especially one of our kids like we're brushing our teeth yeah right now the only thing we're doing is brushing our teeth we're not like trying to hit her brother and trying to like get be the first one in bed and then like subsequently like not really doing a great job and then spitting on the counter and falling like you know what I mean I guess I confuse this with something else you'd said then but you were talking about like specifically calling out stuff in our life I guess it was more of a gratitude practice I guess mindfulness and gratitude are similar but you'd also said something about like kind of a gratitude practice so I think you and I tend to do like it's so caught up in like the details of everything.

11:48And we just naturally are like, find the air, fix the air with everything. We're finding the thing we're dissatisfied. Yeah. We can't, we have a really, really hard time. I mean, I think I was talking to somebody else about this, but it was like, if you have an interaction with the person, you get to decide thinking that that person is being mean to you and attacking you and like coming down on you or that like they're having a hard time and trying to express their feelings. Yeah. I think there's like a philosophy around that. Yeah. And I might be calling out a specific conversation that you and I had yesterday, which is like, no, no, I'm anxious about something and I'm trying to talk to you about it so we can discuss this thing.

12:23And you're deciding that I'm like mad at you. No, no. Epictetus says that every situation has at least two handles and which handle are you going to grab? Right. So we tend to like... Here's what's wrong with this. Here's what's wrong with it. And then we're just always that way. But I try to like romanticize our life a little bit. I mean, it is wonderful. So like, it's insane. You would kill for this life. Oh, yeah. And if you were dangled the hope of 10 % of this life, five years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, you'd been like, I think it's like, I read a lot of contemporary fiction or romance.

12:56And I'm like, okay, the main characters in these books are what we're actually living. And like, first of all, that's not how that happens. But like, second of all, like, it's makes it easier to try to like reframe a little bit for us. There are times where it's like smacks me in the face where like our kid is home from school and he's sitting in the bookstore window reading a book with like a cat on his lap. And I'm like, this is not real. This is a movie plot. They have no idea. And so trying to shift that just it's kind of a gratitude practice, but it's also just being a little bit more aware and like not 20 steps ahead, just like pulling back to where we actually are.

13:29Well, athletes have talked about this. One of the ways you become a great athlete is by constantly critiquing your performance and looking for improvements. And so that makes it really, really hard for you to actually ever feel. I just played a really great game. I just had a lot of fun. And then what about like Chris Bosh, obviously you're friends with Adrian and his wife, like one day he goes in and he laces up as an ordinary game against the Spurs. And then the next day he goes to the doctor and you get, it's a diagnosis that prevents him from being basically insurable or playable as an athlete.

14:03And so that was the last time. So did he, as he got to do that, that last ordinary game, did he appreciate it? Or was all he thinking about like how, you know, he messed up X, Y, or Z. And so there is a last time you get to do everything. And the trait that makes you better and better and better also makes you incapable of appreciating it as it's happening. We do appreciate it. And we do a really good job of trying to do that, but it doesn't matter. We're like always trying to like make it better, make everything better or, or like fix the things that we have. Like you're right. Like the thing that drove us where we are is also the thing that holds us back from like well yeah you know what you should do like that attitude is there in you and that's what propels you forward but it also prevents you from being present yeah so just this like practice that i'm trying to do like romanticizing our life where i'm like this like bookstore that's filled with like plants and cats and then we have our ranch and like it isn't just seeing the like beautiful things that exist within those because oftentimes it's like you you drive up to something you're like here's everything Like here's the dirt that nobody cleaned up or here's this thing.

15:08And it's, it's just like, okay, this is, this is unreal. Well, you know, it's a version of that. You go to other people's houses and they're like, I'm sorry, it's such a mess. And you're like, what are you talking about? This is your house is incredible. It's so nice. And then you don't ever think that people feel that way about your house or your life, even though they don't know, like they don't know how things are supposed to go. Like when we look at our ranch, we're like, we like want everything to be greener and nicer. and we see all the things that we messed up. But like when someone comes over, they just see that it's cool.

15:39And not that you're doing it for other people to see that it's cool, but they're able to see it with less judgmental eyes than you do. I just remember when we first got the ranch, I used to like, I commuted back and forth from Austin. And every time I would just like pull onto a dirt road, I'd be like, okay. Like it's, I can feel the stress of the day going because now I'm like coming to this place where it's like quiet and you get to be with animals. and it's just like beautiful and wonderful. And then it's like this slow progression of like things going wrong that's stacked on top of it that like, I'm not at a place now where I'm stressed when I pull up.

16:14Like I still have those moments, but it's like every time we go on the dirt road, a baby would cry or we've gotten like 50 fucking flat tires or whatever. I see a list. I see a list. Then there are like days where I pull up with the kids and there's two jackrabbits, a turkey, and then like two baby deer just like hanging out in our front yard. And I'm like, what? What is this? There's something about golden hour too that I think kind of washes away a lot of that feeling. So like when you're outside in the summer, it's beautiful out. Sun's kind of setting. It's not as hot. And you're just like, this is amazing.

16:49Like, sure, it could be better, but like, it's pretty good. Versus that morning light that like makes you see the dust floating in your house. I do feel like it's an interesting thing that you're trying to pass on to your kids in the sense of like, you don't want them to be like, this is normal. You deserve this. It's it's, this is like how it should be. And at the same time, you also don't want them to feel like, no, no, this is just the starting line. And if you don't beat this or add more to it or out achieve this, then like you're nothing. Right. And so I think, yeah, just kind of being present and grateful and just appreciating like really special big stuff and then also just like really ordinary regular stuff.

17:31I think that there's an opportunity for us. Okay, there's two things. I think there's an opportunity for us with the kids teaching them that like, okay, they're seeing the same things that probably need to be worked on. Maybe they're normalized to them, but I think there's, we can teach them about priorities. Okay, this thing right now is not a priority. It exists the way that exists. Like you might hear us talking about being frustrated about it, but like it's a journey to solving the problem. It's not just something that's easily fixable, right? And then I just saw Dr. Becky talking about something about like when frustration in children is always met with the problem being solved, like constantly.

18:04Yeah. You're not learning how to have frustration and process the frustration. You're only learning how to eliminate frustration. Yeah. So because we have a lot of different things going on in different categories, there's a lot of opportunities for the kids to be presented with those things. And then like we can be the example of like, yes, this does frustrate us. And it frustrates us that we can't immediately solve it. It's still pretty good. But like that's a pathway. We have patience. We prioritize. And like look at those fucking baby animals frolicking around in the field.

18:42Thanks 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.

19:28We 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, discover your uncharted territory.

20:09Learn more at toyota.com slash trucks slash adventure dash detours. We just took our kids to an outdoor performance at 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 bestselling author, and she founded Good Inside, which is there to give parents practical, actionable tools for handling those everyday challenges with confidence.

20:51My 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 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.

21:28Becky. 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 got to head over to goodinside.com to catch the events.

21:47A tricky thing at Thanksgiving, I'm spending it with my family and my in-laws. We're all getting together. We picked a third party location, so we're all kind of on neutral ground. So we'll see if that makes a difference. But I interviewed Julia Baird, an amazing author. She wrote this fantastic book called Phosphorescence. She has a new book called Bright Shining, which is all about grace. And she said something awesome when I sat down with her earlier this year on how you give grace to people who don't necessarily deserve it. And maybe you have people like that in your family or in your neighborhood or in your life.

22:25And I think there's some lessons here.

22:31Daka Keltner from the University of California, who's written about ore and he's done a lot of studies over the years, did a study recently of about 3 ,000 or was it about 2 ,600 people across 26 countries to find out what was the most common experience of ore. You would imagine, like, what would you have said if it was? I don't know, a mountain or, you know, some natural phenomenon, a Grand Canyon kind of a thing. Yeah, that's what I would say too. And so across all kind of histories, demographics, cultures, dialects, whatever, he found that the most common experience of it was actually seeing it in another person, in another human being, acts of moral beauty, of great courage, generosity, decency, people overcoming obstacles and hurdles, people overcoming things in life.

23:20And I was really struck by that and I wanted to explore it. Like, what does that actually look like when you do something that someone else doesn't deserve? Like, what impact does it have on you? What does it have on them? What does it mean for people witnessing it? And, yeah, to me, it's the very best of who we are. I was just thinking about that when I was reading this Lincoln book because there's this story. Lincoln's sort of an up-and-coming lawyer. He gets chosen to be on this case. It's the biggest case of his life. Yeah. And it ends up changing venues. And so the company, it's a big company, they bring out another lawyer.

23:55And that lawyer sees Lincoln as this country bumpkin, basically kicks him off the case. He still gets paid, but he kicks him off the case. He calls him like a gorilla to his face. He just sees him as like a, just a buffoon. And every night Lincoln, Lincoln decides to attend the trial anyway. He wants to learn from it. Every night, all the lawyers meet in the hotel lobby to discuss the case. They never include Lincoln. It's like the humiliation of his career. And, you know, like a decade and a half later, that lawyer is who Lincoln chooses as his secretary of war and the right man at the right time.

24:35And like when I think of things that strike me with awe, yeah, it's not it's not these brilliant works of art. It's not, you know, somebody did this athletic feat that I can't imagine. It's the sense of self and the empathy and the forgiveness to be like this person who humiliated me, who treated me like absolute garbage, is the right man for this thing. And I won't get in their way. Not only will I not get in their way, I will be their advocate. When you think of like, yeah, like when you think of Gandhi or you think of Jesus on the cross, forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.

25:10Like moments of that sort of almost superhuman grace is one of the most incredible and powerful forces in existence. And it changes everyone who witnesses it. Yes. Any of the scientific studies I've seen into that just show people are much more likely to do it themselves. Yes. One of those studies are on moral elevation in workforces. And if you see and find out, not in a way that trumpets it, hey, guess what, guys? I'm a great philanthropist. Here's my name across some wall. But when you find out that someone in a position of leadership has been, you know, quietly sacrificing time or money or caring for someone in a way they didn't necessarily need to, that can really shift a whole culture of a company.

25:51Yes. Yeah. When you are the angel that a person needs in a scenario. Yeah. And it, in many cases, was not only difficult, but it wasn't in your interest. There's something absolutely incredible about that. Yeah, and that's really interesting because a lot of people see grace as something nice and about being polite and not quite a Hallmark card but something kind of pretty and easy. Everyone appreciates it, celebrates it as it's happening. Lovely. Yes. It's like puppies and Kleenex tissues, right? But this is about something that's really hard to do. You know, forgiving people can be incredibly hard to do and you don't just do it once.

26:32You sometimes have to just do it every single day. You know, and sometimes it costs yourself. How many times should I forgive my brother? Seven times? No, 70 times. No, 70 times seven. And just the incredibleness of that. It's probably, I think that is the greatest concept of Christianity, that grace and forgiveness. And at the heart of that is grace has done nothing. You've done nothing to deserve it. Yes. Well, the idea that to me, my understanding of Christianity And it's basically this idea, you were forgiven for everything. Yep. And so you were, so you were given a gift. Yes, that's right.

27:08Which means that you in turn have to give. Yeah. And that, that sort of obligation or that indebtedness. Yeah. Like you're a shitty person, you've done shitty things. So the idea that you get to, to hold that above someone else, that you get to hold something over someone else for having made a mistake or done you wrong or done the world wrong. You owe me, buddy. That's a luxury that you're actually not entitled to. Yeah. Which is amazing. Yes. And yeah, it doesn't actually make sense. You know, and look, I have grown up, as we talked about with my mother, who talked a lot about forgiveness, growing up, like really being exposed to the idea that you just, you forgive and forgive and forgive.

27:47Then as a reporter, I've done a lot of work on domestic abuse and violence and sexual assault. and I also looked at domestic violence in faith communities and could see how that was weaponised by abusers and sometimes by like structures to tell women especially don't leave, just put up with it, you forgive again and again and again. And that's why I think we need to be cautious, that forgiveness doesn't mean, okay, I don't need to protect myself now. I don't need to move away from you. So forgiveness can sometimes be cutting ties and walking away from. Well, first off, it's the idea that you have competing and sometimes conflicting obligations to yourself, to your children.

28:34That's right. To the person that comes after you. But also I think what, as I just did this book on justice, and I think it's been helpful for me to understand there's the justice system is something apart from and separate. Yeah. That is a societal invention that is required for us all to live together and function in a large group. And then our personal sense of justice is something very different. So you forgiving the person is not mutually exclusive with them being held accountable for that thing. And them being held accountable and how they're held accountable and the whole system built around it is based on the statistics and, you know, the experience and what society understands has to happen to protect future generations and to deter other people, etc.

29:21That's very different than what you as the individual ought to do. That is really important. It is not separate to justice. It's not separate to the consequences of justice. And it is very much about what you need as an individual. I got really interested in restorative justice when I was writing this book. And the idea being that you bring together, as you'd be familiar, you bring together the person the harm's been caused to, the person that caused the harm. You have a mediator who's very experienced, who spent a year working out whether these people can get together. And basically, it's the victims who are really asking for these kinds of justice systems.

29:59Because they often go through a court. They've never even had to give a victim impact statement or they want to talk directly to the person that caused them harm. But again, there needs to be remorse. And you can't have any expectation of forgiveness. Yeah. So sometimes they want to know just a piece of information. Sometimes they want to know what are the last words my daughter said before she died? So this kind of complicated but really quite amazing process actually because when it works, you have these two people staring at each other trying to recognise harm caused and each other's humanity.

30:32It can allow for the possibility of redemption, but it also can really free the victim. And there was one woman I spoke to called Debbie McGrath and her brother was killed. When she was 24, he was 20 and was killed by a friend who just shot him one night after they'd been playing at the pub and killed him. No explanation has ever been given. And she found herself, she was then heavily pregnant, consumed with rage about this. She was so furious about it, that consumed in a way that it took over her mind, it took over her body. She put on a lot of weight. She got diabetes. She got insomnia. Her father got very ill.

31:11It just infected this whole community as these incidents and attacks and horrible things often do. And she told me that it was at a point where she would, like, look at a sunset and she would see, she would be thinking about ways to murder this guy. Like it was just so she couldn't free herself from it. And one day she sat down opposite him, finally, in a restorative justice moment, and she just was able to say to him, this is what you did to me. Yeah. This is what happened to my body. This is what happened to my mind. This is what you did to my father. This is what you did to my brother's son who never had a dad growing up.

31:44And she said there was a point at which during this that she sat up and instinctively because she felt like something had been lifted from her And she just looked around and realized it just felt that way. And she said that she had put everything that he did to her in a suitcase and left it at his feet and it was his. And after that, she was free.

32:18And then I wanted to wrap up this episode with something I'm grateful for. I'm grateful that 10 years ago, I put out this book called The Obstacles of the Way. And, you know, I didn't know how it would do, but I certainly didn't think it would do this. And I'm just so grateful that it did. I'm grateful for all your support. And I spent some time tweaking one of the chapters I'm proudest of in that book. And that's the Amor Fati chapter. I'm grateful for Nietzsche for coming up with the idea. I'm grateful for the Stoics for being the predecessors of that idea. And I'm grateful to Robert Greene for pointing me towards the idea of Amor Fati, which he talks about in his wonderful book, The 50th Law.

32:52And I'm grateful to Pierre Hedot, who talks about it in his book, The Inner Citadel on Marx Realist. All these influences and mentors and teachers and ideas coalesced into the chapter I wrote in The Obstacle is the Way about Amor Fatih. It's just that I think it's an important reminder because it's easy to be grateful for the things that are easy. It's easy to be grateful for the things you're grateful for. But can you work to be grateful for, embrace, and love the things that are not so easy, the things that are tough, the things that are challenging? It's rough. So here we go. Here is me talking about some amor fati.

33:34Love everything that happens. Amor fati. My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati. that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it, but love it. Nietzsche. At age 67, Thomas Edison returned home early one evening from another day at the laboratory. Shortly after dinner, a man came rushing into his house with urgent news. A fire had broken out at Edison's research and production campus a few miles away. Fire engines from eight nearby towns rushed to the scene, but they could not contain the blaze.

34:21Fueled by the strange chemicals in the various buildings, green and yellow flames shot up six and seven stories, threatening to destroy the entire empire that Edison had spent his life building. Edison calmly but quickly made his way to the fire through the now hundreds of onlookers and devastated employees looking for his son. Go get your mother and all her friends, he told his son with what almost seemed like excitement. They'll never see a fire like this again. What? Don't worry, Edison calmed him. It's all right. We've just got rid of a lot of old rubbish. That's a pretty amazing reaction.

34:59But when you think about it, there really was no other response. What should Edison have done? Wept, gotten angry, quit, and gone home? What exactly would that have accomplished? You know the answer now. It's nothing. So he didn't waste time indulging himself. To do great things, we must be able to endure tragedy and setbacks. We've got to love what we do and all that it entails, good and bad. We have to learn to find joy in every single thing that happens. Of course, there was a lot more than a little rubbish in Edison's buildings. Years and years of priceless records, prototypes, and research were turned to ash.

35:37The buildings, which had been made of what was supposedly fireproof concrete, had been insured for only a fraction of their worth. Thinking they were immune to such disasters, Edison and his investors were covered for about a third of the damage. As he looked at the flames, he was reminded of Kipling's line to treat triumph and disaster the same. He had known incredible success. Now he was once again meeting with failure and loss and heartbreak. But he chose to be invigorated by it. As he told a reporter the next day, he wasn't too old to make a fresh start. I've been through a lot of things like this, he said.

36:14It prevents a man from being afflicted with ennui. Within about three weeks, the factory was partially back up and running. Within a month, its men were working two shifts a day, churning out new products the world had never seen. Despite a loss of almost$1 million, more than$31 million in today's money, Edison would marshal enough energy to make nearly$10 million in revenue that year. That's$300 plus million today. He suffered a spectacular disaster, but he turned it into a spectacular final act. The next step after we discard our expectations and accept what happens to us, after understanding that certain things, particularly bad things, are outside of our control, is this, loving what happens to us and facing it with unfailing cheerfulness.

37:05It is the act of turning what we must do into what we get to do. We put our energies and emotions and exertions where they will have real impact. This is that place. We will tell ourselves, this is what I've got to do or put up with? Well, I might as well be happy about it. Here's an image to consider. The great boxer Jack Johnson and his famous 15-round brawl with Jim Jeffries. Jeffries, the great white hope, called out of retirement like some deranged Cincinnatus to defeat the ascendant Black champion. And Johnson, genuinely hated by his opponent in the crowd, still enjoying every minute of it, smiling, joking, playing the whole fight.

37:50Why not? There's no value in any other reaction. Should he hate them for hating him? Bitterness was their burden, and Johnson refused to pick it up. Not that he simply took the abuse. Instead, Johnson designed his fight plan around it. At every nasty remark from Jeffrey's corner, he'd give his opponent another lacing. At every low trick or rush from Jeffrey's, Johnson would quip and beat it back, but never lose his cool. And when one well-placed blow opened a cut on Johnson's lip, he kept smiling, a gory, bloody, but nevertheless cheerful smile. Every round, he got happier, friendlier, as his opponent grew enraged and tired, eventually losing the will to fight.

38:35In your worst moments, picture Johnson always calm, always in control, genuinely loving the opportunity to prove himself, to perform for people, whether they wanted him to succeed or not. Each remark bringing the response it deserved and no more, letting the opponent dig his own grave, till the fight ended with Jeffreys on the floor and every doubt about Johnson silenced. As Jack London, the famous novelist, reported from ringside seats, no one understands him, this man who smiles. Well, the story of the fight is the story of a smile. If ever a man won by nothing more fatiguing than a smile, Johnson won today.

39:14You can't beat a man who doesn't stop smiling, who takes the worst you can throw at him and eats it up. We can strive to be like that, not just gritting our teeth and bearing it, but showing our teeth in a big old grin. Nothing is more frustrating to the people or impediments attempting to frustrate us. As the Stoics commanded themselves, cheerful in all situations, especially the bad ones. Who knows where Edison and Johnson learned this, but clearly they did. Learning not to kick and scream about matters we can't control is one thing. Indifference and acceptance are certainly better than disappointment or rage.

39:51Very few understand or practice that art. But it is only the first step. Better than all of that is love for all that happens to us, for every situation. The goal is not I'm okay with this, not I think I feel good about this, but I feel great about it because if it happened, then it was meant to happen. And I am glad that it did when it did. I am meant to make the best of it and then proceed to do exactly that. We don't get to choose what happens to us, but we can always choose how we feel about it. And why on earth would you choose to feel anything but good? We can choose to render a good account of ourselves if the event must occur.

40:29amor fati, love of fate, is the response. Don't waste a second looking back at your expectations. Face forward and face it with a smug little grin. It's important to look at Johnson and Edison because they weren't passive. They didn't simply roll over and tolerate adversity. They accepted what happened to them. They liked it. It's a little unnatural, sure, to feel gratitude for things we never wanted to happen in the first place. But we know at this point the opportunities and benefits that lie within adversities. We know that in overcoming them, we emerge stronger, sharper, empowered. There's little reason to delay those feelings, to begrudgingly acknowledge later that it was for the best when we could have felt that in advance because it was inevitable.

41:14You love it because it's all fuel and you don't just want fuel. You need it. You can't go anywhere without it. No one or no thing can. So you're grateful for it. That is not to say that the good will always outweigh the bad or that it comes free and without cost. But there is always some good, even if only perceptible at first, contained within the bad. And we can find it and be cheerful because of it.

41:43I'm wishing you much gratitude, grace, fun, and let's also maybe say some discipline and moderation over this crazy period. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. We've got an awesome message coming tomorrow. So stay tuned for that. And if you want to make a small donation, if you want to pay forward all the things people have done for you over the years, go to dailystoic.com slash feed, and we can make a little dent in a very big problem.

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