The Secret To Happiness | How To Let Go And Stop Worrying (10 Stoic Tips)

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2:04Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we read a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you in your everyday life. On Tuesdays, we take a closer look at these stoic ideas, how we can apply them in our actual lives. Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy.

2:31The secret to happiness. What is the secret to happiness? It's not an easy question to answer, and it might seem like the Stoics wouldn't have a good answer either, because it might seem like they didn't have much fun or experience much happiness. After all, they wrote repeatedly about the emptiness of chasing money or celebrity. They reminded themselves that fine wine is just like rotten old grapes. But that doesn't necessarily mean that their lives were empty and joyless. By one definition of happiness, in fact, the Stoics were some of the happiest people to ever live. On a recent episode of the Daily Stoic podcast, we interviewed Gretchen Rubin, one of the most thought-provoking and influential experts on happiness.

3:14She talked about one of the things that she learned from her former boss, the Supreme Court's first female justice, Sandra Day O 'Connor. Shortly after Gretchen published The Happiness Project, she asked O 'Connor, who she'd clerked for, what was the secret to happiness? O 'Connor replied, the secret to happiness is work worth doing. Perfect. The Stoics didn't seek happiness, they sought purpose. They were of service to others. They worked on art and made scientific breakthroughs and changed people's lives. They fought for causes. They held public office. They represented clients in court. They dedicated themselves to their children.

3:51They did their duty. They did work worth doing, the byproduct of which was happiness and joy and contentment and pride and satisfaction. All of those things. As we talked about, the best things in life are an accidental byproduct. And so it goes for happiness. It cannot be pursued. It ensues from work worth doing. And do check out my interview with Gretchen. It's awesome. You can also see a YouTube version of it if you just Google Gretchen Rubin, Daily Stoic Podcast. And we'll, of course, link to it in today's show notes. You can watch it or listen to it anywhere you get your podcasts, wherever you're listening to this one right now.

4:30And, of course, read all of Gretchen's many great books. She's awesome.

4:42We should never forget Fortune's habit of behaving exactly as she pleases, Seneca says. And I don't think he meant that she behaves in ways that we always like. I think what he was talking about was the same thing Epictetus talked about, which is that the vast majority of what happens in the world is outside of our control, that the world is largely indifferent to what we want and need. But understanding that doesn't exactly stop you from worrying about it. In fact, it may exacerbate those very worries because so much is outside of our control. can feel like there's an endless amount of things to be scared about, to be worried about, to be uncertain about.

5:25Three stoic one-liners that will help you beat anxiety. Number one, Epictetus says, it's not things that upset us, it's our opinion about things. It's what we think about them that's upsetting, not the things themselves. Number two, Seneca says, he who suffers before it is necessary suffers more than is necessary. He says we suffer more in imagination than in reality. What he means is we anticipate what could happen, what might happen. We torture ourselves about it in advance. That's what anxiety is. And then three, this is Marcus Aurelius beating anxiety. He writes in meditations, today I escaped my anxiety.

6:02Then he says, wait, no, no, no. Actually, I discarded it because it was within me. Things don't make us anxious, as Epictetus was saying. We make ourselves anxious. We have control over it. which means we can solve for it.

6:21Stoicism is really, really simple. It's that while we don't control what happens to us, we control how we respond to what happens to us. The Stoics would say, yes, stuff goes wrong, stuff goes sideways, but we always have this opportunity to practice the four virtues, courage, temperance, justice, wisdom. It's not that there's nothing bad in the world, there's nothing frustrating in the world, there's not stuff we wouldn't want to happen. But when it does happen, it is nevertheless an opportunity to step up with courage, to be self-disciplined, to do something for other people, to practice, to learn, to experience wisdom.

6:50That's the idea of stoicism. We don't control what happens. We control how we respond to what happens.

6:59Pema Shadron talks about the babysitters. Yeah. These things that we do to distract us from the thinking mind. That's why one of the reasons why I think meditation mindfulness is so important so that you can start to control the thinking mind. So you're not just taken by it. So you can have a process for anxiety or the inner critic or the racing mind start to calm that environment. Then you don't need these things that these places of refuge that have a cost as much. If you can manage what you focus on, what you pay attention to, if you have, if you hone the skill to be able to bypass, you know, things that stress you out or whatever, you know, when you start to manage the mind, then it all, it's all possible.

7:38Yeah. Productivity, you know, ceasing procrastination, anxiety, insomnia, all these things. And I'm speaking from experience.

7:49How we see things, of course, matters. The way we see things, the story we tell ourselves about things, that's the first and in some ways the most important step. The idea is that the world is objective. There really is no such thing as good or bad. Shakespeare says neither good nor bad but thinking makes it so. Events are objective. We tell ourselves what they mean. We make up a story about them. There's no such thing as a bear market or a bull market, good weather or bad weather. There's just weather. There's just the market. Our job as humans is to respond to that. Now of course we put names on these things so we have a helpful way of seeing them but we have to understand that the way we see them and the story we tell ourselves about them determines what we're going to be able to do about them.

8:35So if you focus on the fact that something is unfair, that something is not your fault, that something sucks, that something is impossible, insurmountable, these words have a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy to them.

8:52So when I was in London, I took like an hour cab ride from Heathrow to Chartwell, which is where Winston Churchill lived. And it was incredible to see this house where he kept that sort of routine of his where he'd, you know, he'd feed the goldfish, he'd recite poetry, but you could see where having something out in the country, having a routine, having ritual, having nature, he would go swimming, and then most importantly, you saw the studio where he did his painting. You just realized, like, the power of hobbies, and he wrote this amazing book called Painting as a Pastime, where he said, like, the most important thing that a public person can do is have one or two good hobbies.

9:32You know, Marcus Aurelius, we know, went boar hunting. Seneca likes to point out all the hobbies that people had. And I mean, for him, it was clearly writing. He liked to point out that Socrates liked to play a flute. And he also, he used to like to play games with neighborhood children. Cato liked to drink wine and talk philosophy in the evening. The power of hobbies is immense. You know, and when Seneca talks about how it's easy to fracture an overworked mind, by having a hobby, you work different parts of your mind and then cause like rest through that. So for me, this farm that we're on is a big one.

10:07I'm just putzing around. I had a nice work day and then this is extra. It's good to have something to be responsible for, to think about, but that, you know, forces you to rest your mind. What I'm not doing is sitting at the computer, right? I'm not responding to phone calls. I don't get cell service out here, you know.

10:29the emperor of rome would have had beautiful palaces marcus from a rich family would have had access to country estates and beautiful houses and he could afford the finest resorts or retreats and he reminds himself though that people who try to get away from it all are chasing something that doesn't exist he would have liked that buddhist idea that wherever you go there you are he says you can retreat into yourself anytime you want he says you can find replenishment and rest and relaxation inside your own soul. And I think that's what he's doing in meditations, that's what he's doing in books, that's what he's doing when he would go on walks, when he would look at the world poetically.

11:06He realized that he didn't have to flee to some exotic location. All the things he needed and wanted were right there. They weren't external things at all. They were inside of him just as they are inside all of us.

11:21the secret to improving in life according to the stoics is one thing it's being okay with being seen as silly or foolish epictetus is if you want to improve be content to be seen as stupid or foolish or ignorant about some things when i started making these videos when i started making videos in general it was so awkward it was so uncomfortable but to get better i had to have reps being bad. Same with writing. When I look at my first published writing, it's so cringeworthy, but you have to be willing to be bad at something to get good at something. You have to be willing to be seen as stupid when you're raising your hand and asking a question to learn the answer.

11:59If you're not comfortable being vulnerable, if you're not comfortable putting yourself out there, if you're not comfortable ever being seen as foolish or ignorant or awkward, you're never going to get any better. So the secret to improving is what it's being seen as not great.

12:17In meditation, the Mark Surrealist talks about being the rock that the waves crash over and eventually the raging sea falls still around. That idea of stillness, of being present, of locking in, to me it's everything. That's happiness. It's also where great work, where that flow state comes from. It's where joy comes from. It's where connection comes from. It's where gratitude comes from. So just lock in. Calm down. It doesn't matter what's happening in the outside world. Slow down. Lock in. Let the waves crash around you. And eventually everything will quiet down and you will do what you need to do in this very moment.

12:55You think it wasn't bad when the Stoics were alive? Seneca is there when Nero is emperor. Marcus Aurelius sees the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. So the idea that it wasn't stressful, that it wasn't depressing, the idea that it wasn't alarming or worrying the things that were happening in the world, none of this is new. This has always been the case. Epictetus says that every situation has two handles. You can despair or you can say this is an opportunity. This is a moment in time when I can step up, when I can make a difference, when I can be the change that I want to see in the world.

13:26I cannot be implicated in the ugliness of the times that I happen to be alive. And I can try to make things better. So that's the choice. Are you going to despair? Are you going to be excited? Are you going to give up? Are you going to keep going? And you're going to do what you need to do.

13:45I don't know who needs to hear this, but Marcus Aurelius' reminder is a life-changing one. He says you don't need to have an opinion about this. He says you always have the power of having no opinion. If it's pointless gossip, if it's trivia, if it's something that doesn't concern you, if it's something you have zero control or influence over, just let it be. Don't have an opinion. You don't have to say it's positive or negative. Epictetus says, you know, it's not things that upset us. It's our opinions about those things. It's our judgment about those things. So we have the power to not think about it, to tune it out, to focus on what really matters, to try to put our energy and our intention on where we can make a difference, on where we do have control.

14:22And if other people want to be concerned with them, if other people want to be riled up or have opinions about them, if it's their job to do it, leave it to them. Meanwhile, you let it float on by like the clouds and you stick with what's up to you.

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