These Are The Burdens Of Planet Earth | Things Happen In Training

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2:03Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast. On Friday, we do double duty, not just reading our daily meditation, but also reading a passage from the Daily Stoic, my book, 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living, which I wrote with my wonderful collaborator, translator, and literary agent, Stephen Hanselman. So today, we'll give you a quick meditation from the Stoics with some analysis from me, and then we'll send you out into the world to turn these words into works.

2:46These are the burdens of planet Earth. It's not the most wonderful thing to learn, but life has always sort of been this way. Marcus Aurelius opens meditations with a list of how obnoxious people can be, that they can be dishonest and jealous and surly and ungrateful and arrogant. He says later in the book that future people, the ones we hope to be remembered or admired by, will also be annoying and ever the same. He wasn't wrong. This is what humans are. This is what life is like. In their song Pardon Me, the band Incubus sings about the burdens of planet Earth, singing of gravity, hypocrisy, and the perils of being in 3D.

3:24that was life for Marcus Aurelius and it's life for all of us here in the present. It's always been this way and it always will be. Things are not easy. Things are not simple. Gravity holds us down, dashes us against the rocks. We have to accept that. We also have to see it as a gift. Without gravity, we'd float off into space. The obnoxious people that Marcus returns to again and again in meditations, that's also who he's talking about in his famous passage on how the obstacle can be the way. Their hypocrisy, their annoyingness is an opportunity for us to practice virtue. The perils of being in 3D is a chance for courage, for honor, for poise, and dignity.

4:06Embrace your burden. Bear it well.

4:17Things happen in training. This is the April 26th entry in the Daily Stoic. I'm holding the hardcover here. Today's quote is from Marcus Aurelius 620. When your sparring partner scratches or headbutts you, you don't make a show of it. you don't protest or view him with suspicion or is plotting against you and yet you keep an eye on him not as an enemy or with suspicion but with a healthy avoidance you should act this way in all things in life we should give a pass to many things with our fellow trainees for as i've said it's possible to avoid without suspicion or hate by seeing each actually you know what before i get into today's quote, it's funny.

5:06I obviously read this quote when I first read Meditations. I liked it. It stuck with me. That's why I included it in the Daily Stoic. But it really stuck with me more when I found out it was one of Robert Greene's favorite quotes. And when I interviewed him, he was out in Texas. This was a couple of years ago now. I asked him why that was his favorite quote. And I want to play that for you real fast because it's really good. Marcus Aurelius has this great quote about when you enter a boxing ring and people start punching you in the face you don't whine and complain why are you doing that that's not fair blah blah blah that's part of the boxing ring part of being in the power game is people exploiting your labor and it's how you respond it's not by whining complaining getting bitter inside it's by realizing that this is how it's played how can I exploit the situation for my own good How can I use this in the future and make it a positive experience?

6:04And you know what? He's totally right. And it fits in with the reality of how you're supposed to use the 48 laws of power. It's not supposed to make you this maniacal evil genius. It's supposed to realize that people do things and that we're supposed to train ourselves against them. We're supposed to not be surprised by these things. we're not necessarily supposed to use them ourselves, but we're supposed to understand that when you're in the boxing ring, sometimes you're going to get hit, and sometimes you're going to get scratched, and sometimes you're going to be in the ring with a dirty boxer.

6:39And I think, and this is what I tried to write in the Daily Stoic, by seeing each day and each situation as a kind of training exercise, the stakes suddenly become a lot lower. The way you interpret your own mistakes and the mistakes of others is suddenly a lot more generous. It's certainly a lot more resilient attitude than going around acting like the stakes of every encounter put the championship on the line. When you catch an elbow or an unfair blow today, shake off the pain and remind yourself, I'm learning. My sparring partner is learning too. This is practice for both of us, that's all.

7:16I know a little bit more about him or her and from my reaction, they're going to learn a little bit more about me too. And I had to talk about this very idea with my son, Clark. He's been doing Brazilian jujitsu now for a couple of years. And he got sort of tossed up against a wall by a kid who was a little more experienced than him, but not super great. What you tend to find in the martial arts is actually the people you need to be most worried about, most on guard about, are not the super talented people, but it's the semi-knowledgeable people who are insecure. This kid was a little bit older and kind of messing around, trying to manhandle him.

7:53Anyways, my son got thrown at the wall and ended up breaking his elbow. And obviously that didn't feel good and required to go to the doctor and getting x-rays and missing a bunch of time. But the important thing was that he got back out there a couple months later, which he did. And I remember his... sorry, he didn't break his elbow, he broke his wrist. I don't know why I said that. I've broken my elbow, he broke his wrist. But what I really liked is his coach, Alex, took him aside after that first day back. And he said, look, I know how much that hurt you when that happened. And I also watched in a similar practice, Alex, take aside those kids who were messing around and not taking it seriously and said, hey, you have a responsibility and obligation when you're in a class with younger, less experienced people, people who are smaller than you, you can't mess around.

8:48You have to take it seriously. Their safety is in your hands. So that was great too. But he said to my son, he said, look, what I'm most impressed by is that you came back. You could have used this as an excuse to not come back. And that would have been perfectly understandable and reasonable. Came back and you're here and you're not afraid or you are afraid and you're still doing it. And he's like, I really respect and admire that. And I really respected and admired that because I think that's a big thing for a six, seven year old to do. And that's what I meant here in today's entry, which is like, you learned something about them and how they treat people or how they take things or, you know, what they're thinking about.

9:30And so you learn something about that other kid. But that kid, that class and the coach and me, we all learned something about my son also, which is that he's tougher than he looks, which is that he's not easily rattled, which is he's not easily discouraged, which is that he's a brave, tough little guy. And I admire that so much. And that's today's message. And I was really excited. I was really glad to not only tell that story, but to be able to bring that little clip from Robert as well. So leave it there, and I'll talk to you all soon.

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