They’re Not Wrong (They’re Just Cut Off From Truth) | What Expensive Things Cost

0:00Ryan Holiday: Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world. They're not wrong. They're just cut off from truth. They don't know. You understand that, right? They're not aware that they've fallen for a scam. They don't know that they've been taken down a rabbit hole. They don't realize that things are more complicated than they think, that there's more information that they haven't seen, that their perspective is being warped. In meditations, Marcus Aurelius, no doubt exposed to the same ignorant and frustrating or strange people that exist today, tries to remind himself by quoting Plato that against their will, their souls are cut off from truth.

0:51Ryan Holiday: This is why people do things that are unkind or stupid or against their self-interest. because it doesn't seem that way to them. No, they're in the sway of a demagogue. They're limited by their education. They haven't had, as the famous opening line from The Great Gatsby reminds us, all the advantages that you've had. By the way, there's a new 100-year anniversary edition I've been reading, and I love it. This is not without its consequences to you or to society, but it doesn't change the fact that these people are victims, that they are not this way on purpose. And when you keep this in mind, Mark Sturrilis says, it will make you more patient with other people.

1:30Ryan Holiday: Besides, haven't you been wrong before? Haven't you done stuff that in retrospect seems dumb or weird? Of course you have. But you didn't think that at the time. And guess what else? People were largely patient with you, and you were afforded a certain amount of grace, or you wouldn't have gotten to where you are now. So let's extend that same patience and empathy to others. It is only fair.

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4:53Ryan Holiday: What expensive things cost. From the cynics, the Stoics learned the powerful practice of focusing on the true worth of things. That the cost of an item isn't simply what it's sold for, but what it costs the owner to own. So much of our desire for material goods comes at the great price of both anxiety and the loss of our serenity. And even when gained, these things often leave us more anxious and less serene. So today, spend some time reflecting on what the things you buy actually cost you and see if they are really worth what you have been paying. And that's from today's entry in the Daily Stoic Journal.

5:33Ryan Holiday: We have some quotes from Seneca and Epictetus here. So concerning the things we pursue and for what we vigorously exert ourselves, we owe this consideration. Either there is nothing useful in them, or most aren't useful. Some of them are superfluous, while others aren't worth that much. But we don't discern this and see them as free, when they cost us so dearly. That's Seneca's moral letters. Then we have Epictetus. If a person gave your body away to some passerby, you'd be furious. Yet you hand over your mind to anyone who comes along, so that they may abuse you, leaving it disturbed and troubled.

6:11Ryan Holiday: Have you no shame, Epictetus asks. And then we have Diogenes Laertes quoting Diogenes of Sinope. That's Diogenes the Cynic. He says, we sell things of great value for things of very little and vice versa. You know, they say the best things in life are free. And that's not really true. But I would say that a lot of things are much more expensive than they appear, right? So we chase these things. We want these things. We want a fancy car. And then we're worried about making sure nothing happens to that fancy car. I remember a few years ago, I put new floors in my house. And on the one hand, I hated the old floors and it made the house look better and they were easier to walk on and improve my life.

7:00Ryan Holiday: but then we had kids and now all of a sudden there's this part of me that worries about the floors all the time right i don't want them to get scratched i don't want water to sit on them and so this thing that cost me money it was not cheap to put new floors in the house didn't just cost what it cost it cost all the anxiety it cost the arguments between me and my wife about who's to blame for this scratch on the floor from the couch you know it cost goodwill between me and my kid because I'm like, hey, why did you spill, you know, that part of you that just blurts out, you know, trying to protect things?

7:36Ryan Holiday: And the truth is, it really doesn't matter. I remember I was talking to a therapist about some version of this and she said, just write it off, like write it off in your head. You spent the money. It's gone. You can't try to keep it all together. Right. You can't try to keep it pristine. It's like the people who buy a toy and and they want it in mint condition. I mean, this is not just a violation of the law of entropy. It's a violation of the law of happiness. You will not be happy if this is how you're spending all your time, trying to keep everything in one place, trying to keep them together.

8:10Ryan Holiday: It's an illusion. It will not last. You cannot do it. You have to be able to let go. That's the old Zen saying that, you know, the cup is already broken. The cup is already broken. The Stoics knew that expensive things cost even more than their price tag. That's why there's the great story of Epictetus. He has this lamp. It's stolen. The next day, he says, I'm going to go get a cheaper lamp so I don't have to worry about it getting stolen ever again. And I don't have to be sad that it's missing ever again. So for the Stoics, remember, it's not just what actually is valuable and isn't. You know, a lot of times we ascribe value to things that are superficial and meaningless and pointless.

8:48Ryan Holiday: but also it's realizing that you are spending even more money than you think on things and you're spending your happiness is really what you're spending on. So I want to leave you with that thought. It's not that you live in a pigsty, you don't care about anything. You should try to keep your things nice and not unnecessarily wear them down. But you also cannot resist entropy. You cannot resist time. You cannot resist wear and tear. And if you do so, it comes at the expense the most important thing, which is time, and the other most important thing, which is your happiness, and the other most important thing, which is the relationships, the people in your life.

9:25Ryan Holiday: So you only have so much time to think or worry or spend time on things. Are you going to spend it trying to preserve your floors? You're not going to live there forever. You're probably going to tear them out at some point anyway. No, focus on what matters.

9:42Ryan Holiday: Hey, it's Ryan. Thank you for listening to the Daily Stoic podcast. I just wanted to say we so appreciate it. We love serving you. It's amazing to us that over 30 million people have downloaded these episodes in the couple of years we've been doing it. It's an honor. Please spread the word, tell people about it. And this isn't to sell anything. I just wanted to say thank you.

10:17Thank you.