This Is The Purpose of Desire | Anger Is Bad Fuel

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0:57This is the purpose of desire. We worked for it. We waited for it. We risked for it. We lusted after it. We hoped for it. And then we got it. How was it? Underwhelming? Fleeting? So quickly we were starting all over again, waiting more, wanting something different, wanting it again. This is the problem with desire, the Stoics would say. It can never actually be satisfied. In her song with Phoebe Bridgers, Sloppy Jane has a metaphor that if Seneca or Epictetus had lived in the modern world, they would have understood perfectly. This is the nature of desire, a machine built to reach, but not to hold.

1:40The Stoics warned us about this endless cycle, not to condemn desire entirely, but to remind us that fulfillment doesn't come from acquisition. The things we think will complete us rarely do. Instead, the Stoics suggest turning inward towards mastering our wants and finding contentment in the process, not the prize. Reach for what you have, the Stoics say, instead of for something more. Wish for things to happen as they have, and you will in fact get what you wish for. True satisfaction lies not in clutching at fleeting rewards, but in appreciating what's already within our grasp. Thanks to Toyota Trucks for sponsoring this episode.

2:20When 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.

3:02We 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.

3:44Learn more at toyota.com slash trucks slash adventure dash detours.

3:59Anger is bad fuel. This is today, February 10th's entry in The Daily Stoic. And if you haven't checked out the Leatherbound edition, you can see that at store.dailystoic.com. Today's quote is from Seneca's On Anger 3.1, which is a great essay. I highly recommend it. One of his best. There is no more stupefying thing than anger, Seneca says. Nothing more bent on its own strength. If successful, none more arrogant. If foiled, none more insane. Since it's not driven back by weariness, even in defeat. When fortune removes its adversary, it turns its teeth on itself. As the Stoics have said many times, getting angry almost never solves anything.

4:44It almost always makes things worse. We get upset. Then the other person gets upset. that now everyone is upset and the problem is no closer to being solved. Many successful people will tell you that anger is a powerful fuel in their lives. The desire to prove them all wrong and shove it in their faces has made many a millionaire. The anger at being called fat or stupid has created fine physical specimens and brilliant minds. The anger at being rejected has motivated many to carve their own path. But that's short-sighted. Such stories ignore the pollution produced as a side effect. and the wear and tear that it puts on the engine.

5:21It ignores what happens when that initial anger runs out and how more and more must be generated to keep the machine going until eventually the only source left is anger at oneself. Hate is too great a burden to bear, Martin Luther King Jr. warned his fellow civil rights leaders in 1967, even though they had every reason to respond to hate with hate, anger with anger. The same is true for us. In fact, it's true for most extreme emotions. They are toxic fuel. There's plenty of that out in the world, no question. But it's never worth the costs to come along with it. Seneca has so many beautiful things that he says about anger in this essay, which again, I very highly recommend.

6:05He says to be angry at someone for doing something, he says, would you return a bite to a dog or a kick to a mule? that image of like, I'm going to bite a dog or I'm going to kick an animal that kicked me. It just shows you how like silly anger can be. Like to try to catch a glimpse of yourself when you're angry, right? Like if you were a sports coach or an athlete or public figure and somebody caught you freaking out at someone or like you caught a glimpse of what you looked like angry. I mean, you'd be like, what a fool. That guy looks ridiculous, right? I remember when I worked at American Apparel Dove would have this sort of seething fits of rage.

6:43And I just remember he looks like a child when he is doing this. And it didn't completely cure, but it did disabuse me of the notion that there's anything glamorous or powerful or whatever about being angry. It's like, no, you look like a chimp or you look like a baby. You look like you don't look dignified. You look the opposite of being dignified. Then I, of course, talk about anger quite a bit in Stillness is the Key. I talk about anger as a fuel. I talk about the Michael Jordan sort of Hall of Fame speech. And he sort of lays out how he has used anger and resentments and slights to fuel his greatness.

7:23And there's no question it got him, Michael Jordan, to a great place. But I thought the most discordant note in the whole thing, there's the thing Michael Jordan always talks about, about how he got cut from his high school basketball team or whatever, which he didn't. He wasn't cut. He just didn't make the varsity team as a sophomore or something. But he invites the guy that got the spot over him to that speech. And then he goes like, I just wanted to say to my coach, you were wrong or something. He's not screaming. That's not the anger that you see in that speech. But it just falls so flat. Everyone in the audience is just like this is the greatest of all time.

8:02This is a guy who has so much to be happy about. And that's what anger does, though. Seneca says, if foiled, none more insane. Anger makes us insane. It makes us deranged. It doesn't make us look good or do good. And that's why we have to be very, very, very, very careful of it and always remind ourselves it is effective in the short term, corrosive and destructive in the long term. Anger makes bad fuel.

8:53and say thank you.

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