This is Your Kingdom. Will You Rule It? | Try The Other Handle

0:01You hear that? That's not just a Toyota truck that's the sound of no crowds no alerts no distractions and no telling what you'll find next you know like a detour so why would you ever take a tour when you could take a detour Toyota Trucks my family owns a 2023 Toyota 4Runner and honestly it's my favorite vehicle that I've ever owned Around town, it's smooth and reliable, but where it really shines is on our trips into the backcountry. We've taken it on backpacking adventures to Colorado and New Mexico, loaded it up with gear, and never had to think twice about whether it could handle the terrain.

0:48That's what Toyota trucks are built for. Off-road confidence, rugged durability, and the freedom to explore. Toyota has a long history with the outdoor community, and they're committed to helping more people get out there and experience what nature has to offer. From remote trails to scenic byways, Toyota Trucks empowers you to take the detour, roam freely, and discover places that still feel wild and untouched. And they're not just making great trucks, they're working to expand access to adventure so more people can connect with the outdoors and pass that passion on to the next generation. Discover your uncharted territory.

1:17Learn more at toyota.com slash trucks slash adventure dash detours. That's toyota.com slash trucks slash adventure dash detours.

1:29Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast. Each day we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, illustrated with stories from history, current events, and literature to help you be better at what you do. And at the beginning of the week, we try to do a deeper dive, setting a kind of Stoic intention for the week, something to meditate on, something to think on, something to leave you with, to journal about, whatever it is you happen to be doing. So let's get into it.

2:07This is your kingdom. Will you rule it? In the first century AD, few would have argued that Epictetus was the most powerful person in Rome. Few would have argued that this lowly slave possessed any power at all. In fact, the name said it all. Epictetus means acquired one. Yet what philosophy helped Epictetus come to understand was that it was actually Nero and the other powerful men and women of the time who were the slaves. They were the ones who had been acquired by ambition, by desire, by aversions, by insecurities, by money, by fame. All of us were born with freedom of choice, but many of us relinquished this power in favor of much more superficial things.

2:51Enslavement, the horrible torture that Epictetus underwent, the lifelong disability that followed it, none of this actually inhibited the inherent power that any of us have. Did you injure your mind, the father says to young Epictetus and the girl who would be free? No, Epictetus replies. Was your soul hurt? No again. Was your sense of right and wrong affected? No. Then I need you to focus more on who controls the empire between your ears, comes the Stoic wisdom and less on what happened to your leg. And later in the book, Marcus Aurelius tries to grant poor little Epictetus any favor that they like, but there's nothing the king can possibly do.

3:33Epictetus is already perfectly free and all-powerful. Most of us are born into this world closer in status to Epictetus than Marcus Aurelius. We are more lowly than we are exalted. Yet each of us, as Seneca said, has access to the greatest empire ruling over ourselves. Will we seize this kingdom or will we trade it away for superficial shiny things? Will we free ourselves through our freedom of choice or will we hand that freedom over to the mob, to our urges, to our fears? And that's the question of your life right there. Answer it. Right. Actually, my fable about Epictetus's life, The Girl Who Would Be Free celebrates its first anniversary this month.

4:18The Girl Who Would Be Free, it follows my other book, The Boy Who Would Be King, about Marcus Aurelius. And the idea is that I wanted to illustrate the incredible lives and the journeys of these two philosophers on their way to their own unique and inspiring greatness. Both books are for all ages, but they're especially good if you're trying to teach stoicism to someone younger in your life. And right now, if you buy one of them, you can get the other for 70 % off in the Daily Stoic store. Just go to dailystoic.com slash kids, check it out. And I'll link to that in today's show notes.

4:57I got an amazing night's sleep last night. One, because my six-year-old fell asleep in the car at like six o 'clock and he transferred him from the car seat to the bed and it stuck, which is just magic. So he's in bed way earlier than normal. But I sleep really well every night because I have a 8 Sleep Pod 5 Ultra, which is 8 Sleep's best product. I've used 8 Sleep for many years now. And it's just totally transformed how I sleep, made me sleep better, made my wife sleep better. It's amazing. So basically, 8 Sleep is this topper that goes over your mattress. It can heat and cool both sides separately.

5:36It can raise and lower each side separately. So it helps you fall asleep faster, stay asleep, and then wake up better. Eight Sleep buzzes me to wake gently every morning as opposed to some loud blaring alarm. And then I can check the app and it tells me my sleep score. It even helps me optimize my day based on how I slept. If you want to survive the holidays like a pro and just generally sleep better? Head over to 8sleep.com slash dailystoic and use code dailystoic to get$350 off your very own Pod 5 Ultra. The best part is you still get 30 days to try it at home and return it if you don't like it, but I know you will.

6:18Trust me, your body will thank you for this investment in better sleep, shipping to many countries worldwide. See details at 8sleep.com slash dailystoic.

6:30Try the other handle. Epictetus offered a powerful tool in his handbook, the Inchiridion, which the Stoics use as an exercise in decision-making about difficult events. Everything, Epictetus says, has two interpretations or handles by which it can be grabbed. One that will make it harder, one that will make it easier. Do you take offense or do you focus on a common ground? Do you focus on all that's gone wrong or what has gone right? Ask yourself these questions about everything you see and feel. Try to always grab the right handle. That's from this week's entry in the Daily Stoic Journal. Let's listen to Epictetus drill down on this.

7:10Every event has two handles. He says, one by which it can be carried and one by which it can't. If your brother does you wrong, don't grab it by its wrongdoing because this is the handle incapable of lifting it. Instead, use the other, that he is your brother, that you were raised together, and then you have hold of the handle that it carries. This is Epictetus in Caridion 43. And then he says in Discourses 4.1, know it is events that give rise to fear, when another has power over them or can prevent it, that a person becomes able to inspire fear. How is the fortress destroyed? Not by iron or fire, but by judgments.

7:46And it is here that we must begin. and it is from this front that we must seize the fortress and throw out the tyrants. So this idea of grabbing things by the handle, in fact, there's this interesting list, you can Google it. Thomas Jefferson wrote a bunch of rules for one of his young relatives. And he says, somewhat elusively, he says, always grab things by their smooth handle. And I think it was Donald Robertson who pointed out to me that he's referring to Epictetus grabbing by the right handle. Instead of the rough handle, grab the smooth handle. The point being, stuff happens. Are you going to try to say, this was done to me?

8:20Or are you going to say, this is done for me? Are you going to say, look at all I've lost? Or are you going to say, look at all I've gained? As Epictetus says, are you going to say, look at my brother. What did he do? What an asshole. Or are you going to say, this is my brother. I love him. He would never hurt me on purpose. You grab the handle that makes you stronger, the one that gives you agency, not the one that strips you of agency. You grab the one that gives you hope, not the one that strips you of hope. You grab the one that gives you a path forward, not the one that freezes you hopelessly in place.

8:51What's the right handle? That's what we're thinking about. And every situation has a handle. And are you going to get mad? Are you going to use it as an opportunity? I think about this with my kids. They do something. Am I going to lose my temper and show them that I lose my temper and that I should be afraid? They should be afraid of me or that they should hide things from me? or am I going to use it as a chance to talk to them, to teach them something? Famously, story of George Washington and the cherry trees teaching this lesson. His father catches him chopping down the cherry tree. He asks who does it.

9:20George Washington tells the truth. His father could be angry. He just has a confession from his son that he chopped down a priceless cherry tree. Instead, the moral of the story is, I'm glad that you told me the truth and you can trust me. I'm not going to punish you for having told me the truth. I'd rather you chop down my trees than tell a lie, right? What handle are you going to choose as a parent, as a teacher, as a boss? And by grabbing the right handle versus the wrong handle, are you making the relationship stronger, better, based on trust, based on aligned incentives, based on shared history?

9:56Or by grabbing the wrong handle, are you showing them to lie? Are you showing them to hide things? Are you showing them that you should be feared, that you should be ignored, that you can't be taken seriously, that you're not really their ally or friend, right? The handle we choose matters. Even Epictetus, you've got to imagine he's trapped in slavery. It's horrible. He spends the first 30 years of his life that way. Does he choose to see this as the worst thing that could have possibly happened or does he learn from it? Even the so-called Stockdale paradox. And he says, I knew I would survive.

10:26And if I did, I would turn this into the very best thing that happened to me. That's choosing to grab the right handle. That's choosing to grab the smooth handle, which is what you must do, which is what we must all do in any and all situations. And that's it for me today. I'm exhausted. I've just spent all day recording videos. You hear my voice going out a little bit, but I'm trying to tell myself, this is one day among many. This is making me stronger. I'm getting better for it. I'm crossing off stuff. My list is I can focus on what I really need to be doing. I'm going to try to grab the good handle today.

10:59So should you. Talk soon.

11:10Look, ads are annoying. They are to be avoided, if at all possible. I understand as a content creator why they need to exist. That's why I don't begrudge them when they appear on the shows that I listen to. But again, as a person who has to pay a podcast producer and has to pay for equipment and for the studio and the building that the studio is in. It's a lot to keep something like the Daily Stoic going. So if you want to support a show but not listen to ads, well, we have partnered with Supercast to bring you a ad-free version of Daily Stoic. We're calling it Daily Stoic Premium. And with Premium, you can listen to every episode of the Daily Stoic podcast completely ad-free, no interruptions, just the ideas, just the messages, just the conversations you came here for.

12:04And you can also get early access to episodes before they're available to the public. And we're going to have a bunch of exclusive bonus content and extended interviews in there just for Daily Stoic Premium members as well. If you want to remove distractions, go deeper into Stoicism and support the work we do here. Well, it takes less than a minute to sign up for Daily Stoic Premium, and we are offering a limited time discount of 20 % off your first year. Just go to dailystoic.com slash premium to sign up right now or click the link in the show descriptions to make those ads go away.