Waste No More Time Doing This | Keeping "The News" In Check

0:28Why choose a Sleep Number smart bed? What can 160 years of experience teach you about the future? When it comes to protecting what matters, Pacific Life provides life insurance, retirement income, and employee benefits for people and businesses building a more confident tomorrow. Strategies rooted in strength and backed by experience. Ask a financial professional how Pacific Life can help you today. Pacific Life Insurance Company, Omaha, Nebraska, and in New York. Pacific Life and Annuity, Phoenix, Arizona.

1:03Welcome 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.

1:43Arguments are for losers. The Stoics were smart. They were well-read and well-informed about the issues of the day. They led armies and held public office. They put out great works of literature and art. They had families. They went to the theater. But do you know what they didn't do? They didn't spend a lot of time arguing with other people. Once, when Epictetus was criticized, he didn't even try to defend himself or correct them. If they really knew me, he joked to himself, they'd have said something even worse. Actually, though, Epictetus believed that one of the products of an education was learning what was your business and what wasn't, as well as what was up to you and what wasn't.

2:22Arguing with other people trying to change their minds about stuff that didn't matter that was a losing game. That was a waste of time. As we said recently, one of the signs of progress in this journey you're on should be that you're arguing with others less, getting in fights less, wasting time less, because you're focused on yourself and all the work you have to do there, because you care less about what others think, because you accept what's not up to you. Losers get into fights on Twitter. Losers make mountains out of molehills, turn edge cases into culture war battlefields. Losers try to impress other people, try to get them to like them.

2:58Do they win these fights sometimes? Sure, but they are pyrrhic victories, costing them far more than they receive in spoils. So what about you? Are you a loser? To me, this is part and parcel of taming your temper. One of the best things you can do to get your anger under control is just care less about stuff that doesn't matter, spend less time getting sucked into fights that escalate and escalate and ratchet and ratchet until you're screaming or yelling or whatever, right? Huge part of it. It's a big part of what we talk about in the Tame Your Temper course. 10 days of challenges, exercises, video lessons, and bonus tools based on Stoic philosophy.

3:36Materials to help you deal with your anger in a constructive manner. We will give you the tools that you need not just to manage your anger, but to leave it in the past so you can focus on what's important, living a virtuous and fulfilling life. You can learn the wisdom of the great thinkers and leaders of history through this course, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Abraham Lincoln, even Mr. Rogers, and many others. You'll be able to use our unique exercises to break free from the cage that anger has built around you and see the world and yourself in a new light. Each day, you'll be able to watch a new video from me, Ryan Holiday, author of The Obstacle is the Way, Ego is the Enemy, Stillness is the Key, and of course, The Daily Stoic, as I explain the ideas behind the words and shed light on the path that you're on, but that I am also on.

4:23Because again, we are all struggling to tame our temper and we will all be better if we can get closer to that. Being able to control your anger is a difficult but worthwhile goal. It will take time and effort, won't be free, but by changing your perspective and developing techniques to control your temper, it will ultimately be achievable and life-changing. So take the first step on the path to a calmer and more fulfilling future, check out Taming Your Temper, the 10-Day Stoic Guide to Controlling Your Anger. You can click the link below, or you can just go to dailystoic.com slash anger.

5:04Keeping the news in check. Even the ancient news felt inundated with gossip and news. This week, you will face a barrage like they couldn't have imagined, from texts, calls, emails, to the incessant grind of the 24-7 news machine. Instead of responding to every status update, every urgent call, or the latest trending incendiary news story, take a moment to remember the three ways that the Stoics use to keep their focus on their purpose and duty in the present moment. Number one, step away from the noise. Two, remember that no news can throw you off the purpose of your present choices. Three, don't add something negative or positive to what's being reported.

5:45This is from this week's entry in the Daily Stoic Journal, 366 Days of Writing and Reflection on the Art of Living by yours truly, and my colleague, Stephen Hanselman, who I also wrote the Daily Stoic with. You can actually get signed copies of the Daily Stoic Journal in the Daily Stoic store at store.dailystoic.com, or we've got copies here at The Painted Porch, my bookstore in Bastrop, Texas. Always popular. People ask me to sign them all the time. Anyways, check out the Daily Stoke Journal. I'm on like my fourth year of doing it. You might like it as well. But here's two quotes from Marcus and one from Epictetus to guide you this week.

6:21Are you distracted by breaking news? Then take some leisure time to learn something good and stop bouncing around. But when you do, keep in mind the other mistake. To be so distracted by getting control that you wear yourself out and lose a purpose by which you can direct your thoughts and impulse. That's Meditations 2.7. Epictetus's Discourses 3.8 says, Whenever disturbing news is delivered to you, bear in mind that no news can be relevant to your reasoned choice. Can anyone break news to you that your assumptions or desires are wrong? No way. But they can tell you someone died. But even so, what is that to you?

6:57And then Mark Surreale's Meditations 8.4.9, he says, Don't tell yourself anything more than what the initial impressions report. It's been reported to you that someone is speaking badly, about you. This is the report. The report wasn't that you've been harmed. I see that my son is sick, but not that his life is at risk. So always stay within your first impressions and don't add them to your head. This way, nothing can happen to you. Look, the number one secret to a good productive routine and personal happiness is to limit your news consumption. Obviously, I'm biased as an author, but read books.

7:31Don't watch the news. Read thoughtful perennial analysis. Don't follow speculative news reports. Limit your news consumption. And honestly, if you do feel like you need the distraction, you need a palate cleanser, don't pull up CNN. Pull up ESPN. Read about sports or something. Read celebrity gossip. Don't read the latest divisive piece of news. I'm not saying that it's not important to be informed. Of course, it's important to be informed. I would just argue that following the infinite news machine is how one becomes informed. I think, as I've said before, The Great Influenza, a book that I read at the beginning of the pandemic, taught me much more about how to spend the last 15 months than any breaking news story, because the news story has never really changed anything.

8:23It's like, hey, this thing is real. Here's the scientific advice. Take it seriously. Wait for it to be over. right? The latest report is only adding to what we already know for the most part. So step back, don't consume so much news. A couple of recommendations on this front. Obviously, one, my book, Trust Me, I'm Lying, is about how the news manipulates you. But there's a great book by Daniel Boorstin called The Image that I suggest people read. There's also Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death. These are two eye-opening books that will give you a sense of why you should consume as little news as possible, how manipulative it is and how harmful it is.

8:59And then the other book, which inspired my book, trust me, I'm lying. If you read The Jungle as a kid in high school or whatever, Epton Sinclair's expose of the meatpacking industry, then I strongly suggest you read his book, The Brass Check, which is actually an expose of the news industry around the same time. And sadly, almost nothing has changed. I'm not saying that reporters aren't good people. I'm not saying that they don't do an important public service. I'm not saying I read no news. I'm just saying, look, the most viral emotion is anger. Should it surprise us that the news perpetually makes us angry, right?

9:35Should it surprise us that news is always breaking, but never fully arrives, that they're always speculating? No, it's an enormous beast trying to capture as much attention as possible to then sell that attention to advertisers. You are the product that's being sold when you consume this free news, got to understand that. Listen to podcasts. Podcasts are great conversations. Even this, like I'm recording this, but it has no real date on it. It should be relevant forever. So I'm not as incentivized to rile you up the way that your news is. So I think it's interesting that even 2000 years ago, the Stoics were struggling with it.

10:13They'd be appalled at what our information diet is today. So step back, Give yourself some space. Don't follow breaking news. Don't let it change who you are. Don't let it rattle your equilibrium. Just keep doing you. Read books. Study real wisdom and information that will make you smarter and able to respond to what's happening in the world and make you a better, more informed citizen. I'm heading over to Australia in a couple weeks. I'm going to be in Sydney on July 31st. I'm going to be in Melbourne on August 1st. Then in November, I'm doing Vancouver and Toronto, London, Dublin, Rotterdam, all awesome cities I'm really excited to go to.

10:52If you want to come to those talks, they're open to the public, and you can grab those tickets at ryanholiday.net slash tour.

11:16Look, 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.

12:10And 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.