We Need More of These People | Pain Is Self-Inflicted Harm

0:05Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a Stoic inspired meditation designed to help you find strength and insight and wisdom into everyday life. Each one of these episodes is based on the 2 ,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women to help you learn from them, to follow in their example, and to start your day off with a little dose of courage and discipline and justice and wisdom. For more, visit dailystoic.com.

1:09A Roman general, Rutilius was a governor in Asia. These were prestigious and enormously powerful positions. We once had Stoics in high office. We had Stoics making important decisions. We're a long way from that today, aren't we? But then again, this was not exactly representative of Rome either. The vast majority of emperors were nothing like Marcus Aurelius. Most of the senators went along with Nero instead of resisting him. A better picture of the Stoics then is someone like Epictetus or someone like Cleanthes, someone at the bottom of the social hierarchy, trying to make the best of their lives amidst injustice, dysfunction, and frustration.

1:51A better picture of the Stoics, we've said, are the people you've never even heard of, men and women who lived ordinary, virtuous lives that were never recorded by history. It is that life that tests the limits of one's endurance. It is that life that is truly a lesson in the dichotomy of control. It is that life, the life of quiet virtue, of decency, of hard work, of finding happiness in a world rather indifferent to your existence that best defines what Stoicism is about. We're unlikely to be emperor anytime soon. We're unlikely to even register in the historical record. Our job is not to strive against that, to be one of the elite few at the center of things, but rather to try to do our best within our lives to embody courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom, whether it is noticed or not.

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4:13Stoic at checkout. That's human with two N's dot com slash stoic for an extra 15 % off with code stoic at checkout. We just took our kids to an outdoor performance, the Nutcracker. They had a snow cone and then they went insane in the car ride home. And one of the things I try to remind myself when that's happening is that I don't control my kids behavior, especially when they're too far gone like that. But I do control how I respond. Right. That's stoicism. But it's also what Dr. Becky talks about. Dr. Becky is a clinical psychologist and a best-selling author, and she founded Good Inside, which is there to give parents practical, actionable tools for handling those everyday challenges with confidence.

4:56My wife introduced me to Dr. Becky's books. I love them. I've recommended them a million times. I've had her on the podcast. And as it happens, Dr. Becky is hosting two live Q &A events for Good Inside members. I am one of them. She signed me up for it about a year and a half ago. I've loved it ever since. On December 1st, you can join Dr. Becky for her How Not to Raise Assholes event, which is about avoiding entitlement and raising kind, empathetic kids. And on December 15th, she's hosting her How Not to Lose It Over the Holidays event, which I'm sure we could all use. As I said, I'm a big fan of Dr.

5:33Becky. She's been a great influence for me as a parent and just as a human being. And Daily Stoic listeners can join for 15 % off with code STOIC15. You just got to head over to goodinside.com to catch the events.

5:52Panic is self-inflicted harm. This is from today's entry in the Daily Stoic Journal. We have a weekly meditation and then daily journaling. But let's think about it, right? Name one situation that is improved by panicking. Go ahead. Like seriously, Can you think of something where panicking makes it better? Seneca mused often about the problem with panic is that it creates danger and it limits our ability to function effectively. It prevents us from finding success and seeing objectively. And worse, it makes us weaker over time because we've never truly faced the danger that we're worried about.

6:26We're always running away and then we're weaker as a result. So spend some time today meditating on scary things that might make you panic. Think about them in advance. Think about what's so overwhelming about them. Come to understand them. Get familiar with them. One of the chapters I have in Courage's Calling is I talk about this dictum that Napoleon had for his generals. He said, ask yourself three times a day, what would I do if the enemy appeared on my left or my right or the center? Obviously, the idea here wasn't to create anxiety. It was precisely to prevent panic. By thinking about what scares us in advance, by familiarizing ourself with it, Napoleon was saying, we can respond to it.

7:06We can have a plan. A general who has a plan, who has an understanding, who has contingencies, who has backup plans and backup plans for the backup plans. And they understand that no plan survives contact with the enemy. That's the general who can endure things. That's the general who's less afraid. Fear makes us worse. Familiarity makes us less afraid. But we have three quick quotes from Seneca today. for even peace itself will supply more reason for worry. Not even safe circumstances will bring you confidence once your mind has been shocked, once it gets in the habit of blind panic. Can't provide for its own safety for it doesn't really avoid danger, it just runs away.

7:43And yet we are exposed to greater danger with our backs turned. There's another great quote I have in the book from Chris Hadfield, the Canadian astronaut. He says, remember, it's always possible to make a problem worse. Panic does that. Worry does that. Fear does that. Makes us worse. As Seneca says, we're actually more in danger as we're running away than when we face our problems. Then he says, success comes to the lowly and to the poorly talented, but the special characteristic of a great person is to triumph over the disasters and panics of human life. And then he says, the unprepared are panic-stricken by the smallest things.

8:19Another quote I have from Seneca in Courage's Calling that I really love. He says, the only inexcusable thing for an officer to say is, I did not think that could happen. So you can't panic just because it's a surprise, just because it came out of nowhere, just because it's a black swan. In fact, your whole job is to be prepared for exactly this. Your whole job is how do you perform under pressure? How do you perform when the enemy is up close? How do you perform when other people are running away, when other people are scared? This is why courage is so important. We have to see panic and fear as something that makes us worse.

8:54It's a competitive disadvantage. It's not that we never have fear. It's that we have the fear. We are alert to what it's trying to tell us. Then we try to get to work breaking it down. We try to get to work preparing for it. We try to get to work anticipating it. We try to get to work putting ourselves in a position where if it does happen, and it probably will happen, we'll be able to respond. We'll know what we can do. We'll have something. And that's, you know, as Napoleon was saying, what would you do if they were on your left? What would you do in your front? What would you do if they were over here?

9:24What would you do if all of these things happened at the same time? What are the things that can go wrong? What's my preparation for them? I'm focused instead on solutions. I'm focusing as a stoic must on what you can do about it. That's what confidence and courage gives you. I hope you spend some time journaling about panic and fear this week. I hope it makes you better, stronger and braver.

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