What Did You Think You Would See?

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.

1:09she founded Good Inside, which is there to give parents practical, actionable tools for handling those everyday challenges with confidence. My 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.

1:53As I said, I'm a big fan of Dr. Becky. 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 gotta head over to goodinside.com to catch the events.

2:23What did you think you would see? Annoying people, toxic politics, litter, traffic, construction noise, spam calls, long lines, noisy or nosy neighbors, phone calls that should have been emails, and meetings that should have been phone calls. The things we encounter in the course of a day. Everyone that Marcus Aurelius calls out in the opening sentences of meditations, the meddling, the ungrateful, the arrogant, the dishonest, the jealous, the surly, it's all there. It's always been there. The question is, why does it surprise you. Cato's problem, Cicero once remarked, was that he sometimes thought he was living in Plato's Republic.

3:03In fact, he was living in the dregs of Romulus. You are living in the 21st century. It is wonderful and advanced. It is also decrepit and dysfunctional. It is plagued by the same problem society has always been plagued with, that humanity never has and never will shake. The reason it makes you upset is that you expect it to be otherwise, because you let it surprise you, because you take it personally, because you allow yourself, as Marcus writes, to be implicated in the ugliness. Don't let nastiness make you nasty, as we've been saying. Don't be surprised. Don't be dragged down.

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