What’s It All For? It’s For This | Stoic Strategies To Control Your Temper

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.

0:55What's it all for? It's for this. There was a reason we did that reading. There was a reason we did that journaling. There's a reason we look at those historical examples, listened to those stories of the greats and the not-so-greats. There was a reason we challenged ourselves against the cold, running up that mountain, lifting those weights, resisting those urges. We were training for this moment, this moment in time, but also this ordinary moment in our life. You know, the one where it feels like everything is falling apart and terrible. But also the one where the person next to us is being really, really annoying.

1:33We were training for this argument with our spouse or a friend. We were training for the way our boss was going to screw us over. We were training for that email. We were training for being tired and burnt out. We were training so these things could happen and we could still keep our cool. Seneca relates the story of what Cato the Younger did when visiting the baths in Rome one day, was shoved and struck. Once the fight was broken up, he simply refused to accept an apology from the offender. I don't even remember being hit, he said. There's the story of Marcus Aurelius, betrayed by his most trusted general in a coup, and not even being bothered by it.

2:11What did he do? He told his soldiers that this was an opportunity to teach the Roman people that there was a way even to deal with civil wars. That's what stoicism is, right? The ability to look at it all in the calm light of mild philosophy. The ability to not be rattled or driven into a rage. To not even remember being hit. to not be provoked into overreaction. Some people think that stoicism is indifference or apathy, but it isn't. It's the ability to deal with emotionally charged situations and not let your emotions drive you into a fit or a frenzy to help you not say or do things you might regret.

2:51Life is difficult. People are obnoxious. Stuff is going to piss you off. But can you keep your cool anyway? Can you stay good when surrounded by bad, kind when surrounded by cruelty? Can you keep your eyes on the prize? Our job is not to lose our temper. Our job is to stay focused on solutions. Keep doing what is right. I actually needed this advice myself. I was checking into a hotel late the other night with my kids. I've been delayed. My kids have been disasters, and our two adjoining rooms turned out not to be adjoining. And the clerk was rather rude about it. I don't know who told you that we had adjoining rooms, he said.

3:33And I was like, what do you mean who told me? Every hotel in the world has adjoining rooms. What are you talking about? And I got more upset than I wanted to, but I caught myself almost immediately thereafter. I apologized. I realized He didn't design this hotel, right? The idea is, can we pause and reflect? Can we catch ourselves before we do the thing that we're going to regret, that we don't like, before we are that person that we don't want to be? And actually, I had it in my pocket. I remember grabbing it off my dresser as I left the house, knowing it was going to be a long travel day. The pause and reflect coin that we've made over here at Daily Stoic.

4:17because it's a great reminder. Delay is the best remedy, Seneca says. Count the letters of the alphabet. Really think about this. Get some perspective. Ask yourself who's to blame, what the stakes are, who you want to be. You touch it, it reminds you. Count to three, count to 24, you count to 26. You do your thing. It was made here in the U.S. in one of the oldest custom mints still operating. Wendell's has been making challenge coins and medallions here in the U.S. since the 1880s. Just a beautiful physical reminder. And I'm glad I had it with me then. I think you'll be glad to have it with you wherever you are.

5:00And if you're working on your anger, your temper, as I constantly am, not that I have an anger problem, but anger causes problems for me. You might like our team, your temper course. You can get both the coin and the course together, 20 bucks off. I'll link to that in today's show notes. You don't have to turn this into something Marks really says. It doesn't have to upset you. You've got to pause and reflect. It's a great little reminder. DailyStoic.com slash poise. I'll link to it in today's show notes. Check it out.

5:36Human. Your body has a performance superhighway. 60 ,000 miles of blood vessels that deliver oxygen and nutrients to every cell. This, of course, is your cardiovascular system. It's the foundational system that powers everything we do. Both elite athletes and longevity experts invest directly in the cardiovascular system because supporting healthy blood flow is critical for energy, recovery, mental clarity, and overall performance. That's where human comes in. That's human with two Ns. They started out of research at the University of Texas, near where I live, and have 15 years of experience making award-winning supplements for nitric oxide production and healthy blood flow, now used by over 160 pro and college sports teams.

6:23Human Cardiovascular Health Daily is a plant-based and made from clinically studied ingredients like grapeseed and seed kelp extract. It supports nitric oxide production for healthy blood flow and energy while also supporting blood pressure and helping support the delicate interlining of your blood vessels. Just two capsules each morning will power energy and recovery while also playing the long game by supporting long-term vascular health and healthy aging. Human has an exclusive offer for our listeners. You can visit human.com slash stoic for an extra 15 % off your first purchase. That's enter code S-T-O-I-C.

6:57Stoic 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 at 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.

7:39My 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.

8:17Becky. 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.

8:37I once told my wife that she was frustrating me, and she responded with probably the most frustrating thing you can imagine. She said, I can't make you frustrated. But to the Stoics, this is totally true because we're responsible for our own emotions. Epictetus says if you find yourself offended realize that you are complicit in taking offense. Things don't upset us we choose to be upset about them. I know that's not easy to hear especially in this political climate. How can we not be angry about things that are unjust that are frustrating? Well this is exactly where the Stoics step in. It's not that they didn't feel anger.

9:13It's that they understood that the reactions we take when we are angry are very rarely ever helpful. And that's what we're going to talk about in today's episodes. The best stoic strategies for helping you tame your temper. You think you're the first person to live in political dysfunction? You think you're the first person to live in a time when it feels like the world is falling apart? You think you're the first person to live in a time when people are shitty to each other? When there's demagogues in power? When it feels like stuff is falling apart? No, you weren't. The ancient Stoics lived in the time of Nero.

9:45You know Socrates, he didn't live in the golden age of Athens. He lived in the time of 30 tyrants. He lived through a great power conflict. People have always lived in difficult times, but you know what they figured out? They figured out you got to focus on what's in your control. You got to figure out how to not let the assholes make you an asshole. You got to do good where you can. You got to remind yourself what's important. You can't follow every news story. You can't be distracted by every outrage. You can't extrapolate everything into the end of the world. You have to ride it out. You have to focus.

10:19You have to stay good and stay decent. And then you got to make a positive difference where you can. You can't give up hope. You have to stand strong. And you have to realize in times like these that there have always been times like these and people got through it and you will get through it and it may well be an opportunity for you to be great to be heroic to make a difference that's what you focus on in dysfunctional crazy scary times there's a secret to not getting upset to not getting angry to not getting offended to not being bothered to focus and it's simple it It comes to us from Marcus Aurelius, the great Roman emperor.

10:58He said, you always have the power to have no opinion. He says, things are not asking to be judged by you. Don't turn this into something. The fewer opinions you have, the fewer judgments you make, the more you're able to just leave things as they are, the happier you will be, the more productive you will be, the more focused you will be, and the easier you will be to get along with. People tend to think stoicism is having no emotions. But what I thought was so genius about Usashi, he's so transcended his emotions that he's able to use emotion effectively. And like, I think about this, like when a basketball coach will get a technical on purpose.

11:39If you think it's about stripping emotion out of things, maybe that is part of it, but that's like beginner level. That's like, that's like basic. But the real thing is to be able to understand emotions, process them and then use them or at the very least understand other people's emotions and be able to use those emotions to help them or you accomplish what is supposed to be accomplished. Yeah, I mean, the proper idea to me is sort of a lot of what I meditate about and is in Buddhism, where you don't try to repress your emotions because first of all, you can't. We are emotional animals. And if ever you have tried to repress your emotions, particularly in a state of meditation, you see you have zero control over them.

12:22You know, it's the way we're wired. So the proper stance is I'm not going to repress emotions, but I'm going to understand them. I'm going to see them as they occur with a degree of distance. I'm going to see that I'm angry in this moment. I'm going to almost like have a... I like to imagine it as if I'm like six inches away from myself. I don't know why that metaphor come up. Only six inches? That doesn't seem that far. Well, it's out this side. It's like here. However, that's like a more like a foot, I guess. and I'm looking at what I'm thinking or feeling from that distance, almost from the outside, and I'm still feeling it, but I'm seeing it as if I'm another person.

13:00I know this is a strange concept, but you can observe your own emotions while you're feeling them, and then they don't have power over you. Then you can say, okay, I'm angry. Why am I angry? So number one, I recognize the emotion. Number two, why am I angry? Does it stem from something weeks ago, months ago, or earlier today. And then what do I do with my anger? Sometimes you want to use your anger. You want to channel your anger. So when you're in sports, if you don't have that kind of drive and that anger, when you're in a bet, you know, when you're down by 12 points. It's like an extra gear.

13:34Yeah. You can pull. Yeah. There's a little bit of anger and even, I don't know, hatred or something. You just despise the enemy. You're going to crush them. You use that emotion. But as Phil Jackson and said if that emotion controls you throughout 48 minutes of a game, you're useless. You drain yourself. You can't control it. You also make mistakes. You make mistakes. So you need to be focused, but you also need to be able to use those emotions. When we lose our temper, inevitably, who does it seem to be with? It's not the stranger. It's not the asshole who's a bad driver. It's not the colleague at work.

14:08It's our family. It's the people close to us. We'll stomach some pretty rude behavior from people we don't know. but God forbid your son leaves his shoes where you told him not to put them. You'll be patient with your assistant when you have to repeat yourself, but if your spouse says what, God help them. Seems like a paradox, but really it's the problem of proximity. Precisely because the people are closest to us, we have more encounters, more interactions with them. The people who are bad are far away from us, but the people who are close to us, they live with us. Let's not be angry at good people, Seneca reminds us.

14:44It's strange. Like the people who are mostly good, who love us, who put up with us are the ones who get our frustration. And it shouldn't be that way. You have to remind yourself that yelling, getting upset, it doesn't make you feel better. And it certainly doesn't make your relationships better. Remind yourself how small your kids are. Remind yourself what your spouse has to put up with. The fact that we can get mad at someone, the fact that they'll put up with it, the fact that in some cases they don't have a choice, that's not an excuse. We should try not to get upset with anyone, the Stoics would say, but if we're gonna get mad, let's make sure the object of our frustration is a target of offense, not opportunity.

15:21People suck, they just do. Even if you just say only a tiny percentage of people suck, there's a lot of people, which means there's a lot of shitty people out there. And in fact, Mark Sruis opens meditations with a reminder of the kinds of people we're gonna meet in life. Says in the course of a day, you're gonna meet people who are jealous and dishonest and stupid and annoying and frustrated. You're gonna meet all these kinds of people in the course of a day, in the course of a life. So what do the Stoics teach us? They teach us that first and foremost, we should not be surprised by this. When we're surprised by it, then we're disappointed, then we resent it.

15:53If we understand that it's a part of life, then we'll be able to deal with it. But then second, the Stoics have their most important teaching. They tell us that these people are an opportunity. They're an opportunity for us to practice all sorts of good qualities, all sorts of good virtues. People are a chance for us to practice patience and toughness and empathy and forgiveness and understanding. They're a chance for us to grow and change and learn and be what we're only capable of being when we are being challenged, when we are dealing with difficult people. So yeah, people do suck. Life is filled with annoying people.

16:27But these people, they give us an opportunity. That's what the obstacle is the way means. That's who Marcus Lewis is talking about in that famous passage where he says the impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way. He's talking about those people, the people you wish were otherwise, the people not looking forward to meeting. They are a chance for you to grow and change and be made better. They are a chance for you to practice the virtues that you are meant to practice. A person can change, but people, people don't change. You can change, but the world, the world abideth forever.

16:58It is undefeated. it is exactly the same as it ever was and ever will be. This is what we see in Mark Ceruleus' meditations. His complaints about humanity are the exact same complaints we have today. People complain. People are dishonest. People are jealous. People are lazy. People are loud. People are people. We've been waiting on the world to change for a very long time, and it doesn't. This is why Mark Ceruleus reminds himself, don't go around expecting Plato's Republic. that's not where you live, that's not how things work. This isn't about being cynical, but in deciding not to be naive, we are setting ourselves up actually to be less cynical.

17:40The problem is our expectation, the problem is our false hopes, the problem is our delusions, and when they get shattered, then we get bitter and resentful. This isn't to say that you shouldn't try, this isn't to say that we can't make a difference, this isn't to say that we ourselves can't be a bright light amidst the darkness, No, that's actually the whole point. The world is going to stay the same, but we can change, we can improve. And still wisdom has to remind us that for the most part, this impact is going to be infinitesimal. Most of all, we can't take this personally. Most of all, we shouldn't set ourselves up for disappointment or disillusionment.

18:16Don't stay up waiting for the world to change. It's not going to. If you want to see change, you have to be change. I love the quote by Seneca, we are bad men living amongst bad men and only one thing will calm us and that is we must go easy on each other. Yes. To me, that's the great calming quote because I think if I was to diagnose one of society's biggest problems right now, it's anger. There's a huge increase in reporting of domestic violence in Australia. I'm sure those statistics are across the board. Road rage has gone up. Also, every shop you go into, little signs saying don't abuse the staff.

18:51It's insane. We have an anger problem. Stoicism is so explicit in how you handle anger and how you stop yourself from becoming reactive. If there's one thing I want the world to take from stoicism at the moment, it's just dealing with anger. It doesn't matter how tough the situation is. It doesn't matter how worked up you are. It doesn't matter how stressed you are. Try taking a walk. There's a Latin expression, solvator ambulando. Basically it means it is solved by walking. Get moving, get outside, get active, go for a walk, let the mind wander as you wander about right the idea is it is solved by walking they didn't have to make that comment they didn't have to be a jerk they didn't have to point that out they could have done nothing but they didn't so now we have a choice how are we going to respond we don't control other people that's the idea in stoicism but we control how we respond epictetus said that when you find yourself offended when you get upset realize that you are complicit in taking the offense mark's really said remember you don't have to turn this into something.

19:52Life is hard. People aren't perfect. They don't understand how things are going to be felt or perceived by other people. They're going to keep doing this for as long as they exist. But we have to decide, are we going to go around being offended all the time, being hurt all the time, feeling slighted all the time, getting worked up all the time? We have control over that and we can decide not to waste our time getting offended, getting upset, we can focus on what we control, which is who we are in response to the things people do and say to us. You need to begin every day by telling yourself you're going to meet the person that's going to piss you off, frustrate you.

20:30I understood then that anger comes in many different flavors. And there's the anger that was demonstrated to me by my dad, which was yelling. And that's how you asserted power was by whoever was loud as one or throwing things, or there's a physical demonstration of anger or there's the very passive what i did which was i grew up and i was this gangly awkward teenager i was never gonna win a fist fight but i will eviscerate you with my words i will cut you down so there's the verbal anger there's frustration where i've seen it in my son where if i get frustrated i see i see myself in him i see this mirror of myself he goes oh come on i'm like you got that from me 100 it's like a christmas story where'd you learn to curse like that.

21:10Yeah, I couldn't tell if it was from them. Fudge, but only I didn't say fudge, I said the real thing. I realized I'm like, oh, this is how I'm now imparting them unto him. And there's some things where you can't put the genie back in the bottle. At the root of so many mistakes, the downfall of so many powerful people is what? It's anger. You never are glad you lost your temper. And in fact, you almost always regret it. One of the early Stoics advised the emperor, He said, whenever you feel yourself getting angry, Caesar, don't do or say anything until you've repeated all the letters of the alphabet.

21:43Meaning, take a pause, take a minute, don't rush into it, don't react emotionally, calm down. Your temper will not solve this problem. It almost certainly will make it worse. If you want to get pissed off less, if you want to be frustrated less, if you want to be disappointed less, if you want to have your feelings hurt less, you have to understand a a very basic piece of advice from the ancient Stoics. And it comes to us from Epictetus. He says, it's not things that upset us, it's our opinion about things. The remark is the remark, and then we decide that it's rude. We have the expectation that it should go a certain way, and then we decide it's a bad thing that it went that way.

22:23We tell ourselves that we're ruined, that our reputation has been harmed, that we've been screwed over, that this is really bad. The event is, and then we have an opinion about it. Shakespeare said the same thing. He said, nothing neither good nor bad, but thinking makes it so. This is the most basic bit of ancient philosophy. The thing is objective. Our opinion about it is not. We decide what it means. We tell ourselves a story about it, which means we can tell ourselves a good story about it, which means we can tell ourselves no story about it. That's our power. If you want to be upset less, if you want to have your feelings hurt less, just remember this advice from Epictetus.

23:00It's not the thing that upsets us. It's our opinion about that thing. Whenever you find yourself getting angry, whenever you find yourself getting really worried, getting jealous, when you are hoping things go a really specific way, this is evidence Epictetus. The great Stoic philosopher says that you're probably focused on something outside of your control. You are looking outside yourself. When you're focused on what's up to you, you're not thinking about how things are going to go. You're not thinking about other people, you're not worried, you're not praying, you're not pining, you're just focused on what you have to do.

23:34You are preoccupied with the parts of it that are up to you, which is how it should be. So I think the main thing that I take from Stoicism is that rather than lecturing our kids, we should try and be role models to them. So if I want my little girl to be better at managing her temper, I should show her that I can do, I should go there first. And actually, I learned something from psychological research that helps me in that regard because kids can't read our minds so it's a good idea to use something that psychologists call the talk aloud technique where I would kind of say, man I'm getting really annoyed about this thing, I don't know what I do about it, I guess I need to take a deep breath and just think it through and look at it from another perspective.

24:13So by talking aloud about how I'm coping with a problem like anger or anxiety and overcoming it that allows me to role model some stoic attitudes and skills to my kids. The first thing you have to do is just not make stuff worse. As Mark Cirilli says, how much more harmful are the consequences of anger and grief than the circumstances that arouse them in us? That was today's entry in the Daily Stoat. Mark Cirilli would have agreed with the first rule of holes, which is that when you're in one, stop digging. Just don't make it worse. So often our overreactions, our emotional reactions, the way we take things personally, the way we despair, it takes a hard problem and it makes them worse.

24:56So today what I want you to do is just focus on not adding to your troubles. As Seneca says, I choose not to be a hindrance to myself. I choose not to complain about what's happened. I'm gonna focus on what I can do with what happened. So the idea for the Stoics is we don't make our problems worse. We focus on what we control, how we can make them better, and we just get to work. Getting upset, it can feel cathartic, feel like you're accomplishing something. But in fact, it's not just ineffectual, it's totally illogical and insane. In his famous essay on anger, Seneca likens getting angry at someone or something to returning a bite to a dog or a kick to a mule.

25:39I think about that when I get angry at the TV remote, it's not working. And I slam it and I go, I just punished an inanimate object what the hell am i doing this is actually the exact sort of epiphany that seneca wants us to have he says that we should look at ourselves in the mirror when we're angry and see how ugly and insane and deranged getting upset is actually i carry in my pocket this coin we make for daily stoic and it has a mirror on the front for this very reason and it's to remind myself as seneca's advice went that that you should look at yourself in the mirror and see what an ugly overwhelming distortive emotion it is it turns you into someone and something that you almost certainly would not want to be anyways if you could use some help with your anger problem or the problems that anger causes you head over to dailystoic.com slash anger coin you can grab one of these we also have a really great course, the Tame Your Temper course, that I think pairs well with this.

26:42I know this has helped me in my life, and if you want 20 % off your version of this coin, you can just use code ANGER20 in the checkout, and I think you'll like this thing. There's a real simple way to know whether you're making any progress in life, whether this philosophy stuff is making a difference. What the Stoics said was, how often are you getting in arguments? A beautiful person, a good person Epictetus says he doesn't fight with anyone. He said they know what's their affair and what isn't. And he says when you know what's your business and what's not, where is the room for fighting? If stoicism isn't freeing you from online outrage, from petty arguments, from being short with your spouse, from being a little less contentious with your kids, what is it doing?

27:30And And I'm not saying that agreeableness is the goal of life. I'm just saying it is a sign of wisdom. I'm just saying that acceptance and tolerance and generally being at an even keel is a sign of wisdom. You got to be able to mind your own business. You got to be able to focus on what actually matters. You got to be able to be kind, to be patient, to be restrained, to keep an open mind. these are the byproducts of stoicism of philosophical virtue and they're a sign that you are making progress in life at the root of all of my problems when I look back at my life anxiety worry anger fear at the root of all of it was strong emotions that didn't end up making the situation any better all the things I've been angry about all the things I've been anxious about all the things I've been worked up about.

28:21Did it make one fucking shred of difference? No, it didn't. Mark Cerulli says in meditation, the causes of our emotions are often worse than the thing we're worried or emoting about. That anger makes stuff worse. Anxiety makes stuff worse. When I look back at my life, I see how these strong, overwhelming passions, as the Stoics call them, the things that get us worked up, they weren't helping me. They weren't even avoiding the things that I wanted to avoid or bringing me the things I wanted them to bring. No, they were just causing me needless distress, needless worry. They were taking me out of the moment and preventing me from having peace, from having any stillness, and from being who I wanted to be.

29:01The people you don't like, the people who believe things you don't like, the people that believe things that upset you, you have to remember that they're not wrong on purpose. In meditations, Mark Srelius quotes Plato. Plato said, against their will, their souls are cut off from truth. It might not feel that way. It might feel like they are willfully wrong, but almost certainly they are not. Think about the dumb things that you have believed in the past. Think about the times when you were wrong. Did you think you were wrong at the time? No, you thought you were right. Marx Reuters quotes Plato.

29:29He says, against their will, they are cut off from truth. They're cut off from justice. He said they're cut off from the right path. His famous passage where he laments how obnoxious and annoying people are. He says, why are they like this? He says, because they don't know the difference between doing things the right way and the wrong way. And he says, when you remember this, it makes you more patient with other people. That was what stoicism was designed to help him do. You can't change other people. You can't make them not wrong. You can't make them not annoying, but you can work to be more patient and understanding and empathetic to those people.

29:59How do you deal with anger? Seneca has a beautiful essay called On Anger, and he's talking to his brother, but he's really talking to Nero. I think he's really talking to himself. Marcus really clearly has an anger problem, or he wouldn't talk about it so much in meditations. A book meant only for his private use. So I don't think there's some part of the study of stoicism that allows you to be anger free, but hopefully we can get to a point where we do think less things out of anger. So when you feel yourself getting upset, when you feel yourself being frustrated, when you have an emotional reaction that you stop before you hit send on the email or before you throw the punch, whatever it is that you're about to do.

30:39So I think about it as making a distinction between having the emotion, feeling the emotion, which is natural, which is probably unavoidable, and taking action on the emotion, which maybe you have a split second to prevent. It might not seem like much, but it may well be the hardest thing to do in the world. In a time of dysfunction, in a time of conflict and division, amidst chaos and disinformation and misinformation, when cruelty and meanness are widely accepted, when the system is falling apart and it looks like the center may not hold, your main job, the most important thing you can do, is don't become a lunatic, right?

31:17Don't let it infect you. Don't let crazy people make you crazy. Don't let assholes turn you into an asshole. Think of the Rome that Marcus Rillus lived in. Think of Seneca under Nero. These would have been crazy times. These were dark times. Chrysippus, one of early stoics said look if i wanted to be part of the mob i never would have studied philosophy i never would have become a philosopher the point is you have to stand apart you have to not get sucked in you can't let it break you you can't let it make you despair you can't let it make you crazy you can't let it make you abandon your principles you don't control what's going on out there but you control who you are in here you control who you are in this world and the idea is to not let it affect you, to not let it make you crazy, to not let it make you worse.

32:01And that's the first step to making it better. Hi, Ryan. I want to say that your book, Obstacles the Way, helped me finish my master's thesis. Thank you for that. I want to ask you about when you know something or someone is like annoying you or whatever, but you can't accept that they don't maybe agree with you, how to kind of have peace with that and not let it kind of take your own piece away. One of my favorite quotes from the Stoics, it's in Meditations, Mark Shrewd says, remember you always have the power to have no opinion. He says, things are not asking to be judged by you. Now imagine this is being said by a person whose opinion was literally law.

32:45He had the life and death power over people. And here he is reminding himself to live and let live, that he doesn't have to let things bother him. He doesn't have to try to change everything. He can just let some things be. And now this sounds like not much of a power. You always have the power to have no opinion. But how many people do we know that have no such power? I mentioned Elon Musk earlier. Elon Musk is a incredibly powerful, incredibly wealthy person. But has he ever had an opinion he was able to keep to himself? Not that I know of. It's a hard thing to do to just shut up, you know, to just focus on your stuff.

33:18That's what I try to do in my life as best as I can. Something I'm going through with my kids, like, I'll be like, oh, wait, I don't need to have an opinion on whether this show is good or not. You like it. I like that expression, you don't have to yuck someone else's yum. Like, you like it, so it's good to you. It's not something I need to convince you of otherwise. And so having fewer opinions is something I'm trying to practice and will be forced to practice over the next few years, I suspect. Your anger is impotent. Mark Surreale in Meditations, he quotes a line from a lost play by the playwright Euripides.

33:53And the line says, and why should you feel anger at the world as if the world would notice? Nobody cares. It doesn't matter. It doesn't mean anything. Your anger, your resentment, your grievance, you are shouting into an enormous void. You are yelling at an inanimate object. You are mad at forces that are so enormous, that are utterly amoral, completely indifferent to you and your existence. So you might as well let it go. Every day I send out one stoic inspired email to hundreds of thousands of people all over the world. If you want more stoic wisdom in your inbox, you can sign up at dailystoic.com slash email.

34:33It's totally free. You can unsubscribe at any time. We'd love to have you. dailystoic.com slash email.

35:00We'll see you next time.

35:09sales? That's kind of our thing. Wherever you sell, businesses that grow, grow with Shopify. Sign up for your$1 a month trial at shopify.com slash listen. Shopify.com slash listen. Look, 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 an ad-free version of Daily Stoic.

36:02We'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. And 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.

36:40Just 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.