Where Does The Good Go? | The Sphere of Choice

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1:18Welcome 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.

1:58Where does the good go? There have always been dark and depressing moments, for as long as there have been moments. As Mark Surrealis writes in Meditations, people have always been doing the same things. Lying, fighting over money, scapegoating immigrants, cheating to get ahead, blaming everyone but themselves. And it's enough to make you ask, where does the good go? Where has it gone? But for all the darkness that Marcus Aurelius observed and lamented, he also knew there was an inexhaustible supply of goodness out there. Actually, he knew it wasn't out there at all. It was within himself. Dig deep, he writes, the water, goodness is down there.

2:40And as long as you keep digging, it will keep bubbling up. We are right to be disappointed and frustrated with the state to the world. The moral inversion that has consumed our current political and cultural landscape, as we recently said, it is inexcusable. We should fight against it, fight to reform it. At the same time, we never need to despair about good in the world because we have it within us. We can always go back to that well, starting today.

3:13We 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.

3:48My 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.

4:25Becky. 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.

4:46The Sphere of Choice. And this 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 co-writer and translator, Stephen Hanselman. I actually do this journal every single day. There's a question in the morning, a question in the afternoon, then there's these sort of weekly meditations. As Epictetus says, every day and night we keep thoughts like this at hand, write them, read them aloud, and talk to yourself and others about them. You can check out the Daily Stoic Journal anywhere books are sold. You can also get a signed personalized copy from me in the Daily Stoic store at store.dailystoic.com.

5:24If the first step is to discern what is or isn't in our control, the second step in Stoic philosophy is to focus the energy on the things we have a choice about. The Stoics viewed the soul as a sphere that, when well-tuned, well-directed, was an invincible fortress against any trial or circumstance. Protected by our reason, this sphere of choice was like a sacred temple, and it is the only thing we truly possess in this life. We are the product of our choices, so it is essential that we choose well. This week, consider and reflect on the choices you have about your emotions, your actions, your beliefs, and your priorities.

6:04Keep this thought at the ready at daybreak, and through the day and night. There is only one path to happiness, and that is in giving up all that is outside your sphere of choice, regarding nothing else as your possession, surrendering all else to God in fortune. Epictetus, Discourses 4.4. Who then is invincible? The one who cannot be upset by anything outside their reasoned choice. Epictetus, Discourses 1.18. The soul is a sphere true to itself, and neither projects itself towards any external thing, nor does it collapse on itself, but instead radiates a light which it shows itself the truth of all things and truth in and of itself.

6:48Marcus Aurelius Meditations 11.12. Well, here we are. We were talking about this last week. You only have so many energy points. You only have so many resources. How are you going to spend them? Are you going to spend them on what's up to you? Are you going to spend them on what's not up to you? Are you going to emote about things and pretend that that makes a difference? Or are you going to spend your energy trying to do something about this thing that you found so upsetting? Right? So I think people think that stoicism is about resignation. It's not. It's about allocation, right? It's resigned to the things that make no difference, where you can make no difference, but it's very focused, intensely focused on the areas that you can make a difference, right?

7:39So you could despair about the larger, you know, political trends in your country because you're one person and you're, you know, at odds with the majority, but maybe you can make a difference with your family, with your community. You could run for school board or mayor or something like that, right? What can you do as the individual? That's not to say the Stoics aren't interested in collective action. I'm just saying, I'm going to focus my energy where it's going to make a difference. And as a Stoics, they'd be indifferent to the things where I can make no difference, right? Where can you make a difference, right?

8:14You know, it gets tempting as a writer, right? Because our job as a writer is to have opinions about things. That's a really dangerous way to go through your life thinking that the world gives a shit about your opinion, right? And that having the opinion is the thing that matters. And it doesn't matter, right? What matters is what you do. What are the actions, right? We ended the year with the idea from the Stokes about turning words into works. Well, what are you providing? Where are you putting your resources? And are you putting them towards where they have input, where they have efficacy, right?

8:48So a Stoic has resigned in some sense to, look, I'm not going to get involved in that nonsense. I'm not going to waste time regretting the past either. What I'm going to try to do is move forward. What I'm going to try to do is move ahead. What I'm going to try to do is make some change where I can make some change. And yeah, I'm going to be indifferent to the things where that's not true. And that's what we're talking about here, right? That's what the sphere of choice is about. And it's an easy thing to forget. And that's why Epictetus is saying, keep it ready in the morning. Think about it throughout the day and think about it at night.

9:21He's saying there's one path to happiness. It's giving up the things that are outside your sphere of choice, focusing on what else is in your possession, surrendering everything else. So it's being Zen about the things that are not up to you, but there's a kind of invincibility in that Zen, right? Because if I didn't make the call, I didn't do it. If it wasn't something that was up to me, I'm not going to get upset by it. Remember, Marcus is saying, you don't have to have an opinion about this. You don't have to get upset. But you should be upset about your own choices. Why did I do that? Why didn't I do that?

9:56Why did I, you know, why did I make this mistake? Why did I do this thing again that I told myself I was going to stop doing? Focus on you. Focus on your choices. Make good choices. That's how you exert control over the world. Something I, you know, I remind myself, you see what's going on in the world and you can despair, you can feel sad or you can go, look, I've got two little kids in my head. house who I'm responsible for, the biggest multi-generational impact I can have is in raising them well. And then I go, and this is something Seneca failed. It's like Seneca spent all these years beating his head against the wall, trying to change Nero.

10:31He's affected far more people, had far more impact in his writing, which he did control. So I go, okay, and look, I'm not going to yell at some person I know on social media for being silly and have the impact on one person, but I am going to sit down and write about this or talk about this on the podcast in a way that can reach a lot of people, right? Let's stay in our lanes. Let's do what we can do. Let's try to make a difference where we can. And if we all do that cumulatively, that is collective action. And that does have a big impact. So this is a short lesson today. It's a straightforward one, but it's so hard.

11:10And that's why Seneca is saying, you got to remind yourself constantly throughout the day. I'm going to focus on what's in my sphere of choice. That's where I have impact. I'm going to focus on allocating my energy properly. Not going to waste it on regret, not going to waste it on bitterness, on resentment, on anger, on fear, on worry, on hope. I'm going to focus on what I control. I'm going to make a difference there. That's what Stoic does.

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