Who Could Have Seen It? | 9 Stoic Lessons From Running Every Single Day

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0:54I'm picking my kids up from school today and then doing our weekly routine, which is I take them over to Whole Foods. and we get all our groceries for the week. Then we have dinner. It's one of their favorite things to do. It's one of my favorite things to do. And then my wife loves it because she doesn't have to take care of it. This holiday season, whether you're a guest or hosting the big dinner Whole Foods Market has what you need to delight everyone at your table. They even have heat and eat sides from the prepared foods department. You can make Whole Foods your one-stop shop. Everything follows Whole Foods Market's strict ingredients standards so you know it'll be delicious and good for you.

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1:40Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we read a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you in your everyday life. On Tuesdays, we take a closer look at these Stoic ideas, how we can apply them in our actual lives. Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy.

2:07Who could have seen it? Everything seems fine. Everything seems better than fine. Your life is going great. You're happy. You're in love. Your finances are great. But will it last? Or will fortune, as Seneca said she is wont to do, surprise you with a reversal? Could you have seen, had you been walking on Amsterdam Avenue and caught sight of the bridal party that day, how utterly unprepared the mother of the bride was to accept what would happen before the year 2003 had even ended? Joan Didion writes hauntingly in her beautiful book Blue Nights, which you should absolutely read. The father of the bride died at his own dinner table, she writes The bride herself in an induced coma, breathing only on a respirator Not expected by the doctors in the intensive care unit to live the night The first in a cascade of medical crises that would end 20 months later with her own death No one can see what fortune has in store for us, the Stoics remind us And that's the point We are in the dark We are not in control We live in an unwalled city We are vulnerable.

3:14Seneca knew this firsthand, exiled once by unexpected illness, another time by the whim of the emperor, and a third time a knock on the door signaled that his death sentence had been handed down. We cannot take the present moment for granted, because the future that lies before us is uncertain. Life itself is uncertain. Live accordingly, or rather, as Seneca said, live immediately.

3:42So the most philosophical part of my day is also the most physical. It's when I get off my ass, I go outside, I put on my shoes, and I go for a run. Four miles, five miles, six miles, sometimes 10 miles. Sometimes it's hot, like today it's over 100 degrees. Sometimes it's freezing, sometimes it's snowing. Sometimes it's early in the morning, sometimes it's in the afternoon. It doesn't matter, but it's that I take the time to push myself physically, and then in that time when the mind is asserting dominance over the body, when I can't do anything but sort of think, but also at the same time be present, that's when I'm practicing Stoicism.

4:15And we know that's what Marcus Aurelius and Seneca and Epictetus and Chrysippus and Cleanthes and so many of the other Stoics did. They were wrestlers, boxers, runners, weightlifters, gladiators. They were pushing themselves physically as part of their philosophical pursuit. In today's episode, we're gonna talk about the physical practice that I do the most, running, and the lessons that long distance running, pushing myself physically have taught me not just about stoicism, but about life and what stoicism has taught me about how to be a better runner and athlete.

4:50I think if you just do one hard thing a day, that puts you in good shape. That's a win, right? One of the things about running is that it's always a win for me. It doesn't matter if it's a couple miles, doesn't matter if it's a lot of miles. What matters is that I didn't wanna do it. I know that I should do it. and then I did do it. It's about asserting that dominance that we talked about. It's about seeing what's on the other side of that sacrifice and that difficulty, right? And what's usually on the other side is a greater capacity. You realize that you're stronger than you thought you were.

5:19You have more endurance than you thought you did. You just have more in you period than you thought you did. And that's what running is all about to me.

5:30I just finished my run in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Remember what Seneca said, we treat the body rigorously so it may not be disobedient to the mind. You get up early, you put in work, even though it's cold, even though you're tired, even though you'd like to stay under the covers, as Marcus really says, you put in the work so you remind your body who is in charge, that you're in charge, that you decide how this is going to go throughout the course of the day and throughout the course of your life. You're in charge, you treat the body rigorously so it's not disobedient to the mind.

6:02You have to search for this idea that struggle is difficult or, you know, like the title of your book, The Obstacle is the Way. Like getting through things is how you build a stronger foundation. It's how you develop character. It's how the mind understands how to manage difficult situations. Well, and I think it's a transferable skill. So like you're doing it in the cold plunge or running or fighting or whatever. And then when I'm working on a book and books are hard, you know, and they're like halfway through, I'm like, this isn't coming together, this sucks. Should I stop? I'm like, I know this feeling very well.

6:39And I know that you don't listen to this feeling. So like, fuck off. Because you're gonna go through hard things in life and you want to have cultivated a sense of like, not quitting. Things are hard.

6:54You have to run your own race. Seneca defines tranquility or peace or happiness, this word euphemia, as a sense of being on the path that you're on and not being distracted or misled by the paths that crisscross yours. Like everyone's going to be on their own journey. Everyone has their own potentials, their own limit. And so I think of athletics not being in competition with someone else, but being in competition with myself. I got out there. I'm running. I don't care if other people are passing me. I don't care if other people are in better shape than me. I don't care about anything that anyone else is doing.

7:33I care about what I'm doing. I care about the race I'm trying to run. I care about the path that I'm on, where I'm going, and I don't get distracted by the people or the paths or the footsteps or the runners or the swimmers or whatever it is that crisscross mine.

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8:59People ask me as a runner if I'm like training for a marathon. I think people struggle with the idea of doing something because you enjoy doing the thing and the thing makes you better. They want to have an external goal. They want to have some sort of validation or has to be a race where you're competing and trying to beat everyone else. To me, the marathon is waking up every day and doing the thing. As the stoics say, that's in my control. I control that. Even an injury, I can push through that. But if my metric is qualifying for something, beating other people, being accepted to something, well, then I've handed over the control to something else.

9:31And I've also taken this thing that I enjoy doing and turned it into a thing that other people have influence or control. I've turned it into a job, so to speak. I have no problem with people who race and do those other things. If that's what motivates you, great. But for me, I try to keep my motivation intrinsic. Epictetus says, if you want to win, find a competition in which you are the only one in it. And that's how I think about physical fitness. That's how I think about running. That's how I think about exercise. And that's also how I think about writing. And that's how I think about my work.

9:59There's a line from Musonius Rufus. He says, you know, when you do something weak to get pleasure, the pleasure passes quickly, but the shame sticks around. But he says, when you do something hard, when you push yourself, when you do something that takes strength, the struggle passes quickly, but the virtue, the benefits, it sticks around, right? And so there's a point in every run, there's a point in every weightlifting session, there's a point in every physical thing that you do where you're wondering if it's worth it. You're getting all the consequences, you're paying all the costs up front, and you don't just get the benefit at the end when the endorphins kick in or whatever, and when you're a little bit proud of yourself, but you get the benefits way down the road, right?

10:36When you have to jog up a flight of stairs to get something, when, you know, the day runs longer than you want it to be. When a project, when a book for me takes longer than I thought, I know what I'm capable of. I've practiced it running. The running was both building the muscle, but it's also the microcosm that's reminding me what I'm capable of, what I can draw on. And that's what I take from my running practice.

11:01There's a great video that Arnold Schwarzenegger did in the middle of the pandemic. He was talking about people who were sort of stuck inside or people's routines were disrupted, people were overwhelmed. He said, just that you do one thing every day. This doesn't have to be a lot. Just do one thing every day. And that's kind of how I think about physical fitness. Obviously, it's good to have goals. Obviously, it's good to push yourself. Obviously, it's good to do a lot of things each day. But if you can start with just one thing, that's progress. Just do one thing every day. Seneca says that well-being is realized by small steps, but it's no small thing.

11:30The little things add up. So if you think about your physical practice, if you think about getting better, is just doing one thing, one positive step every day. It's not everything, but it is a start.

11:43Get up and be active in the morning. That's the key. You are building the muscle of doing when you get up early and you do something. I don't care if it's running. I don't care if it's meditating. I don't care if it's taking a cold shower. I don't care if it's just sitting and reading. But the point is you get up early, you own the morning, and by owning the morning, you own the day. Mark Cirilli says, what were you put on this planet to do to huddle under the covers and be warm? No, you were not. He says go do what you were put here to do. Do what your nature demands. That's how you own the morning.

12:18I think there are a few main things for me with running particularly. First of all, it's just like a form of meditation for me. It's a way to be outdoors. Like if I'm working on a writing problem I've got some structural problem and that I can't figure out in my head and then I'll go for a run and it's like I won't usually solve that problem, but something I didn't even know I was thinking about will like bubble up and I'll have some solution for that. So sometimes actually I worry when I got injured. A little while ago I was worried I wouldn't be able to write because I wouldn't be able to run since that's where I solved a lot of my structural problems.

12:45Like in college I was an 800 meter runner. This is a short race, less than two minutes, about a half mile. And I would constantly make these goals of, oh, I want to run this time. Then you cross the finish line and either you got that time or you didn't. So you're happy if you did and you're pissed if you didn't. And I sort of started to realize that that doesn't really help you do it. It just makes you happy or sad once it's done. And so I started making much more actionable goals, like let me run the first lap under a certain time or make a big move with 300 meters to go.

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