Worry About This And Forget The Rest

0:02Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength, insight, and wisdom in everyday life. Each one of these passages is based on the 2 ,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. For more, you can visit us, dailystoic.com.

0:29Worry about this and forget the rest. There was once a young, promising Greek politician whose rise threatened some established leaders. As a way to blunt his potential, they promoted him to a, and promote theirs in quotes, to a job overseeing the city's sewers and water. It was supposed to be a humiliation or at the very least a dead-end job. Instead, he did such a good job, he endeared himself to the population and with discipline and earnestness, Plutarch writes, that he proceeded to transform that insignificant office into a great and respected honor. even though previously it had involved nothing more than overseeing the clearing of dung and the diverting of water from the streets.

1:12Whatever we do, if we do it well, is noble. We told a related story in the Daily Dad email recently. Email on a podcast we do every day, like the Daily Stoic. You can just add it into your Spotify or Apple subscriptions and just get an extra short message every single day. But the point is, we told this story from Toni Morrison. She came home one day complaining about her job cleaning someone's house. to her father. And she expected her dad to get angry on her behalf or to pity her. And instead, he just said, listen, you don't live there. You live here with your people. Go to work, get your money and come on home.

1:48We 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. My wife introduced me to Dr.

2:24Becky's books. I love them. I've recommended them a million times. I've had 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. Becky. She's been a great influence for me as a parent and just as a human being.

3:06And Daily Stoic listeners can join for 15 % off with code STOIC15. You just got to head over to goodinside.com to catch the events. What he was teaching her, Morrison later wrote, became a set of principles she based her life around. Whatever the work, do it well. Not for the boss, but for yourself. You make the job. It doesn't make you. Your real life is with us, your family. You are not the work you do. You are the person you are. What's in our control is how we do the job. What's in our control is who we are while we do the job. Whether it's appreciated, whether it's an impressive or lowly job, whether the project succeeds or fails, that is not up to us.

3:55What's up to us is that we do our best. What's up to us is that we are the best we are capable of being. The rest, the Stoics say, is not even worth worrying about. Anyways, do check out The Daily Dad. It's one of my favorite things to do. And check out The Daily Dad book too, which we have a new leather edition. You can grab at dailydad.com slash leather.

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