You Are Responsible For How They Make You Feel | Watch Over Your Perceptions

0:00Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world. You are responsible for how they make you feel. It wasn't a nice thing to say. It wasn't a good thing to do. They suck for doing it. Perhaps they're a person to steer clear of, like the metaphorical or perhaps literal boxer that Marcus Aurelius talked about, the one who gouges and bites in the ring. But you know what? It's still your fault if it makes you feel bad, if it provokes an angry response from you in turn. At the core of Stoicism is this idea that our emotions are our responsibility.

0:48No one can make us frustrated. No one can offend us either, Epictetus said, not without us being complicit in the taking of offense. Our job, as we have said many times here, is to pause and reflect after someone says or does something. It's to ask ourselves who this person we're about to let in our head is, whether we really need to consent to the injury of the second arrow. We can shrug this off. We can move on. We can focus our mind elsewhere. We can decide not to be like them. That's our responsibility. What I try to do when I hear the thing, when I see the thing, when I get the email about the thing, is I try to pause and reflect, right?

1:37That's what stoicism is. It's I see this, I have this feeling, but do I trust this feeling? Do I like what this feeling is evoking in me? Is this feeling true? Seneca said we should look in the mirror, see what that expression looks like on us. That's obviously what we built, the daily stoic pause and reflect medallion around. It's a little reminder to have in your pocket. If you have a little problem with your temper, which I think we all do. It's just a great reminder. It's got all the letters of the alphabet on the back. The Stoics were saying that you want to count those letters before you react, before you put the blame on the other person for how they made you feel.

2:16Just a little moment there to pause and reflect and consider who is responsible for what. I love this thing. I carry it with me always. And I think you might benefit from doing the same. You can grab that at store.dailystoic.com. I'll link to it in today's show notes.

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5:29Watch over your perceptions. Every moment brings a flood of impressions of the world around us, and our minds are filled with the perceptions that arise with them. The Stoics teach us that we must keep a constant watch over this flood, as if we are standing guard to protect something of vital importance. What is it that we are protecting? Our peace of mind, clarity, and freedom, all of which are anchored in our perceptions. Epictetus reminds us that we need to pay attention to what matters and learn how to ignore so many of the relentless provocations that come our way. That's from the Daily Stoic Journal, obviously.

6:10And here we have Epictetus telling us, Keep constant guard over your perceptions, for it is no small thing you are protecting, but your respect, trustworthiness, and steadiness, peace of mind, freedom from pain and fear. In a word, your freedom. For what would you sell these things? Epictetus discourses. An important place to begin philosophy is this, a clear perception of one's own ruling principle. That's Epictetus' discourses as well. I don't agree with those who plunge headlong into the middle of the flood and who, accepting a turbulent life, struggle daily in great spirit with difficult circumstances.

6:49The wise person will endure that, but won't choose it, choosing to be at peace rather than at war. Seneca, Moral Letters, 28. It's tricky, right? I mean, And the stillics ask us to be active. They ask us to be involved. They ask us to be engaged. And then somehow they expect us to be at peace, to not be bothered by what's happening in the world. That's the tricky thing, right? Like you can go off in your cave, right? You can go on your 10-day meditation retreat and get some semblance of peace or stillness. The tricky thing, and this is what I was trying to write in that book as well, the tricky thing is to find peace now, within yourself, while engaged, while fully aware of what's happening in the world.

7:39What you don't know about, what you tune out, what you pretend doesn't exist, you know, it's easy not to be bothered by. But the key to Stoicism is finding the ability, the strength to have that peace and stillness despite everything that's happening. I hope And stillness is the key with the story of Seneca trying to write a letter to Lucilius. And he's in this noisy apartment in Rome. And, you know, he's saying, look, I didn't choose this. I had to do it. That's the cost of what his philosophy is demanding to him. The Epicurean said, hey, go flee to the garden. Seneca has to be engaged. He has to live in the city, has to be involved.

8:18But can he find peace within that? And he says that you can. You can find peace. You can become, as Marcus Aurelius talked about, the rock that the waves are crashing over, but eventually become still around. And we do this by keeping guard over our perceptions, as Epictetus is saying. It's knowing what to care about and what not to care about. You know, I've had Mark Manson on the podcast before. You know, the subtle art of not giving a fuck is not caring about anything. It's about finding the right things to care about and things not to care about. So that sort of discernment is really essential to managing our emotions and our perceptions, which is the theme in the journal this month.

9:01As we say, every moment brings a flood of impressions, a flood of news, a flood of interruptions, a flood of things that we're called to have opinions about, to react to, that are vying for our attention. And our ability to stand guard against this, to let the good things in, to keep the bad things out, that's the key. That's the struggle. That's the fight that we're all engaged in. And, you know, even me, obviously I live out in the country a little bit. I live the life of a writer, which allows me, you know, some shelter from the craziness of, you know, a person who has to commute into a, you know, a major city and work in an office with dozens of other people or hundreds of other people and TVs blaring and phone calls and meetings.

9:46And yet even there, amidst my sort of privileged situation, I have to decide what to let in and what not to let in. You know, what role does the phone play in your life? What role does, you know, your colleagues or your partners play in your life? You know, how disciplined are you about staying on task while you're in it? How long are you able to maintain your focus on what matters? Even if nothing's going on, is your mind the enemy of itself? Are you drawing yourself towards here? Are you drifting? Are you daydreaming? How to stay focused, how to concentrate like a Roman, as Marcus said, that's the most important thing.

10:22And so having a clear perception about our own mind, our own limitations, our own temptations, this is really the key. That's what we're working on here. That's what I want you to think about today and this week. Remember, keep constant guard over your perceptions, for it's no small thing you are protecting. You're protecting your respect, your trustworthiness, your steadiness, your peace of mind, freedom from pain and fear. In a word, what you're protecting is your freedom.

10:52Hey, it's Ryan. Thank you for listening to the Daily Stoic Podcast. I just wanted to say we so appreciate it. We love serving you. It's amazing to us that over 30 million people have downloaded these episodes in the couple of years we've been doing it. It's an honor. Please spread the word, tell people about it. And this isn't to sell anything. I just wanted to say thank you.

11:22JP TSE