You Must Stay Outside of Time | 24 Life Changing Quotes From Epictetus

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1:29Welcome 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.

1:56You must stay outside of time. Technology is advancing rapidly. And while every generation has felt like it was impossible to keep up, today it really is mind-blowing to try to understand everything that's happening on the cutting edge of artificial intelligence, machine learning, quantum computing, biotechnology, the blockchain, virtual and augmented reality, and on and on. World events and trends continue to accelerate too. There is literally an inhuman amount of news produced each day, an incomprehensible amount of new content on every single platform, all of it delivered instantaneously, directly into your eyes and ears.

2:38Perhaps this is why the wisest people try to do the opposite of keeping up with it all. They eschew the latest on purpose. On a recent episode of the Daily Stoic podcast, the legendary music producer Rick Rubin, we actually did a fantastic double episode with him that you should listen to, he talked about why he doesn't try to chase trends. Yeah, I love music that is outside of time. And one of the things about using organic instruments is a piano sounds like a piano a hundred years ago, and it sounds like a piano today. and it'll sound like a piano in a hundred years. If you use the latest sounds, the newest sounds, the sounds of today, then tomorrow they'll sound like the sounds of yesterday.

3:25So it's a very delicate line to work with the newest of sounds because it can end up sounding very dated. Isn't this what we love about the Stoics too, that they are outside of time? Their wisdom is timeless because they weren't chasing trends but ideas that were stable in time. In meditations, we see Marcus quoting and referencing Euripides, Socrates, and Plato, writers from hundreds and hundreds of years before him. And this is no accident. In meditations, Marcus actually reminds himself to stop being bounced around by every bit of breaking news and gossip, telling himself to turn inward, to zoom out, to slow down.

4:07Sure, to be successful, we have to have some sense of what's happening in the world, but we shouldn't live and die by that. It's far better to be rooted in something deeper, something less urgent, something more timeless. Keep a finger on the pulse of today, but remember that most of the trends of today will tomorrow sound like the trends of yesterday. So let's continue to invest our time and attention and trust in ideas and tools and art that is outside time. Let us do our best to live in that space too, rejoicing, as Marcus said, quoting a fifth century poet named Empedocles existing in perfect, timeless stillness.

4:45That's what I think is so amazing about meditations, of course, is that it is this timeless, but totally timely bit of advice. My copy is, you know, 20 years old now, but it feels just as fresh as when I first cracked it. The only thing that struggled to keep up is the physical book itself. We've got this new, awesome leather bound edition. You've heard me talking about it. You can check that out. It's store.dailystoic.com. I'll link to it in today's show notes. Makes a great gift also, but it's what I have now on my bedside table.

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6:14Epictetus. If you wish to improve, be content to appear clueless or stupid. Don't just say that you have read books. Show that through them, you have learned to think better.

6:35I cannot escape death, but at least I can escape the fear of it.

6:44Don't explain your philosophy. Embody it. You become what you give your attention to.

6:57It's impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows. If you are ever tempted to look for outside approval, realize that you have compromised your integrity. If you need a witness, be your own. How long are you going to wait before you demand the best for yourself? If your choices are beautiful, so too will you be. If someone succeeds in provoking you, realize that your mind is complicit in the provocation. It's not things that upset us, but our judgments about things.

7:54Circumstances don't make the man They only reveal him to himself

8:02Welcome events in whichever way they happen This is the path to peace The key is to keep company Only with people who uplift you Whose presence calls forth your best The essence of philosophy is that a man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things

8:35No man is free who is not master of himself

8:42The more we value things outside our control, the less control we have You are hurt the moment you believe yourself to be. Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants. Seek not the good in external things. Seek it in yourselves.

9:14Curb your desire. Don't set your heart on so many things and you will get what you need.

9:24Devote the rest of your life to making progress.

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