It Shows Us This | Your Actual Needs Are Small
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How does the episode frame history as both misdeeds and greatness?
Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world. It shows us this. On the one hand, history is a catalogue of human misdeeds, but conquests, cruelty, stupidity, and horrors. It's the same thing happening, as Mark Streley said again and again, no escape from the rhythm of events. On the other hand, is history not also a catalogue of human greatness? People who push back against conquest, cruelty, stupidity, and horror, periods of innovation and creation. Innumerous examples of beauty and art, Isn't Marcus Reelis an example of all that? History shows us how to behave, the great David McCullough writes in his short book, History Matters, which I've raved about, Carrie at the Painted Porch.
He said History teaches, it reinforces what we believe in, what we stand for, and what we ought to be willing to stand for. Both the inspiring and the terrifying events of history do this, both the good and the bad do this. The heroes and the villains do this. They show us what to do and what not to do. The question for today is who will you be?
What Stoic lesson does the host share about our actual needs being small?
Who will you learn from? What will your study of history, which you should always be doing, show you?
Your actual needs are small. This is an entry from the Daily Stoic. Nothing can satisfy greed, but even a small measure satisfies nature. So it is that the poverty of an exile brings no misfortune, for no place of exile is so barren as to not produce ample support for a person. This is Seneca in his consolation to his mother. It can be beneficial to reflect on what you used to accept as normal. Consider your first paycheck and how big that seemed, or your first apartment with its own bedroom and bathroom in the ramen you gladly scarfed down in the kitchen. Today, as you become more successful, these conditions would hardly feel sufficient. In fact, you probably want even more than what you have right now.
Yet just a few years ago these paltry conditions were not only enough, they felt great. When we become successful, we forget how strong we used to be. We are so used to what we have we half believe that we'd die without it. Of course, this is just the comfort talking.
Why does the host compare modern comforts to wartime rationing?
In the days of world wars, our grandparents and parents made do with rationed gas, butter, and electricity. They were fine, just as you have been fine when you had less. Remember today that you are okay if things suddenly go wrong. Your actual needs are quite small. There is very little that could happen that would truly threaten your survival. Think about that, and adjust your worries and fears accordingly. There is a passage where I talk about this in Disciplines Destiny, which let me grab real fast. I talk in part one about avoiding the superfluous, right? And I tell the story of Cato the Elder, and he says, nothing is cheap if it is superfluous. He's talking about cultivating a place where you don't have more than you need and people can't take that from you, right?
I say this in the in the chapter, I say, think about how content you were with less just a few years ago, how much more frugal you were by necessity, how much less you got by on. Do you look back at those younger years when you were striving and struggling as somehow lacking? As something you're bitter about? Now usually those were happy days. We almost missed them.
How does the story of the host’s first high‑salary job illustrate excess?
Things were simpler then, cleaner. There was more clarity. Most of the luxuries that lay in the future we did not even know about. We didn't pine for them. We were ignorant of even their possibility. And when you realize this, that the less you desire, the richer you are, the freer you are, the more powerful you are, you have something that can't be taken away from you. So the Stoics want you to realize how little you need for the happy life. To get personal for a second, I think about the job that I dropped out of college for. I I've told this story before, but I remember I was offered thirty thousand dollars. That was my salary. And I remember thinking, I may have even said it out loud, and I'm both mortified and find it hilarious.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
How does the episode frame history as both misdeeds and greatness?
0:00–1:17
2
What Stoic lesson does the host share about our actual needs being small?
1:17–2:39
3
Why does the host compare modern comforts to wartime rationing?
2:39–3:50
4
How does the story of the host’s first high‑salary job illustrate excess?
3:50–4:46
5
What does the Cato the Elder anecdote teach about avoiding the superfluous?
4:46–5:31
6
How does Seneca’s exile letter reinforce the idea of not clinging to possessions?
5:31–5:56
Speakers
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