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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world. Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. I told you this that back in February, I had to fly to Hawaii to do a little chat with a lady named Oprah.
That hasn't come out yet, but another honor happened to me on that trip, which is that I did a virtual talk to the team at the Irwin Army Community Hospital in Fort Riley, Kansas. It was a group that included more than 150 health care staff members, both military and civilian providers, who all serve at that hospital.
And before I hopped on the talk, I heard a bunch of them were listeners of the Daily Stoke podcast, which was really cool. So on today's episode, I wanted to bring you some of their questions. Some of these are men and women in uniform questions. serving in a difficult, stressful, complicated moment in our history. Appreciate them having me on.
I appreciate that stoicism is something they are relying on. And it was an honor to get to talk to them. By the way, if you want to see me come talk, if you want to ask me some questions, I'm going to be in Portland, I think, in two weeks. I'm going to be in San Francisco, Boston, D.C., Chicago. bunch of cities. I'm going to Australia in the fall.
You can grab all those tickets at dailystoiclive.com. Most of the shows are almost sold out. So you got to grab those. I'll sign your books. You can ask me questions, all that kind of stuff, dailystoiclive.com.
So how do you apply stoic principles when the obstacle isn't abstract, but emotional and human?
That's a really interesting way to think about it. So it's like if you're deciding to take it personally, that can be good in the sense that you're like, this is designed just for me. And this is a test that's going to make me better. And I love this challenge.
This might be that there's this expression popular in socialism called amor fati, which means a love of fate where you don't just like sort of bear the circumstances, but you're like excited about them. So if you're taking things personally that way, like go for it. That's awesome. But if you're taking it personally, like I'm being singled out, this is singularly unfair.
This is, you know, they're out to get me. No one has to deal with as many things as I have to deal with. You know, now what you're doing is you're taking an objective thing and you're making it subjective in a way that's only making it harder. And I do think it's worth pointing out like, OK, first and foremost, like the world is indifferent to us, right? Like the pandemic doesn't care about you.
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Chapter 2: How can Stoicism help us manage emotional and personal obstacles?
But he says we always have the ability to change what we're trying to do, and that this annoying, obnoxious person presents an opportunity for us to practice different virtues, patience, understanding, creativity,
uh you know uh empathy finding the good you know all all of that right so so this is a fact of of life that goes back at least 2 000 years and i think you also make a good point that he's not sort of superhuman he's writing in meditations the reason we have this this book and the reason we're talking about these ideas is because they were not natural and second nature to him but he really had to work at it and so if we can see this as a muscle that's that i think that's also really
really important. As far as actually putting into practice, I think that's the other thing you raised there, which is great. This isn't something you are or you aren't. It requires willpower. It requires work. And the more you are taking care of yourself, the easier that's going to be.
Like if we're saying, hey, obnoxious people are a chance to practice patience, well, you're going to have more patience if you got a good night's sleep, if you've been eating well, if you have a workout practice that can be kind of a release valve for you, the more you are taking care of yourself, the easier it is to bring some of these virtues to bear on this situation.
Or even something simpler, right? If we take it as a virtue, you know, you want to get up early, you want to get after the day, which is something that Stoics talk a lot about. Like, I think it behooves you not to stay up till two in the morning scrolling on your phone, right? Or, you know, it's easier to be cheerful and to see the good in a situation if you're not shaking off a hangover, right?
Right. And so so how you take care of yourself physically and mentally is really, really important. And then and then, you know, having these practices, whether it's a journaling practice where where we sort of can work off some of that frustration or or sort of fight to be our better selves. If we have, you know, a friend group or a support group where we're working through things.
if we're, you know, taking advantage of, of therapy, if we're not over packing and over scheduling our day to the point where we never have two seconds to sit down and just be reflective, like all this stuff is really, really important. And so I think it, I think,
We can't just expect ourselves in the same way that an athlete doesn't treat their body like a garbage can and then expect elite performance. It's about structuring your day, your life, your habits around facilitating being what you want to be in those high stakes or tempting or frustrating situations. Maybe you've been hearing the buzz about live shopping lately. I know I have.
And it makes sense. Like people are already on their phones. They're hanging out. They're looking for stuff to do. So why wouldn't business want to meet people where they're at? If you're hoping for people to find your listing or waiting for them to walk into your store, I know a little bit about that. You're setting yourself up for disappointment on whatnot.
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