An interview with Donald J. Robertson about his new graphic novel about Marcus Aurelius called Verissimus. We talk about all kinds of stoic history and the politics of his day.
Month: July 2022
Forget everything else. Keep hold of this alone and remember it: Each of us lives only now, this brief instant.
—Marcus Aurelius
Don’t let fear, low self-esteem and the negative voices hold you back from your true destiny.
—David Goggins
One of the hardest things for me, and I’m sure that many of you fall into the same category, is to know what you want and have the courage to go after it. There are plenty of reason why this happens, and for the most part it comes down to fear, and the two biggest are fear of failure, and fear of disapproval of others. Today I want to talk about some changes I’m making in my life, and how I’m facing these fears.
First, I want to let you know that I’m putting the podcast on indefinite hiatus. While the podcast has been one of the greatest things I’ve created, it’s also helped me realize that I need to stop procrastinating on pursuing the things I really want to do. I need to face those fears, take those risks, and use my time in a way that will make me the happiest.
Sometimes the worst thing is to have something that is moderately successful, but ultimately doesn’t take you where you want to go. It becomes an excuse to hide behind. While the podcast has been successful with over 4 million downloads and 3 million of those downloads in just this year, it is also something that takes up a lot of time and focuses my energy away from the things that I really want to do. It has become an excuse to avoid going for what I really want and avoiding the possibility of failing.
How I Got Here
The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.
—Alan Watts
The careers I wanted to go into when I was younger were theater, film, TV, video games, and music. I loved acting and singing and thought that if I could make a living doing any of those, I would have my dream job.
So how did I end up as a software developer? Because I was afraid that wouldn’t be able to make it in the arts. I started out with good intentions and at one point did have what I see now was my favorite job. I had a part-time job at a financial firm making videos and graphics, recording audio, and even making music videos for a rap artist that the owner was supporting. I loved that job, but it was only part time and rather than figure out how to make it in that arena, I got a job in tech and learned how to program. I was afraid so I took the easier path.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve had a pretty good career as a software developer. It pays well and I’ve been able to support myself and my family. I’m not complaining by any means. But often when we are successful in something, we’re afraid to step onto a different path because we’re afraid of failure. We get so used to being successful, that failing at something, even though we expect it because we’re just starting out, is often too much to bear. This is what has kept me from stepping up and pursuing the things I want. bcause I won’t be nearly as good in other areas as I am in programming, at least not for quite some time.
This happened to me a few years ago when I decided to learn to play cello. I’m a pretty decent pianist and singer, and in my mind, I thought that I should be able to pick up cello pretty easily. When I found that it was far more challenging that I had thought and I was not making the progress I thought I should, I gave it up. That failing at the time was just too much for me. I had become so used to being good in other areas of music that when I failed to live up to my expectations, I couldn’t handle it, and because our minds don’t like failure, rather than changing my expectations and putting in the work to become good, I just decided it wasn’t for me.
Lessons Learned
With all of that said, I’ve learned a lot of lessons from working on this podcast. I’ve learned a lot about myself, and how to apply stoicism in my life. I’ve learned that consistency is the key to any success. That putting out work, even if it’s not great is how to learn and get better, and then your work will be great. And even then, you’ll still put stuff out that’s not as good as you want, but you put it out anyway. I’ve said before:
Consistency is the killer of fear.
I’ve learned how to put together a good show with good content. I’ve become a better writer, and learned how to communicate difficult ideas and express them in a way that others can understand. I’ve learned how to dig a little deeper into things and have found that often times the better and more useful answer is counterintuitive and non-obvious.
I’ve learned how to speak better and use my voice to effectively convey my message. I feel more comfortable with being in front of the mic than I ever thought I would. I’ve learned how to record and master and put our episodes that wound up being close to professional level.
Creating this podcast has certainly been a good thing in my life, and I’m grateful for all the lessons I’ve learned and all the support of received from you along the way. But even with all those good things that have come from this journey, we always need to be re-evaluating what we are doing with our lives and make sure that we are on a path that we want to be on. We need to have the courage to step up and take risks for the things that will bring us closer to our true goals. We also need to have the courage to let go of the things that no longer serve us.
What’s Next?
You can accomplish anything if you can: 1) prioritize ruthlessly 2) control your attention. Both of these have become particularly hard in the present age. As such those who can control these two critical factors will rule the world.
—@TheAncientSage
For the past few years I’ve been dabbling in VR/AR/3D design. I find it exciting and a little scary because it’s not my area of expertise in the world of programming. But the more I dig into it, the more I see the possibilities for using this medium to create films, games, and musical experiences. I’m an artist at heart, and I love creating and exploring and finding ways to bring the things I dream up into existence. I know there’s a lot to learn, and I’ve been working up the courage and resolve to pursue this dream.
But to pursue this dream, I need to focus my time and energy on learning the tools of the trade and adding skills to my toolkit. In order to do this, I need to bring my focus, discipline, and dedication to this new venture, and let go of other distractions or I’ll burn myself out trying to do too much. If I don’t walk this path I’ll feel the same frustration that I’ve felt for much of my life, of knowing what I want, but not having the courage to step up and do what needs to be done.
Give yourself fully to your endeavors. Decide to construct your character through excellent actions and determine to pay the price of a worthy goal. The trials you encounter will introduce you to your strengths.
—Epictetus
So where does this leave the podcast? I plan on leaving the podcast up with my podcast host. I put a lot of time and energy into it, and I want to leave this out there as others may find them useful and helpful in understanding and applying stoicism in their lives. It’s possible that I may relate a book or an audio course at some point in the future, but for now, I need to focus my energy, time, and talents on becoming on what I’ve titled an “Immersive Experience Creator”.
If you enjoy this podcast and find value in it, I would really appreciate it if you would make a donation on Patreon. I have put thousands of hours of work into this podcast, so just as you would pay for an audio book, donating on Patreon would be helpful in offsetting hosting fees, and help fund my new ventures. You can find the page at https://patreon.com/stoiccoffee
Conclusion
Learning to let go of things that distract us from our path, especially things that are good, is really challenging. This is not a decision that I’ve come to lightly. It’s been filled with all kinds of second-guessing and trying to find ways to keep it going while I work on my other pursuits. But in the end, I realized that if I want to be successful in pursuing my dreams, I have give them my full attention. It has been a wonderful trip to share my thoughts and experiences with you, and I’m so grateful for all your support and wonderful emails. I hope that you have learned something from my experiences and insights, and I hope that when the time comes for you to have to make a hard choice of letting go of something good to go for something better, that you will have the courage to do so.
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Hello friends! Thank you for listening. If this podcast speaks to you, please consider give a donation on Patreon at https://patreon.com/stoiccoffee
You can also swing by the and pick up some great looking shirts and hoodies at the Stoic Coffee Shop.
Lastly if you know of someone that would benefit from or appreciate this podcast, please share it.
Thanks again for listening.
—
Hello friends! Thank you for listening. If this podcast speaks to you, please consider give a donation on Patreon at https://patreon.com/stoiccoffee
You can also swing by the and pick up some great looking shirts and hoodies at the Stoic Coffee Shop.
Lastly if you know of someone that would benefit from or appreciate this podcast, please share it.
Thanks again for listening.
Categories
215 – The Space Between
"When force of circumstance upsets your equanimity, lose no time in recovering your self-control, and do not remain out of tune longer than you can help. Habitual recurrence to the harmony will increase your mastery of it.”
― Marcus Aurelius
Over the past few weeks, I've been thinking a lot about equanimity and how it may be the most important idea that the stoics came up with. And the more I look into it, the more I see that this is the one of the most important principles, and a foundation for being able to apply the other principles more effectively. We can also see how important this is in other traditions such as Buddhism, especially Zen Buddhism, also promotes the idea of calming the mind as one of the highest virtues.
So why would this be the case?
I used to think that equanimity was a byproduct of following stoic principles. That if you learned to control what you can, and let go of the rest, then you could find more peace of mind. But the more I dig into it, the more I find it is almost the opposite. The calmer your mind, the easier it is to see what is under your control and what is not. The more you can keep an even keel, the more you can make better decisions under pressure.
Now don't get me wrong, practicing stoic principles can certainly help you have a calmer mind. When you learn to identify what you can't control and let go of those things, it certainly can reduce stress in your life. But if you are constantly feeling stressed, this process is much harder because you're starting out at a disadvantage.
Taking the time to practice mindfulness puts you at an advantage because you're already in a state of mind that is helpful. It's like the difference between preparing for a fight versus just being tossed into the ring at a moment's notice. Equanimity, mindfulness, meditation… all of these should not just be an afterthought, or "nice to have", but should be considered essential tools to your stoic practice.
Stimulus and Response
Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response.
—Viktor Frankl
When you are upset, you are likely to sacrifice the wellbeing of tomorrow to appease the hurt feelings of today. Not a good trade. Subject your emotions to a cooling-off period before you allow them to guide major decisions.
—@TheStoicEmperor
One of the most important things that being mindful helps us do is think long term. If we are able to take that space between stimulus and response, and choose our response rather than just react, we are able to choose things that will benefit us better in the long run. If we are constantly in a space of reactivity, we let our emotions override our rationality and often do things that might feed whatever we need in the short term, but can have long term negative consequences. We are also less in command of ourselves and are much more easily controlled by others.
When can learn to take that moment to make a choice rather than react is one of the most powerful things that we can learn to do in our lives. Giving ourselves the power to choose how we respond in any situation is the ultimate expression of self control and power. The fact that we are always looking to make a choice, means that it's more likely we'll respond in a way we are proud of, and that ultimately leads to better outcomes for ourselves and those around us.
Monkey Mind
Peace. It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart.
— Anonymous
Meditation and mindfulness are not the easiest things to do. Our minds are always on the run. The Buddhist have a great term for this called the "monkey mind". For many of us, when things get quiet, we get anxious and it feels like our minds are spinning even faster. What's really going on is that when you are not focusing on something, you see how busy your mind actually is. There is nothing wrong with this, it just is.
The most important thing that you can do with meditating is not to try and not think about anything, but to become more aware of what you're thinking. Meditation and mindfulness are just practices in awareness with each breath being like an anchor to maintain your state of observation. You take a breath, you notice a thought, you breathe out and just watch where the thought goes. Repeat.
Meditation and Mindfulness
Meditation is intermittent fasting for the mind. Too much sugar leads to a heavy body, and too many distractions lead to a heavy mind. Time spent undistracted and alone, in self-examination, journaling, meditation, resolves the unresolved and takes us from mentally fat to fit.
— Naval Ravikant
A skilled warrior controls and tames their anger and uses it as fuel when necessary, but never lets it drive their choices and actions. They know that letting anger or fear drive their actions is more dangerous than any enemy they may face. Doing our best to cultivate a mind that is thoughtful, calm, and patient prepares us to be more resilient when we feel anger or fear and want to lash out and say or do impulsive things.
Like most things, it's always challenging to take what we know and turn it into what we do. Turning our daily practice of mindfulness into something that we do as a habit is something we need to practice as often as possible. And the thing is that we will fail, because if we never failed, we would never need to be mindful because we would just be mindful all the time. We will fail in our practice, and then we'll remember to be mindful, which we will do for a while, until we forget, and then remember to be mindful…and repeat.
This never ending cycle becomes part of our practice to be a little better each day. To be a little more present each day. To live up to our ideals a little more closely each day. This is one of those ideas that is obvious, but still not easy to always follow. A good way to help set the stage is making a practice of meditation each morning to or journalling start the day off are always good ways to set the stage for the day. Then it's just about refocusing your awareness throughout the day with being mindful.
So what’s a simple way to practice mindfulness? Think of it like this: Just as a normal meditation practice is all about awareness of your thinking and bringing focus back to your breathing when your mind wanders off, mindfulness is a reoccurring meditation that you do throughout your day, to bring your awareness to your thinking. When you do this, you remind yourself to be as present as possible, to not worry about things from the past, because they cannot be changed, and to not stress about future events because they are unknown and have not yet arrived.
Conclusion
When you can be better about living in the present, which is what mindfulness is all about, you will be more attentive and deliberate about what you are working on. When you are more deliberate, you bring more of your faculties to bear, you do better work, and you make better decisions. When you practice meditation, you deliberately choosing to develop equanimity rather than just hoping that it just happens.
—
Hello friends! Thank you for listening. If this podcast speaks to you, join us over in the Stoic Coffee House. The Stoic Coffee House is a community built around the ideas of stoicism and the Stoic Coffee Break podcast.
Also stop by the website at stoic.coffee where you can sign up for our newsletter, and buy some great looking shirts and hoodies at the Stoic Coffee Shop.
Lastly if you know of someone that would benefit from or appreciate this podcast, please share it. Word of mouth is the best way to help this podcast grow. Thanks again for listening.
Categories
214 – Embody Your Philosophy
Don’t explain your philosophy. Embody it.
— Epictetus
Events in life mean nothing if you do not reflect on them in a deep way, and ideas from books are pointless if they have no application to life as you live it.
— Robert Greene
The hardest thing about any philosophy is being able to apply what you learn in real life. We can read all the books, watch all the videos, follow all the gurus, but until we actually apply what we've learned, all of that learning is worthless.
Developing a practice of reflection and thinking deep about your life experiences and philosophy is a challenging endeavor, because it is often difficult to actually apply what we know. We know what we should and shouldn’t eat, but we struggle to eat a diet that is healthy for us. We know we should work out and keep ourselves in shape, but getting out of bed for the early morning run is not easy when you want that extra bit of of sleep.
So how do we live our philosophy? How do we move past just book learning, and into application of what we have learned? This is something that has been a real challenge for me, so I’m guessing that it’s a challenge for others.
Learning to reflect on what life brings our way, what we can learn from it, and how we can grow from it is something that take effort and thoughtfulness. Connecting what we learn to how we act is always an ongoing process, but unless we figure out how to do that, then our knowledge is wasted, and we continue on as before.
To be honest, I don’t have some perfect way to apply philosophy, but it’s something that I think about every day. Every time I fail to keep an even keel when things are challenging, it’s always a struggle to slow down, breathe, and let go of the feelings that were so strong and overwhelming just moments before. But lately, I’ve been practicing a few ideas to help keep me in a mindset that has been more helpful and more aware.
Acceptance
Peace must be found in the imperfect present.
— The Stoic Emperor
One of the most important things that I’ve been working on is acceptance. Life is never going to be exactly the way that we want. Ever. There will always be something to complain about. There will always be wars, natural disasters, turmoil and chaos somewhere in the world. There will always be something "wrong".
Often, I have found myself feeling irritated or annoyed because things aren't the way that I want them. When we spend time wishing for things to be otherwise, we are refusing to accept reality as it is. Getting into a mindset of accepting things are they are and not as I wish is always a challenge.
The more I practice acceptance of what is, the easier it is to work with what is. Acceptance is not the same as resignation. We don't despair, but we don't also don't see the world through Pollyanna eyes. It's not that we give up trying to find positive elements in our situation, but find peace in the imperfectness of life.
Facing Challenges
Failure and deprivation are the best educators and purifiers.
—Albert Einstein
If everything is life was easy, there would be little incentive to improve and grow. Facing up to, and overcoming challenges is what brings the greatest pleasure in life. When we are simply given something with no effort on our own, we are robbed of the chance to learn and grow. I know for me, the things that I earned through hard work and persistence always feel more rewarding than things that I was just given.
When we face a great challenge, we get the opportunity to bring all our skills, wits, and wisdom to bear, as well as acquire new strengths and skills. If we are never tested, never challenged, then we stagnate or even atrophy. Muscles and skills that go unused are pretty much worthless unless we actually use and develop them.
Learning to view challenges as the key to growth is hard! We want things to be easy and go our way. I propose that we work on getting better at the meta-skill of seeing challenges as the path to growth not the obstacle. Then we can face any challenge with the right perspective.
Equanimity
The wise man is neither raised up by prosperity nor cast down by adversity; for always he has striven to rely predominantly on himself, and to derive all joy from himself.
— Seneca
Life is always going to be throwing you curveballs. Sometimes you're ready for them and knock it out of the park. Other times you can be as prepared as possible and you still falter. Still other times, you're caught completely off guard. There's no such thing as getting what you deserve (or not), because the universe doesn't really care. Life happens not as we want, but as it will, and we’re just along for the ride.
If we are wise, we recognize this truth and understand that our happiness should not be dependent on external things. If we attach our happiness to our careers or possessions, what happens when we lose those? You could get fired tomorrow. Your house could burn down. If your self worth, your pride, are wrapped up in those things, you are handing over your control to things outside of yourself.
When we recognize that we have control of our happiness by appreciating the good AND the bad, and recognize that this is just how life is, we are better able to take what happens in stride.
To be calm is the highest achievement of the self.
—Zen proverb
The more we learn about the brain, the we learn that we are constantly bombarded by stimulus, and everything that enters our conscious awareness impacts us, no matter how small. Add in the noise of the modern world and finding some peace of mind is becoming more and more of a challenge. Being calm is not just a matter of will, it's a matter of practice. The more we practice, the stronger our ability to call upon our ability to be calm.
And why is developing the skill of calmness so important? If we are constantly being buffeted about by every stimulus, sensation, or emotion, we are never really in control of ourselves. We are also easily manipulated by those who can arose our anger or fear.
Calmness for me does not necessarily mean quiet. One can practice mindfulness in the middle of chaos, which is one of the most important places to be calm. Equanimity is about the internal calmness, not about what is happening outside of ourselves. We need to be that calm in storm. The quest for equanimity is always an ongoing practice, and one of the most important skills we can develop.
Practice
I think the best way to live your philosophy is to cultivate a mindset or calmness . It’s taking that time each morning to set the mood for your day. Meditation, journal writing, exercise – these are all things that help us to get in the mindset that works to find that equanimity, that balance, that helps us in our daily lives. And when we practice meditating in the morning, it makes it just a little easier to be mindful throughout the day. That mindfulness can be that bit of awareness that we need that buys us those moments between stimulus and response that allows us to choose for ourselves and make wise choices, rather than just reacting.
Conclusion
Developing a useful mindset of equanimity is not something that just happens. It’s something that you have to cultivate and work on each day. It’s something that takes effort and constant reminders. You may remember to be mindful and aware of your thinking and what’s going on around you, only to forget again a few minds later, and have to bring your focus back to being mindful. But each and every time you fail, and remember, and bring your focus back to being mindful, then you have strengthened that mental muscle just a little more. And it’s the thoughts that count.
—
Hello friends! Thank you for listening. If this podcast speaks to you, join us over in the Stoic Coffee House. The Stoic Coffee House is a community built around the ideas of stoicism and the Stoic Coffee Break podcast.
Also stop by the website at stoic.coffee where you can sign up for our newsletter, and buy some great looking shirts and hoodies at the Stoic Coffee Shop.
Lastly if you know of someone that would benefit from or appreciate this podcast, please share it. Word of mouth is the best way to help this podcast grow. Thanks again for listening.