self awareness

137 – Worthy of Your Potential

“Tentative efforts lead to tentative outcomes. Therefore, 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. Remain steadfast…and one day you will build something that endures: something worthy of your potential.”

― Epictetus

Show Notes:

  • One of most important habits to cultivate is a strong work ethic.
  • Time and dedicated effort make it more fulfilling.
  • There’s a saying: “How you do one thing is how you do everything.”
  • Often, trying to take shortcuts, we’re often wasting more time going back to fix what wasn’t done well, than if we’d just done it right in the first place.
  • Sometimes, best shortcut is to do good work.
  • And if you’re going to put effort into something, why half ass your way through it? That’s wasted time.
  • If we’re always looking for the easy way, then we may miss out on a more difficult path that has a greater reward.
  • Hard work makes us to get stronger.
  • We’ll never climb a great mountain if we’re only climbing hills.
  • If you’re running a marathon, and you take shortcut and make it to the finish line, then you really didn’t run a marathon.
  • Getting to the finish line and completing the race are two different things.
  • While it’s great to get to the end, how we got there is more important than getting there.
  • And why are we always so focused on getting to the end?
  • When we get to the end, that means the journey is over.
  • It’s the journey, it’s doing the work, it’s the process that’s important.
  • If we’re making only tentative efforts, then we never achieve that mastery which allows to excel at something.
  • Whether we’re building a business, composing music, or writing a book, or training for a marathon, we should dedicate ourselves to our work.
  • And we you achieve that mastery, you’ll be in place where you can create something that endures, something that’s worthy of your potential.

Photo by Andreas Fidler on Unsplash

135 – No Easy Thing

“You must know that it is no easy thing for a principle to become a man’s own, unless each day he maintain it and hear it maintained, as well as work it out in life.”

– Epictetus

Show Notes:

  • How often do we hear something, think that we understand it, but yet it still takes us quite a while to make it a part of our daily life?
  • Change is not easy.
  • Studies show that it takes 3-6 weeks for a habit to become ingrained, depending on the complexity of the habit.
  • It also depends on if you are trying create a new habit or replace an existing habit.
  • And that’s just for a single habit done daily.
  • How much information do you get in your life that you want to implement?
  • How many things are there that distract you from your habit?
  • If we want something to become a habit, I’ve found that it’s best to focus on one thing.
  • Work on it until you don’t have to think about it.
  • Then move on the next thing, and repeat.
  • If you want to exercise, do it every day, even if you don’t do it well.
  • If you want to be less angry, first pay attention to your mood.
  • Just getting it done each day is more important than the quality.
  • Creating this podcast for me was first about getting it done each day.
  • Then, once the routine was created, I was able to focus on the quality.
  • Is there a principle or a habit that you want to improve in in your life?
  • What can you do today to move you little closer to creating that habit?
  • Focus on the hardest part – creating the habit.
  • Worry about the quality later.
  • Soon you’ll have a shiny new habit.
  • And then you can start on the next one.

Photo by Scott Gruber on Unsplash

127 – Laugh in The Face Of Evil

 

“If evil be said of thee, and if it be true, correct thyself; if it be a lie, laugh at it.”

― Epictetus

Show Notes:

  • When I read this quote the first thing that came to mind was “I laugh in the face of evil!” 🙂
  • How often do we get upset at what others say about us?
  • How often do we let what others say about define who we are?
  • Why get upset about their opinion, esp if it’s a lie?
  • Remember, as Stoics we need to open to correction, because what we believe and how we see the world could be totally wrong.
  • We are going to make mistakes.
  • We need to act with integrity and decide if they said has merit.
  • So if someone points out a flaw, we should be thankful because we now know what to correct.
  • And if what is said about you is patently false, rather than let it upset, you should simply laugh in the face of evil.
  • On the surface this quote is telling us that we shouldn’t let what others say about us bother us, because it’s just their opinion, their way of seeing the world.
  • But if we dig a little deeper, what this quote is also telling us is that we need to deal with reality as it it, and not what we want it to be.
  • The reality is we will make mistakes. We’re not perfect. And there will be times when we fail to uphold our standards.
  • Often we don’t see the crappy things that we do, because sometimes because we don’t want to see them. Our ego gets in the way.
  • If we act with integrity should be willing to own our actions, and the outcome of our actions.
  • Don’t own others reactions. Everyone is responsible for their own emotions and reactions.
  • Be grateful for your enemies because they are often the only ones that tell you the truth.
  • And if they lie, laugh in the face of evil.

 

121 – Anger If Not Restrained…

“Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it.”

― Seneca

Show Notes

• Today’s topic is one that is a bit personal to me. It’s something that I struggle with at times.

• I’ll get upset about something, and because I let anger get the best of me, I make the situation far worse than the event that I got angry about in the first place.

• And getting angry also causes me to ruin my inner peace. We make myself unhappy by not dealing with anger in a constructive way. I give ourselves a bad day.

• And it’s because sometimes anger feels good. That righteous indignation when we feel that someone has done us wrong and that we have the right to put them in their place.

• Anger is something that each one of us have to deal with.

• We don’t need to turn off anger. Repressing what we feel is not a good idea either.

• But dealing with it in a healthy way is something that we can all learn.

• We can feel the feelings, acknowledge them, then decide what to do about them.

• We can ask whether we were actually harmed. Remember, we are only harmed if we believe we have been harmed.

• We can ask ourselves if our response will do more harm than good.

• We can ask ourselves if this will be important in the future, or will it be some forgotten trifle.

• By giving into anger is like kicking the hornet’s nests because it was in our way, when we could have just as easily gone around

• I know that we’ve discussed anger fairly often on this podcast, but being able to apply principles in your lives is a daily practice. A daily exercise.

• Just as we wouldn’t just go to the gym once and workout and declare that we are in shape and never go back again, working on applying these principles is something that we need to work on everyday. It’s a way to get in our mental exercise.

• And like an athlete, we’re going to have days where we run the perfect race and everything works in our favor. We also going to have a lot of days where we’re off and we fall flat on our faces.

• And just like an athlete we need to gauge our fitness level for the day, and put in our best effort, regardless of how meager it might be.

 

Photo by Gabriel Matula on Unsplash

119 – Who is Your Master?

“Any person capable of angering you becomes your master;

he can anger you only when you permit yourself to be disturbed by him.”

― Epictetus

Show Notes:

• Stoics believed strongly that we are all in control of our own emotions

• One of the strongest emotions we have to deal with is anger

• From an evolutionary standpoint it seems to makes sense. We feel threatened and we respond in a way that we think will deal with the threat.

• But the thing is, fear is usually the response to a physical threat. Anger is usually response from a threat to our ego. Anger is usually what we use to try and control something that we can’t.

• When someone speaks poorly of us, or does or says something we don’t like, we’re trying to control them through anger.

• If someone is easily offended and flies off the handle at even the smallest thing, they are are trying to control others.

• But when we get angry we’re failing to control the one thing we truly can control – ourselves. We’re giving control of our emotions to someone else.

• Have you ever seen a kid do things just to get a rise out of someone? Maybe their siblings or their parents? It’s their way of trying to see if they can control the other person.

• This is why politicians like to get people angry about something. Why they choose a polarizing side on an issue. It’s about control.

• Get people angry about something and you have a lot more control over them.

• People don’t go to war because they’re happy and want to be kind to others.

• They go to war because they’re angry about something. And it may have started of being afraid of something, but was channeled into anger.

• Remember, the only thing that you can control is yourself, so it’s up to you to decide – are you the master of yourself, or are you going to give that power to anyone else that upsets you?

Photo by Peter Forster on Unsplash

117 – Do Good of Your Own Accord

“Even as the Sun does not wait for prayers and incantations to rise, but shines forth and is welcomed by all: so should you not wait for clapping of hands and shouts and praise to do your duty; nay, do good of your own accord, and you will be loved like the Sun.”

― Epictetus

Transcript

One of the ideas that is common in a lot of religions is the idea of doing good works without the fanfare of other people. That we should do things because they are the right things to do, not because everyone will see what we are doing. And here Epictetus uses some great imagery to explain that idea. Just as the sun doesn’t wait for fanfare to shine, we shouldn’t wait to do things just to be seen by others.

And what is wrong with that? What is wrong with doing things to be seen by others? We’re still doing good deeds aren’t we? And we get the added benefit of praise from others, so that’s good, right? When we do things just to be seen by others, we are worrying about the opinions of others. If we only do things when we can get praise, then there’s a lot of good things that we could do that will go undone because we were waiting to do it when others could praise us.

We are giving our control to other people. We are in a sense letting the opinions of others dictate what we will do. When we act this way, we’re often thinking, “What’s in it for me?” What if everyone worked this way? What if everyone asked, “What’s in it for me?”

What if you were injured and someone came along who could help you, but they decided not to because no one was around to see their good deed? They decided that it would not benefit them so they leave you to fend for yourself. This is what Jesus talked about the story of the good Samaritan.

For those that don’t know the story, a man is traveling to another town, and is robbed, beaten, and left for dead. A priest and a Levite, who was religious man who worked in the temple, both pass by and leave the man. A Samaritan comes along and helps the man and takes him to an inn and pays for him to receive help with no expectation of being repaid or praised. At that time Jews and Samaritans despised each other, so in doing so, he showed that their “enemy” helped the man because it was the right things to do, not because of any outward praise or direct benefit to himself.

The things is, our world is built upon us being cooperative and doing lots of little and big kindnesses throughout the day. And personally, I think that the one of the main purpose of lives, and what makes our lives richer is to lessen the suffering of others. And you know what? It feels good when I help others and do it because it’s something I want to do, not because I think I’ll get something out of it.

Just as the sun shines on us without waiting for praise, we should make doing good for its own sake be part of our nature.

Photo by Ronaldo Santos on Unsplash

116 – A Good Tale

“As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.”

― Seneca

Transcript

We live in a time where the average lifespan is almost double what it was 200 years ago. Advances in medicine, sanitation, and agriculture have made it possible for more people to live longer. And in many other ways, the physical and external parts of life are better. It’s certainly much easier than it was 200 years ago.

But as we work on increasing our lifespans, are we working on increasing the quality of our lives? Are we living  a good life? Because what’s the point of living longer, just to live longer?

If you live to 100 and you’re unhappy and miserable and treat people poorly, what’s the point?

As a good Stoic, you should always keep in mind “Memento Mori”, that you could leave life at any moment, so you shouldn’t expect to live to an old age.  It may happen, it may not. It’s something, that for the most part is out of our control, so you should do your best to live a life that, were you to die tomorrow, you’d be proud of.

As Marcus Aurelius said, “Waste no more time arguing about what a good person should be. Be one.”

What are you doing to write your story? What steps are you taking to create a life that is worth living? What are you doing to step out of the grind of work, Netflix, sleep, repeat?

Don’t wait until tomorrow to work on becoming a better person.

Don’t wait until later to be kind and helpful to others.

Don’t wait until next year to start working on the dreams that you have.

You don’t know how long you will live, put more effort into living better than living longer.

Photo by Lucas Lenzi on Unsplash

115 – No Opinion

“You always own the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you can’t control. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone.”

― Marcus Aurelius

Have you ever considered the possibility that you don’t need to have an opinion about something? That you don’t need to pass judgment on everything?

Before you spend your time worrying about something, what if you took the time to decide if it was worth having an opinion about? There are so many things in this world that have no impact on us whatsoever. So why waste your time on these things? How much energy is wasted on who a celebrity is dating or not dating? Or the fact that they were seen in some untrendy store wearing sweatpants and a baseball cap?

Have you ever been around someone that had to give their opinion on everything? As if they they were imparting some great wisdom by giving you their uninformed opinion on something that didn’t even matter? In most cases, when we think that everyone else is entitled to our opinion, we tend to show how uninformed we really are.
Or if it’s something small and trivial, that we’re just a petty gossip.

I often hear people talk like this about political matters as if their opinion on what some pundit had to say about someone else, actually mattered. Would actually have an impact. If these things don’t have any effect, why waste time and energy on them?

The next time you find yourself talking about the stupid thing that so celebrity or some politician said or did, ask yourself, “Do I really need to have an opinion on this?” And save that precious time doing something that matters.

113 – Plenty To Laugh At

 

“He who laughs at himself never runs out of things to laugh at.”

― Epictetus

Transcript

One of the most important things in life is that we don’t take ourselves too seriously. Remember, Stoics keep in the forefront of their minds the knowledge that one day they too will die, and when you look at life through that lens, you learn to give things their appropriate weight. Is that thing that you are stressing about going to be of importance in 10 years? 100 years? 1000? 10,000?

We talk a lot about how you can’t control the opinions of others and what they may think about you. And I think being able to laugh at yourself is a place that can free you from a lot of stress in your life.

About 10 years ago, I became the butt of a Weird Al Yankovic joke and created a trending topic on Twitter for a day. In response to an amusing video he posted on Twitter about streets sign using poor grammar. I retweeted it and misspelled the word grammar. Weird Al responded with the the correct spelling, and boom, there I was at the receiving end of embarrassing retweet after retweet.

While the incident itself was harmless, I found myself really upset by it. I consider myself to be intelligent and literate, so being at the receiving end of other people’s laughter about my perceived lack of intelligence really hurt my ego. When I look back on it now, it seems pretty silly, and I can laugh about now. But at the time it really stung.

And why is that? Why would the opinion of so many people, none of whom I actually know, matter so much?  When I think about it now and using my logic, it was simply words on a digital page. That’s it. But because I used to be so worried about the opinion of others, I could feel my cheeks burn with embarrassment even there was no one around to see me. I even suspended my account for a bit.

But you know what? The next day it was forgotten and the twitterverse had moved on to something else. All the stress was for nothing.

The more you learn to lighten up and are able to laugh at yourself, the more you can enjoy your life, and let go of things when they don’t work out as planned. Can you laugh at yourself?Can you let go of your ego enough to realize that you can laugh at yourself and the silly things you hold on to? If others laugh at you can you recognize that it impacts you as much as you let it? That even if they do laugh at you that it doesn’t change who you are?

To me, being able to laugh at yourself is a way of being able to forgive yourself for the silly mistakes that we make.Learning how to lighten up and find the silliness and joy in life can make such a huge change in your life. And if you can bring a little lightness to someone else’s life by some silly foible, consider it a good day and laugh along with.

 

Photo by Eugene Taylor on Unsplash

112 – Anger Always Outlasts Hurt

 

“How much better to heal than seek revenge from injury. Vengeance wastes a lot of time and exposes you to many more injuries than the first that sparked it. Anger always outlasts hurt. Best to take the opposite course. Would anyone think it normal to return a kick to a mule or a bite to a dog?”

— Seneca

Transcript

I was talking with a friend the other day about how to deal with anger. He asked me specifically about how to deal with anger in life, so I felt it only appropriate to talk about anger today.

Anger is something that I’ve certainly struggled with. Growing up with a terrible example of how to deal with anger, I would either avoid it, or I would be consumed by it. Finding a way to deal with it constructively has taken years of work, and I still struggle with it.

Sometimes it feels like we live in a world that often seems to be fueled by anger. You turn on the news and it seems that story after story is about some of the worst instances of humanity. Almost any political talk show seems to trying it’s best to whip us up into fearing and hating the other side. So much so, that it seems that we can’t have an actual discussion with those that disagree with us politically. When we live in a society that thinks it’s okay to take down those that do you wrong or disagree with you, it’s hard to stop and take those steps to be kind to those that you feel have injured you.

But the idea of not returning hate with hate is not a new new one.

Jesus taught, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.”

In Buddhist teachings, anger is often compared to an “out of control forest fire” and a “rampaging elephant.” Because reactive uncontrolled anger is so destructive so quickly.

Confucius said, “Holding onto anger is like holding onto a burning ember that you want to throw at someone. You’re the one that gets burned.”

And the Stoics are no different. Seneca is warns us that vengeance wastes a lot of time. It also wastes a lot of energy. When you seek revenge, you injure yourself with your own anger. You often say or do things that make the situation far worse than it was before.

Why do we give into the angry path? Because anger is easy. Because there’s a part of anger that feels good at the time. The desire to strike back at those that you feel have wronged you is powerful.

What if all that effort was put into understanding why the other person tried to injure you? What if you took that same time and energy and tried to heal the situation? What if all that effort was put into mobilizing people for good? For getting people to talk to each other and work on solutions?

How do we deal with anger? How do we train ourselves to not give into our impulses?

The first step, which is often the hardest, is to truly grasp the concept that you are 100% responsible for your emotions. No one else is. Nothing else is to blame. Regardless of the circumstances or the events that happen, you decide to if you want to respond in anger. And just as you have conditioned yourself to respond with anger, you can condition yourself to respond with calmness and rationality.

The next step is being aware of our anger. Do you notice when you are in throws of anger, rather than only really seeing it after you cool down?

Next, try to step back from it. Can you look at it from a detached perspective? Can you look at as if you were just someone else in the room observing it? When you are more able to catch yourself in the middle of it, and can take a step back, resist the urge to lash out. Think about if what you want to say will do harm or help.

Stick to it. When you are in the heat of the moment and you do get some control, the other person may still be arguing or pushing back even though you are making honest efforts to defuse the situation. Don’t revert back to lashing out, no matter how much you want to. Think before you speak. If you have to leave the situation, then do so. Step away and delete that angry Facebook post.

Once you’ve worked to cool yourself down, understand that healing the situation is about the other person, not about make yourself feel better. It’s about meeting the needs of the person that you have harmed. It will take time, and humble attitude to work things out.

Changing a habit of reactive anger is not easy. It may be one of the hardest things you will ever have to overcome. But the damage that is caused by not learning to control your emotions can take a long time to heal. The more you can keep a reign on yourself, the less you have to repair. The more inner tranquility you cultivate, the more you can apply your energy to building things up rather than tearing them down.

Are you struggling with something in your life? Do you have questions about Stoic philosophy? I would really like to hear from you. If you go to the front page www.stoic.coffee and scroll to the bottom of the page, you can send me a message. I’ll do my best to address your question on the show. I’ve found that Stoic ideas and principles are some of the most practical teachings there are, and can be applied in any situation in your life.

 

Photo by Jonathan Harrison on Unsplash

111 – One Tongue, Two Ears

“Nature hath given men one tongue but two ears, that we may hear from others twice as much as we speak.”

— Epictetus

Transcript

Epictetus was known for his clever wit and pithy sayings, and here he’s giving us some very good advice of how we should handle ourselves in any social situation. We’ve all been around people that dominate conversations, and maybe we’ve been that person.  

As I’ve mentioned before on this podcast, I used to talk over people in conversations all the time. While mine was born out of insecurity and wanting people to like me, learning how to listen to others brings many benefits.

Let me put it this way, if you’re talking all the time how are you going to learn anything?

As Stoics we should strive to be consummate learners. We should view ourselves always as students of life, and we can always learn something from everyone. And because we also strive to be in control of ourselves, by taking our time, listening and observing, we can be sure that what we have to say is well thought out, rather than simply spitting out the first thing that comes to mind. And I know that some us are probably more wired to be a bit talkative. And if that’s who you are, that’s perfectly okay. But as someone that is also wired that way, learning how to listen better pays off amazing dividends and even making small steps in that direction is well worth the effort.

The thing is, people also feel more connected to you when they feel like you’ve heard and understood them. They notice when you’re more focused on what you want to say next than actually paying attention to them. Also, people like to talk about themselves, and if you are open to listening you’d be surprised what people will share with you, and the more you know about a person, the more connected you feel with them. Who knows, maybe you share some common interests that you would have never know about if you’d been too busy talking.

If we’re too busy trying to show off, we’re not paying attention to what’s going around us. The people that I’ve seen that seem pretty wise to me, usually take the time to assess a situation, to observe and to see what they notice. They’re not in rush to show how much they know, but they take their time and are curious to see if their hunches about their observations play out. Because they put in the effort to read situations better, it’s like they have a sixth sense about people which comes in very useful in all kinds of ways.

Remember, taking time to be observant, for some of us, is not always easy. It takes some humility to recognize that just because we think something doesn’t mean it has to said out loud. By taking time to truly listen to others and focus on what they have to share, we can be more connected with others, practice being more observant in our lives in general, and we might even learn something new.