You’ll Be Stressed Either Way | Impulse Control

Ryan talks about the inevitability of stress and anxiety, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal. For Stoicism-based guidance on how to tackle your anger problem or manage your anxiety, Daily Stoic offers a series of great courses. Our 11-day Tame Your Temper challenge will give you the tools you need to keep anger from getting in your way. And our 13-day Slay Your Stress course will help you keep stress out of your life and out of your way. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://DailyStoic.com/emailFollow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. 📢 Share | ⚙️ Manage Subscription

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Ryan Holiday?

  Bienvenidos al podcast de Stoic Daily. Cada día nos traemos una meditación inspirada por los antiguos estoicos, ilustrada con historias de la historia, eventos actuales y literatura para ayudarte a ser mejor en lo que haces. Y al principio de la semana intentamos hacer un profundísimo descubrimiento, estableciendo una especie de intención estoica para la semana, algo para meditar, algo para pensar, algo para dejarte con, para journalizar, lo que sea que te ocurra de hacer. Así que vamos a entrar.

• 0:38Ryan Holiday?

  Te estresarás de todos modos. Nos gustaría pensar que si nos volvemos ricos, nuestras vidas serán más fáciles y tendremos menos que estresarse. Es una suposición razonable, dada la realidad de que alguien que ha estado sin dinero ha sentido lo estresante que puede ser. Sin embargo, alguien que ha tenido dinero, como Seneca hizo, como Marcus Aurelius hizo, rápidamente encuentra que también eso produce su propio tipo de estrés. Estás estresado porque estás manteniendo en contacto con los Joneses. Estás estresado, como muchos rich people lo son, porque a pesar de tu ingreso amplio, todavía es fácil vivir más allá de tus medios. Estás estresado incluso si tienes un surplus de fondos, porque siempre te preguntas si lo estás poniendo a funcionar eficaz o suficiente, o te preocupa que alguien va a robarlo de ti o te muestre mal.

• 1:22Ryan Holiday?

  ¿Qué significa entonces descubrir que te estresarás de todos modos? Estresado que tienes demasiado poco, estresado que tienes demasiado, estresado que podrías tener más. Significa lo mismo que Marcus Aurelius descubrió cuando se trataba de su ansiedad. "逃過了擔心今天，" él escribe antes de corregirse, "no, lo descarté porque estaba dentro de mí." El estrés siempre está ahí, porque no importa la situación, siempre hay una comodidad: tú. Es tu mente la que está haciendo esto. El querer, el comparar, el catastrofizar, el preocuparse, el planear, el esforzarse, esa es tu mente en funcionamiento.

• 2:01Ryan Holiday?

  Eres tú el que está eligiendo no ser feliz, torturarse, perder tiempo en lo que no controlas. Muchas personas con menos han sido contentas. Muchas personas con más han sido mucho más miserables. "Puedes llevar una buena vida dondequiera," nos recuerdan los estoicos, "puedes estar libre de estrés y autonómico, o al menos no un desastre." On any bank balance, because these things have nothing to do with money and everything to do with you. We've built out and we've been working on the Daily Stoic Slay Your Stress Challenge, which is about exactly this. How do we manage our stress? How do we realize that it's coming from inside the house, as they say? How do we

• 2:44Ryan Holiday?

  work on discarding it, managing it, channeling it? Well, we did a bunch of the best Stoic strategies for dealing with stress, getting to a better place of equilibrium and poise and peace and stillness. I'd love for you to check it out. You can sign up at dailystoic.com/stress. And remember that this challenge, along with all the other Stoic challenges, and we have a bunch of new ones coming this year, you get totally for free if you sign up as part of Daily Stoic Life, plus a bunch of other cool bonuses. But if you sign up for Daily Stoic Life at dailystoiclife.com, you can join right now our Daily Stoic Slay Your Stress Challenge. I think it will make a difference for you. I know it made a difference for me. Love to have you join us.

• 3:26Ryan Holiday?

  This is from this week's entry in the Daily Stoic Journal, "366 Days of Writing and Reflection on the Art of Living" by yours truly and my co-writer and translator, Stephen Hanselman. I actually do this journal every single day. There's a question in the morning, a question in the afternoon, then there's these sort of weekly meditations. As Epictetus says, "Every day and night, we keep thoughts like this at hand. Write them, read them aloud, and talk to yourself and others about them." You can check out the Daily Stoic Journal anywhere books are sold. You can also get a signed personalized copy from me in the Daily Stoic store at store.dailystoic.com.

• 4:04Ryan Holiday?

  If something is making you upset, write it down and look at it. What happened? Who caused it? Now think about your reaction. What did you say? What did you feel? Did this make it better or worse? Marcus Aurelius's emperor clearly had many people and causes to be upset. He also had real power and authority. Even so, we find that he would tell himself, "You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength."

• 4:37Ryan Holiday?

  So too with what has happened to you. You did not control what happened, but you do control which impulses you will follow in the wake of it. And this is this week's meditation in the Daily Stoic Journal titled Impulse Control. I do hope you check out the journal. It's a little journal I do every morning. We have three quotes here to go along with it. Epictetus says, "We must discover the missing art of ascent and pay special attention to the sphere of our impulses, that they are subject to reservations, to the common good, and that they are in proportion to actual worth." It's Marcus Aurelius's Meditations 1137. I just love that you have Marcus Aurelius quoting Epictetus. "You say good fortune used to meet you at every corner,

• 5:20Ryan Holiday?

  but the fortunate person is the one who gives themselves a good fortune. And good fortunes are a well-tuned soul, good impulses, and good actions." That's Marcus Aurelius's Meditations 536. "Frame your thoughts like this: You're an old person. You won't let yourself be enslaved by this any longer, no longer pulled like a puppet by every impulse, and you'll stop complaining about your present fortune or dreading the future." To me, journaling is just such a great way to do this exercise of impulse control. I usually do it in the morning, but you could do journaling at any time. But I think, what are you upset about? Why are you angry?

• 6:05Ryan Holiday?

  What are you holding on to? What's that thing inside you that you really want to say to that person? Say it on the page first. Anne Frank talks about how paper is more patient than people. Sometimes I find that the thing that I was writing down, I hadn't quite worked it out yet. And if I had said it the way I was thinking on the paper, it would not go well. Or I find that having said it once, I'm done. I don't, I don't need to mention this to anyone. It's probably better that I keep it to myself. So to me, journaling is, is really a way to work out some of those urges. Just because you think something doesn't mean you need to say it. I'm always amazed at these athletes who, you know, after a loss rush into the locker room and tweet something as if,

• 6:50Ryan Holiday?

  dude, you're not going to be in a small metal tube with the person you just talked shit about for the next eight hours? As if you don't have to show up to work with them every single day? You need to develop this emotional impulse control. But that doesn't mean you just stuff it down and you don't deal with it. You gotta deal with it on the pages in the journal. That's the idea. You let it out. It's a place to do some spiritual combat, but it's also a place for your ideas, your competing impulses, your competing opinions to battle themselves out, to fight for that limited space. So spend some time with your journal as therapy. That's what it's there for. And if you're not taking advantage of it, chances are you are just taking those feelings

• 7:35Ryan Holiday?

  out on other people, or you're taking them out on yourself. And that's not a good way to go through life. So use the journal as an instrument of impulse control. It's gotten me out of trouble time and time again. I can think of a moment when one of my books was coming out and I got sort of royally screwed over by a journalist. I wouldn't even say screwed over anymore. Let's just say someone did something to me that was quite unethical and quite petty and annoying. And actually, the prompts in the Daily Stoic Journal, it caught me day after day. It was like three prompts in a row. I didn't rush into saying something. I was gonna wait a few days. And at the end of the three days, at the end of the journaling, kept it to myself. And even now, I don't need to tell you the specifics. I've moved on.

• 8:20Ryan Holiday?

  And it saved me some headache, probably saved me creating an enemy for no reason. And then I can move on. And I hope you can do the same. Thanks so much for listening to the Daily Stoic Podcast. If you don't know this, you can get these delivered to you via email every day. Check it out at dailystoic.com/email.