There Is Nothing Beneath the Philosopher | Suspend Your Opinions

“We get it. You’ve worked hard. You’re a good person. You respect yourself. That’s why you’re frustrated to be in this job beneath your talents. It’s why you don’t like that your ideas aren’t getting their due. It’s why you hate wasting your time on all this low-level crap.”Ryan explains why a Stoic excels in everything that they do, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. This episode is also brought to you by Public Goods, the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients at an affordable price. Everything from coffee to toilet paper & shampoo to pet food. Public Goods is your new everything store, thoughtfully designed for the conscious consumer. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order with no minimum purchase. Just go to publicgoods.com/STOIC or use code STOIC at checkout.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow Daily Stoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

• 0:05Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast. Each day, we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, illustrated with stories from history, current events, and literature to help you be better at what you do. And at the beginning of the week, we try to do a deeper dive, setting a kind of Stoic intention for the week, something to meditate on, something to think on, something to leave you with, to journal about, whatever it is you happen to be doing. So let's get into it.

• 0:34Ryan Holiday?

  We've talked about this a bunch. One of the downsides of the pandemic is you can't really go shopping. You shouldn't be poking your heads into stores. "There is nothing beneath the philosopher." We get it. You've worked hard. You're a good person. You respect yourself. That's why you're so frustrated to be in this job beneath your talents. It's why you don't like that your ideas aren't getting their due. It's why you hate wasting your time on all this low-level crap. "Noted: Nobody wants to be sweeping floors. Nobody likes untangling other people's messes. Nobody should be laughed at, or dismissed, or underappreciated. But the fact of the matter is that this is a part of life, fair or unfair." There is a story about Musonius Rufus,

• 1:17Ryan Holiday?

  who was sent into exile by Nero and supposedly subjected to degrading manual labor. A friend came across him far from home, swinging a pickaxe on a chain gang. Seeing that his friend was appalled, Musonius reassured him, "Does it pain you, he said, if I dig the isthmus for the sake of Greece? What would you have felt if you had seen me playing music like Nero instead?" Musonius was like Ulysses S. Grant, who responded to a similarly disappointed friend, who couldn't understand why this West Point grad was selling firewood by the side of the road. "I am solving the problem of poverty," Grant replied, meaning, a Stoic does what they have to do. They play the hand they were dealt, even if it's beneath them, or exhausting.

• 2:00Ryan Holiday?

  In fact, a Stoic doesn't believe that any job, any profession, or action is beneath them, if that is what life is demanding. To the Stoic, a dollar earned, honestly, is A good one. To a stoic, a job well done is a good one. Even if they choose otherwise if given the opportunity, even if their education entitles them to something else, even if it gets them dirty or wears them out. We do what we have to do. Nothing is beneath or below us because we do everything that we do correctly.

• 2:33Ryan Holiday?

  Suspend your opinions. Epictetus would teach that opinions were the cause of a troubled mind. Opinions about the way we think things should be or need to be. One of the Stoic words for opinion is dogma. And the practice of Stoicism begins with a relentless attempt to suspend this dogmatic way of living. A cessation of the belief that you can force your opinions and expectations onto the world. "We have the power to hold no opinion about a thing and not let it upset our state of mind, for things have no natural power to shape our judgments." It's Marcus Aurelius in Meditations. "Today I escaped from the crush of circumstances, or better put, I threw them out, for the crush wasn't from outside me, but in my own assumptions." It's Marcus Aurelius in Meditations.

• 3:18Ryan Holiday?

  "There are two things that must be rooted out in human beings: arrogant opinion and mistrust. Arrogant opinion expects that there is nothing further needed, and mistrust assumes that under the torrent of circumstances there can be no happiness." That's Epictetus's Discourses. "Throw out your conceited opinions, for it is impossible for a person to begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows." From Epictetus. This idea of having no opinion is, man, it's so powerful. Epictetus also talks about, you know, can you can you be content to be seen as clueless or stupid about some things? I mean, but I don't think ignorance is admirable, but I do think that we often sort of track in real time a whole bunch of information we don't need.

• 4:01Ryan Holiday?

  We have too many thoughts or judgments about other people's personal lives, the things our neighbors are doing. You know, life is better when you have fewer opinions, because then it just is. You have fewer expectations, so you're not disappointed. You also don't take things for granted. And so I think for the Stoics, it's about getting to a kind of a zen-like place where you just see things as they are and you don't need them to be different. You don't need them to be otherwise. You didn't expect them to be this way or that way. You just went with the flow of it. And you know, when I, I think this is obviously what social media is designed to make us not do, right? Facebook says, what are you, what's on your mind? What are you thinking about? What's going on in your life? Twitter says the same thing. Snapchat and Instagram say, take a video of this, share it, let other people know.

• 4:46Ryan Holiday?

  Give your thoughts, react to this. Do you ever feel that much better doing that? Or does it just create new problems for you? Now, did anyone like it? Do people agree? Why is this idiot, you know, responding in the comments? Why aren't people understanding? Why aren't they appreciating? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, you have the power to have no opinion. That's such a beautiful freeing idea from Marcus Aurelius. And look, he's not saying, don't have an opinion about injustice, don't be involved civically. Of course, that's not what the Stoics think. Their whole lives are a testament to the, to the contrary. But I guess they're just saying, it's like, look, if somebody you know is having an affair, that can eat you up inside, it can bother you. Why are they doing this? Why do people do this? Why, you know, be disappointed in your human, you know, your fellow humans.

• 5:30Ryan Holiday?

  And it's like, it's none of your business, man. It's not up to you. You're not doing it. You know why you're not doing it. So let them, let them do them. They will face the consequences for that. You don't need to get involved. Not to get too political, but, but, uh, you know, that, this is the Supreme Court decision after our, you know, crook of a, of a, of an attorney general here in Texas filed a lawsuit that tried to overturn the electoral results in some other states. The Supreme Court was basically saying, focus on your own elections, man. Texas doesn't have a say in the elections of Pennsylvania or Wisconsin or, or Georgia. And that's a good rule for life, too. The founders are smart.

• 6:12Ryan Holiday?

  They set up a system where each state does their own thing for the most part. Yeah, they, they interplay, they interact, of course, and there's interdependencies. But for the most part, do your own thing and have your own opinion. The amount of time I see, again, to extend this, like liberal friends of mine are so upset that somebody over here did this, or somebody over here has this dumb opinion and someone over, it's like.

• 6:34Ryan Holiday?

  As Marcus Aurelius says, "Leave other people's mistakes to their makers. You've got enough to focus on with you. You've got enough that's in your control that you're not focusing on." And so, going through life in a dogmatic way, trying to project and force your opinions on other people, is a miserable way to live. It's also a tyrannical way to live. And so, we've got to practice this sort of, I don't want to call it detachment, but it's looking inward instead of outward. And I think that creates a happier life, that creates a better-flowing life. It also gives people the freedom to make their mistakes, to learn their own lessons, to do their own things. Something I'm learning about with my kids as well is like, "Look, I've got to let them, I can't do this, all this stuff for them.

• 7:18Ryan Holiday?

  I've got to, you do you, man, and I'm here if you need me." And I think that's a good way to live. And so, let's focus on having fewer opinions today. Let's focus on the things that are up to us. Let's leave the things that are not up to us, to the other people, to the makers, to the people they are up to. And I think that'll all help us get along, certainly be happier, and certainly have more tranquility. So, if me talking about politics upset you, it's a great opportunity to practice actually exactly what I'm talking about. Just have no opinion, move on. I don't have an opinion about your opinion. And that's exactly how it should be. All right. Have a good week, everyone. And if you want to hear more about the story of Musonius Rufus, it's really a fascinating one.

• 8:02Ryan Holiday?

  There's a whole chapter about him in the new book, Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius. You can check it out anywhere books are sold.