Do You Have Double What It Takes? | The Source Of Your Anxiety

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

• 0:00Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world.

• 0:14Ryan Holiday?

  Do you have double what it takes? It would be nice if things were easier. It would be nice if they were fair. It would be nice if they were simply what they were advertised. But we all know that they are not. And for most of history, they have not been. For some of us, more than others. There was an old expression, true for women, for minorities, and other groups, that in order to succeed, they had to be twice as good, meaning they were held to higher standards, put through more of a ringer, subjected to extra scrutiny. It wasn't right, but it was a fact. In a way, this is how life goes for everyone, it should be said, even the relatively privileged. We think we know what we need to do. We're told the rules. We're told the difficulty. And then, you know what?

• 0:59Ryan Holiday?

  Turns out to be much, much harder. People are going to change those rules at the last minute. The circumstances are going to move the goalposts. There are hidden fees. There are unexpected delays, obstacles, adversaries, pitfalls, and bad luck. It's going to be there. It's going to happen. That's life, the Stoics say. It isn't fair. Some gatekeeper is going to grade you harder than everyone else, and you'll have to deal with it. You'll have to reach down and draw from your reserves. You'll have to be that much better. You'll have to do that much more. You can complain. You can quit. Or you can understand, as Epictetus did, someone who was certainly persecuted and victimized by fate, that life is pairing you with a strong sparring partner.

• 1:43Ryan Holiday?

  That is to say, adversity. And in fighting on and in beating them, you'll become that much better. Twice as good.

• 2:02Ryan Holiday?

  The source of your anxiety. This is the February 3rd entry from the Daily Stoic, which I'm holding the cloth bound version here. We've got a leather bound in the Daily Stoic store as well, if you didn't know that. And our quote today comes from Epictetus, Discourses 213. "When I see an anxious person, I ask myself, 'What do they want? For if a person wasn't wanting something outside of their control, why would they be stricken by anxiety?'" And then the meditation for today is, "The anxious father worried about his children. What does he want? A world that is always safe. A frenzied traveler. What do they want? For the weather to hold and the traffic to part so that she can make her flight?

• 2:46Ryan Holiday?

  A nervous investor that the market will turn around and that the investment pays off? All these scenarios have the same thing in common. As Epictetus says, it's wanting something outside of our control. Getting worked up, getting excited, nervously pacing. These intense pain and anxious moments show us at our most futile and servile. Staring at the clock, at the ticker, at the next checkout lane over, at the sky. It's as if we belong to a religious cult that believes the gods of fate will only give us what we want if we first sacrifice our peace of mind. Today, when you find yourself getting anxious, ask yourself, 'Why are my insides twisted into knots? Am I in control here?

• 3:29Ryan Holiday?

  Or is my anxiety? And most important, is my anxiety doing me any good? I make up that Marcus Aurelius was a pretty anxious person. You can't read meditations and not get some sense that he was trying to talk himself out of a spiral, out of a catastrophizing, out of a sort of a natural inclination to worry. He makes a great point, similar to what Epictetus is saying. He says, "Today, I escaped my anxiety." Says, "Actually, no, I discarded it." He says, "Because it was within me." Epictetus is saying that the anxiety is in you, but not as this distinct thing. It's an outgrowth of you wanting, needing,

• 4:12Ryan Holiday?

  expecting, hoping, dreading that things will or won't go a certain way. Right? That we're not willing to go with the flow, to be flexible, to adjust, to take whatever comes as it comes. I was just going through this. I have this thing with my passport and then, you know, then I drove all the way to Houston to get it renewed and they said, okay, you made the deadline. You did everything you were supposed to. Come back tomorrow. I got up at four in the morning. I drove three hours here. I waited in line. I gotta go home and do this again tomorrow. And then I ended up, actually you could send someone. So I paid someone to do it. And they were like, and we'll call you if there's any problems.

• 4:55Ryan Holiday?

  And I sort of tried to say consciously to myself, look, this is in the bag or it isn't. Right? It's done. It's not up to me whether it would happen or not. And so am I going to have the gift of the next 12 to 36 hours? Am I going to be torturing myself along the way? Right? I want this thing. Of course, I would prefer to get my passport and not have to cancel this trip. And, you know, mess up this event I agreed to go to. I would prefer it more than I would not prefer it. But at the same time, I don't want it at the expense of my happiness, of the present moment, of the way I want to treat people. So I kind of just had to step back and let go and think about it as the Stoics say, a preferred indifferent.

• 5:40Ryan Holiday?

  I don't think it's that you don't want anything, right? Of course, the parent wants their children to be safe and healthy. Right? The frenzied traveler wants to make the trip. The nervous investor wants the market to go up. You have to want it, but not so much that it ruins things for you, that you must have it. Right? When the Stoics talk about a preferred indifferent, they mean like it's better to get it than not get it. But it's not going to break you if you don't get it. You won't stand in dread or breathless anticipation in the meantime. You'll ride it out. You'll take a deep breath. You'll be present. Right? You'll ask yourself, do I need to twist myself into knots?

• 6:23Ryan Holiday?

  Am I actually being rewarded or is anyone noticing how much I'm beating myself up over the fact that I let the passport expire? And then I tried to do like, nobody cares. It is what it is. Step back, let it be what it's going to be. Be who you need to be inside of that, which is to say, not anxious, not annoying and not torturing yourself.

• 6:48Ryan Holiday?

  Hey, it's Ryan. Thank you for listening to the Daily Stoic Podcast. I just wanted to say we so appreciate it. We love serving you. It's amazing to us that over 30 million people have downloaded these episodes in the couple of years we've been doing it. It's an honor. Please, spread the word. Tell people about it. And this isn't to sell anything. I just wanted to say thank you.