Magical Thinking Is Not Your Friend

"When things are hard, when things are scary, when we’re tired, when we’ve had a run of bad luck, that’s when it happens: Magical thinking kicks in. This will all be over soon, we convince ourselves. This one thing will solve all our problems. Our ex is going to walk through the door any minute now. The pandemic will just disappear because we want it to. This kind of thinking makes us feel better, sure, but…That’s just not how it works."Ryan explains how things actually work, and how you must ready yourself for challenges, on today's Daily Stoic Podcast.***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 @DailyStoic: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. 📢 Share | ⚙️ Manage Subscription

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

• 0:06Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to The Daily Stoic, where each day we read a short passage designed to help you cultivate the strength, insight, wisdom necessary for living the good life. Each one of these passages is based on the 2,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. For more, you can visit us at DailyStoic.com.

• 0:29Ryan Holiday?

  Magical thinking is not your friend. When things are hard, when things are scary, when we're tired, when we've had a run of bad luck, that's when it happens. Magical thinking kicks in. "This will all be over soon," we convince ourselves. "This one thing will solve all our problems. Our ex is going to walk through the door any minute now. The pandemic will just disappear because we want it to." This kind of thinking makes us feel better, sure, but it's not how it works. Not only is that not how it works, but the last few months have been a great example of the costs that come when magical thinking doesn't materialize and the chickens come home to roost. When hope is your strategy, you get caught unprepared. When you expect problems to solve themselves, you are disappointed.

• 1:13Ryan Holiday?

  When you don't listen to advice because it's unpleasant or it comes with difficult obligations. When you focus on short-term solutions or you disregard risks, you'll find even bad situations can be made worse. This is why the Stoics insisted on objectivity and rationality. Marcus reminds us that we have to see not what the enemy wants us to see, but what is really there. He works through in meditations, stripping things of the legends that encrust them, of removing the magical thinking that distorts our picture of the world. "You can't go around expecting Plato's Republic," he said. "The world is harsh, problems are real, and no amount of hope makes it otherwise." Seneca's premeditatio malorum is another

• 1:57Ryan Holiday?

  exercise to combat magical thinking. "Don't see what you want to see," he is saying. See the risks. See the dangers. Prepare for the worst-case scenario. It might not come to pass, but that's better than the worst befalling you, and you Not being ready. You need to understand this. Just because you're tired, just because you're done with coronavirus already, doesn't mean it's done with you. Just because you have needs or your kids have needs, doesn't change the risk profile. Just because you read some bullshit on the internet doesn't invalidate the overwhelming consensus. Our thinking, and this is a core Stoic teaching, does not change reality. Things are what they are. Life is what it is.

• 2:38Ryan Holiday?

  And it must be faced with courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom. That's our only way through. And of course, I think our premeditatio malorum coin's a great example. If you are prone to some of this magical thinking, you know, I think rooting yourself in reality, as Seneca says, "All the terms of the human condition should be before our eyes." And it's one of the ones I have sitting on my desk. I look at it constantly. Check that out at store.dailystoic.com.