Trudging Through Your Own Life? Here's the Stoic Fix | Maria Semple

How to do your best work, reframe life's bullshit, and stop making your happiness hostage to outcomes. Maria Semple https://www.mariasemple.com/ is the bestselling author of Today Will Be Different, Where'd You Go, Bernadette, and This One Is Mine. Before writing fiction, Maria wrote for TV. Her newest book is called Go Gentle https://www.amazon.com/Go-Gentle-Maria-Semple/dp/B0FJDLY6MH. In this episode we talk about: Cognitive reframing tools to shift your mindset Maria's daily Stoic routine The limits of Stoicism What to do when mediating gives you anxiety The danger of "baited bounties" How to "get shit done" with non-attachment Using fantasy as a coping mechanism Related Episodes: Stoic Practices for Getting Rid of Mental Junk, Your Morning Routine, and Talking to the Dead | Ryan Holiday https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/stoic-practices-for-getting-rid-of-mental-junk-your/id1087147821?i=1000749207909 Stoic Advice for Handling Setbacks, Insults, and Death | William Irvine https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/stoic-advice-for-handling-setbacks-insults-and-death/id1087147821?i=1000704274965 Get the 10% with Dan Harris app here https://app.danharris.com/membership Sign up for Dan's free newsletter here http://www.danharris.com/ Follow Dan on social: Instagram https://bit.ly/3tGigG5, TikTok https://bit.ly/3FOA84J Subscribe to our YouTube Channel https://bit.ly/3FybRzD Additional Resources: William Irvine's "A Guide to the Good Life https://www.amazon.com/Guide-Good-Life-Ancient-Stoic/dp/0195374614" Join Dan and Emmy Award-winning journalist Allison Gilbert at 92NY on May 17th for a live conversation about how mindfulness can deepen connection and combat loneliness, available in person and via streaming. Register here. https://www.92ny.org/event/dan-harris-with-allison-gilbert Join Dan, Sebene Selassie and Jeff Warren for Meditation Party, a 3-day immersive retreat at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY, October 16–18, 2026. Register here. https://www.eomega.org/workshops/meditation-party#9851 This episode is sponsored by: Rosetta Stone — Language learning that's immersive and intuitive. Start your journey at https://www.rosettastone.com/happier ButcherBox — 100% grass-fed beef, free-range organic chicken, and wild-caught seafood delivered to your door. New listeners get chicken breasts or top sirloin for a year, or ground beef for life, plus $20 off at https://www.butcherbox.com/happier To advertise on the show, contact [email protected] or visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/10HappierwithDanHarris

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

• 0:04Dan Harris?

  This is the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris.

• 0:18Dan Harris?

  Hey, gang. Today, we're talking about the enormous power and relief and release that comes from shifting your perspective. One way of putting this is the old saw about how the problem isn't the problem, the problem is how you're relating to the problem. So today, we're going to talk about that. But we're also going to talk about a whole bunch of other Stoic principles, including focusing on what you can control and letting the rest fall by the wayside, which my guest calls, quote, "a major turn-on." And we'll talk about the concept of, quote, "diggin' it, baby, no matter what's happening." My guest is my friend Maria Semple, who's a well-known novelist. She is perhaps best

• 0:59Dan Harris?

  known for her novel, which then turned into a movie called Where'd You Go, Bernadette? And now she's got a new novel that's getting a ton of buzz called Go Gentle. I had the opportunity to read it early, and it's incredibly good. And it is filled with Stoic principles because the protagonist is an expert on Stoicism, which I should have said this earlier, but it's the ancient Greco-Roman philosophy, which itself has become incredibly buzzy in recent years. And Maria herself, as you will hear, is a big Stoic enthusiast. That's why she injected the theme into this new novel. Although, as you will also hear her discuss, both she and her protagonist have some questions about the limits of Stoic philosophy in practice.

• 1:43Dan Harris?

  By way of context, I got to know Maria several years ago when I met her. And what I'm about to say is supremely bougie, I know it. But when I met her, when we were seated near one another at a dinner party at the TED conference where I was giving a speech, over the subsequent years, Maria and I have become really good friends. I've watched her go through quite a bit in her personal life, including divorce and a cross-country move, and then, of course, all the labor that she put into this new book. So it's really moving and fun for me to watch this book come out and be so well-received, and then to get to interview her right here on this show, where, as you will hear, she did a great job. You're gonna love this conversation. Before we dive in, just real quick, I want to point out that one great way to improve

• 2:25Dan Harris?

  how you handle the problems in your life and in the world at large is meditation, which is why I would love for you to check out my new meditation app, 10% with Dan Harris. As you may know, I had a meditation app for many years and then I went through a painful separation from that app and now I've got this new thing, which I'm really happy about. Many of the same teachers from the old app are on this app, people like Joseph Goldstein, Sabine S. Lassie, Jeff Warren, and more. What's different with this app is not only do we have all the amazing guided meditations, but we're also now leaning into community. We've built in features that allow you to connect with me, with the teachers, with the team, and with one another.

• 3:06Dan Harris?

  We also do weekly live events with a guided meditation and then we take your questions. Head on over to danharris.com to get the app and join the party. The first two weeks are free and if you can't afford it, just let us know and we will hook you up. Okay, we'll get started with Maria Semple right after this. If you care about supporting independent media and if you care about being a node of sanity in an insane world, there are a few quick, easy, and free ways that you can support me and my team, which I would be really grateful for. One way to do it is to sign up for my newsletter, which comes out on Monday mornings. It's a little dose of sanity in your inbox at the beginning of a busy week. The second way to do it is to follow and subscribe to the show wherever you're listening

• 3:51Dan Harris?

  or watching right now, that really helps. Three, share your favorite episode with a friend. This is a great and low stakes way to connect with somebody in your orbit and not for nothing, it also helps us grow. And all of these things take about 30 seconds and they really do help. You will be supporting me and my team and our mission and I, as I said, would be immensely grateful. You can find everything we do at danharris.com, it's all right there. Thank you, I mean that seriously. We'll be right back with more show. If you care about supporting independent media and if you care about being a node of sanity in an insane world, there are a few quick, easy, and free ways that you can support me and my team, which I would be really grateful for.

• 4:34Dan Harris?

  One way to do it is to sign up for my newsletter, which comes out on Monday mornings. It's a little dose of sanity in your inbox at the beginning of a busy week. The second way to do it is to follow and subscribe to the show wherever you're listening or watching right now. That really helps. Three, share your favorite episode with a friend. This is a great and low stakes way to connect with somebody in your orbit. And not for nothing, it also helps us grow. And all of these things take about 30 seconds and they really do help. You will be supporting me and my team and our mission. And I, as I said, would be immensely grateful. You can find everything we do at danharris.com. It's all right there. Thank you. I mean that seriously. We'll be right back with more show. Maria Semple, welcome to the show.

• 5:19Speaker 01

  Thank you. I'm excited to be here, Dan.

• 5:22Dan Harris?

  Your book is awesome. Go Gentle. Everybody should read it. I was lucky enough to get an early copy because we're friends. And yeah, just let me start by saying congratulations.

• 5:33Speaker 01

  Thank you. Thank you. It's exciting for me that it's out in the world now and people are starting to read it. It's very cool.

• 5:39Dan Harris?

  Yeah, it's super. I mean, I'll just speak selfishly. Having talked to you throughout, we met each other a couple of years ago and just being able to watch you do this thing in the middle of a period of like real personal tumult on your side. Yeah, it's very cool to watch it from soup to nuts.

• 5:55Speaker 01

  Oh, thank you. Yeah, to go from, I'm sure we met when I was despairing that the book wouldn't come together and probably also giddy that I was writing the greatest thing ever. It's all, you know, you cover every single thing when you're writing a novel. It takes years and you kind of feel all the emotions while you're doing it.

• 6:14Dan Harris?

  You had a sign that you put on your computer while you were writing it. And I think it said, dig it, baby.

• 6:20Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 6:21Dan Harris?

  Can you just unpack that?

• 6:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I have a sign that says, dig it, baby. And what it- Does for me is it basically tells me that if I'm not loving what I'm writing, I should just get up and walk away and just wait till I dig it. I'm not going to continue writing unless I fully dig it. The story of that is that many years ago, my former partner and I produced this show together and he was doing a series of monologues. And he'd never done monologues before in his life and he'd never performed. And I had gone to a Buddhist meditation retreat, a week of silence. The only time we could speak was when a guy named Scott Kelman,

• 7:05Speaker 01

  who was an acting teacher, came in and did with us something he called the work. And it was this, I guess they were acting exercises. I'm still kind of unclear about what an acting teacher was doing in a Buddhist meditation silent retreat. But he came and he was really reminded me of like Roy Scheider and all that jazz when he was playing Bob Fosse. He was just like a seriously cool cat, this guy. And he would just make us go really deep and kind of stand in front of people and look at them and kind of tolerate being looked at and then all the emotions that came up from it. So maybe there was some kind of Buddhist stuff. I really liked this guy. And right before our opening night of this show,

• 7:49Speaker 01

  George, my ex, was kind of nervous about for the first time going up in front of an audience. And so I said, I think we should bring in this guy Scott Kelman. I think that he's going to be able to help you. So Scott came in and watched George do these monologues. And George stared at this spot like high up on the ceiling and just read and delivered the monologue, his first one. And then Scott said to George, who are you looking at? And George said, well, I'm just looking above everybody because I feel like if I look at anyone, I'm going to get really distracted, like there's going to be friends of mine in the audience and I don't want to have to look at them because I don't know how to do this. And then Scott said, okay, I want you to do it again.

• 8:33Speaker 01

  And this time I want you to look people in the eyes and I want you to dig it, baby. And I just really liked that, the idea of just like look people in the eyes and this time dig it, baby. And so that's what I have on my desk. The look people in the eyes is kind of important too because it's about. Being sincere and wanting to connect and taking a risk in that way. So that's kind of what I like to write by.

• 9:02Dan Harris?

  I love that. I didn't actually know the full story, even though you and I had talked about the sign over dinner several times. It so gives a lot more color, hearing the full story. It feels to me like life advice, not only for the creative act, where those of us who do creative work can fall prey, I think, to the sunk cost fallacy. You know, it's like, oh, I've been working on this for a while, so I gotta finish it, even if it's a slog. I've been there. But also for like life, for all of life, you know, just whatever we're doing. Let's actually dig it. Let's actually be here for it.

• 9:40Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And just the willingness to commit to things without any other voice in your head, you know, which like the resentment and there's a lot of Stoicism in that. Seneca writes a lot about it. And as you know, my book has a lot of Stoicism in it. But that's a really big thing, that there's a lot of quotes about that, that I really like, which is just show up and show up with pure gung ho spirit. That's a modern word. They didn't use gung ho back then. But that's what it is. And I do think it is very simplifying, you know, in a way. You just kind of have to make the decision. I get to do this. That's a thing that I really like. Instead of I have to do this, you shift it to I get to do this. And that's the kind of energy I feel like one should bring to everything.

• 10:25Dan Harris?

  Do you never fall back into a place that I, and I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I, I feel like too often I'm trudging through my to do list and so I'm not digging it. I'm just doing it. Did that ever happen to you? And if so, how do you pull yourself out of trudging to digging?

• 10:43Speaker 01

  Well, to do list is not a good example because I really love getting shit done. I feel like in a way, that's really what writing a novel is for me. It's just this massive to do list. So I really bring fiendish joyful energy to tasks, you know, and having to do anything. So to do list is not the best thing. I think it might be more working out or something, you know, for me. But so anything that's just like planning, making decisions, planning, coming up with some kind of scheme, I find very creative, actually, even a to do list of, oh, how am I going to get that done? Who do I call first? Oh, no, maybe I should. Call the other person first before this, you know, that's like very happy for me to be

• 11:28Speaker 01

  doing all that. And so that's not really hard, but I'd say when I'm doing something I don't really like to do, I really try to think of it as character building. I'm going to go through this and I'm going to be better on the other side and I will be stronger on the other side and kind of grittier, maybe on the other side. So that brings joy to it, I think.

• 11:51Dan Harris?

  So what I'm hearing throughout this very young conversation, you know, that we're just starting, is bringing cognitive reframes

• 12:00Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 12:00Dan Harris?

  to stuff. Does that land for you?

• 12:03Speaker 01

  Oh, very much so. And in fact, I will, I'm sure, talk about the Stoicism that I'm very into. But there was a quote that I was reading that it said that Stoics try to bring the most useful perspective to a situation. And I really like that because I feel like, yes, it's reframing. I feel like everything you can reframe. And I really like the word useful because it's so simple. And it's like, oh, yeah, there's like a useful way of looking at something and there's not. Epictetus says there's two handles by which you can hold a vase, I think is what he's referring to, hold something and hold it by the right handle.

• 12:41Speaker 01

  And so I do think that if that reframing is useful, it makes your existence better. And I think that what I really like about it is that it really, to me, activates my imagination. You know, if something like bad has happened, quote unquote, or so that, you know, I don't get what I want, or there's a frustrating person, I actually think it's really fun to just get your imagination like fired up and just think like, oh, what's another way of looking at this? Again, then I'm into my like to do list energy and I'm then excited, I'm like psyched about this situation. Like, oh, there's a way that I can reframe this to make it positive.

• 13:23Dan Harris?

  It's amazing, the simple power of changing your perspective to alleviate dread, anxiety, anger, whatever.

• 13:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, it really is. It's kind of crazy that it's so available at any given time. Like, nothing's keeping you from doing it. You're just 100% in control of it. It's just readily there for the taking, should you choose.

• 13:48Dan Harris?

  I think the biggest obstacle is remembering. I think the biggest problem in all of, whatever you want to call it, personal growth, self-improvement, spiritual development, whatever, the biggest problem is remembering. You can listen to Maria hold forth on Stoicism, which she's about to do. And then, you know, you go through the rest of your day and you're pulled into the tides of forgetting and a ripe opportunity comes up for reframing. You just forget to do it.

• 14:15Speaker 01

  Completely. And I think that that's why practice is really important. And I think everything, you know, meditation is a practice and I have a Stoic practice. And I think that without a practice, it's just something that makes you like all psyched to change your life. I used to always say, I heard something that changed my life and now I've forgotten it. You know, it's like, and I think that's what you go through if you don't just go through almost like the drudgery of practice and that's what it's for, right? So you can internalize it and that this stuff starts to become second nature or the first, maybe not the first response, because sometimes that's just visceral of just dread or shame or panic or whatever it is. But maybe like very quickly afterwards,

• 14:59Speaker 01

  you can go to the reframing thing and it almost feels natural.

• 15:04Dan Harris?

  I love what you're saying. And yes, I've been humbled so often when taking the Buddhist or Stoic or psychologically wise approach is the eighth reflex on my part after a million other less constructive routes, but at least it's in there.

• 15:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. And the damage is done, right? And now it's like, oh, Jesus, now all these apology emails I have to write and all of this shit, you know? So I almost think on just a basic level, that's why you should do it. It just like saves you a lot of time.

• 15:33Dan Harris?

  Yeah.

• 15:34Speaker 01

  I have a phrase that I like that I say, the low road always dogs you. It just makes life a lot easier not to have taken the low road.

• 15:41Dan Harris?

  Yes.

• 15:41Speaker 01

  Because it will stay with you.

• 15:43Dan Harris?

  Yep. The lower road can be really fun for a few delicious nanoseconds.

• 15:47Speaker 01

  The best.

• 15:49Dan Harris?

  Let's talk about Stoicism. So the protagonist in your new novel, which again is called Go Gentle and is phenomenal, is an expert in Stoicism and has written books about it and is a teacher of it. And this is based, as I understand it, in your own deep, personal interest in Stoicism. So I'd be interested in hearing your story. How did you get interested in Stoicism? And what is it for those of us who are uninitiated?

• 16:16Speaker 01

  Okay, so I got into Stoicism maybe 12 years ago or so, and I think I just read about it in the New York Times. And I read a book about it. William Irvine wrote a book called, I don't know, we can look it up in the show notes or whatever.

• 16:32Dan Harris?

  He's been on the show, so I'll put the episode, I'll put a link to that episode.

• 16:36Speaker 01

  Okay, The Guide to the Good Life, I think that's his, William Irvine. It's just this really great intro to Stoicism. And I read it and was really turned on. What turned me on initially was this perspective thing. But the basis of it, as I understand it, is that there's things that you can control, there's things that you can't control. Your job is to only focus on what you can control, and that's virtue. And everything else you just cheerfully throw over to fate. And so that sounds suspiciously like the AA Serenity Prayer, you know, and a lot of other kind of systems. And it was formulated 300 B.C.,

• 17:19Speaker 01

  you know, by the Greeks. And it's kind of crazy that it's so old and it really is only focused on what you can control. Cognitive behavioral therapy is very much rooted in Stoicism. And so I think for anybody in any program, the first time you hear something like that, or let them, right? The Melchizedek, you know, just like let, like whatever's going on, whatever people, whatever is going to happen in the outside world, it's not your business, just concern yourself with yourself. It's really energizing and it's a super turn on, you know? And again, it's one of those things where you're like, yeah, my life is going to be different. I'm now going to live this really happy, superior life. And so

• 18:01Speaker 01

  I started reading the Stoics themselves, Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, and I just...

• 18:09Speaker 01

  Kind of invented this program for myself because I didn't know anyone who was a stoic or anyone who was into it. And so I just started every day, sitting down and reading Stoicism and figuring out my philosophy of life and writing it down and doing these journal exercises that I kind of created for myself. And that's how I start every day. And it's really fun. It's actually very hard to turn myself away from it, you know, and then I read some of the, I don't know, I just like putter around with my Stoicism and get very happy and focused, you know, and it's like, to me, it really helps. One of the things I do, it's like clarify your purpose. That's a big thing in Stoicism. What am I gonna do that day? What is today about? What virtue? And the word virtue is

• 18:54Speaker 01

  kind of problematic because it sounds churchy or whatever, but it's the four virtues, I think they're Plato, is wisdom, courage, justice, and temperance. So it's not judgy, it's just about your own character. So then I got really into it and I'm still into it. It's kept alive in me for all these years.

• 19:14Dan Harris?

  So the turn on here, I just want to dig into this, is there's something, if I'm hearing you correctly, really invigorating and empowering about focusing on what you can control and letting everything else fall to the wayside?

• 19:33Speaker 01

  Exactly. And the more you kind of study it and learn about it, the more wisdom you see in it, the more you really see that there's actually nothing outside of yourself you can control when you really start looking at it that way. So it really positively reinforces things. Then there's the reframing that's fun, that I think is good and easy. And then pretty soon, I mean, you've gone through this with your meditation practices. You'll be in a situation and you'll just kind of notice that you have just experienced that in a very, not very, maybe even a slightly different way than you might have a year before, where it just doesn't stress you out or cause you anxiety. And you're like,

• 20:17Speaker 01

  oh, wow, I think something must have worked along the way. I don't quite know how, but there's been a shift and I have a much more peaceful existence.

• 20:30Dan Harris?

  Coming up, Maria talks about her own daily Stoic routine, what Stoicism actually is, and what to do when meditation gives you anxiety.

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• 21:44Dan Harris?

  Tell me about this morning practice that you do. Can you just really walk us through? Because it sounds like you've invented it, and so there isn't some workbook people can buy. So can you just give us the steps in case we want to replicate it for ourselves?

• 21:58Speaker 01

  Yes. Oh, shoot, I wish I brought my Stoic book with me. I almost did. It's this little book that's now about 60 pages long that I've rewritten about 15 or 20 times, that I keep writing and improving, and then going back to Kinko's, and having them print up a new one and put a little coil binder on it, and then do it, you know, when it gets too marked up, I make a new one. And so I start out by writing down my philosophy of life, which is, my goal for today is to bring my actions, desires, and thoughts into line with my philosophy of life. My philosophy of life is virtue equals freedom. Virtue is the only good. Its pursuit is the only guarantee of abiding good cheer, secure joy, and a tranquil mind.

• 22:47Speaker 01

  So that took like 10 years for me to write. Okay. So like, that's my philosophy of life. And so I write that down every day to remind myself. And then I go to the four virtues. And I have adjectives listed next to the virtues. And if it's like wisdom, I'll go to one of my adjectives next to wisdom. You know, sound judgment or something. Because wisdom really is about just separating what you can't control from what you can't control. And then justice is about, there's a lot of kind of meta in that. Friendliness, benevolence. It's not about like being a justice warrior. It's about just like being a good human being to others. Then there's courage, which is like about work.

• 23:31Speaker 01

  And it's like love of work. There's a lot about like not falling in with the mob. You know, about like moral courage, about endurance. And then under temperance, it's about kind of discipline, patience, speaking less, speaking kindly. I kind of pick little subcategories of virtues that I need to work on that day. And then I journal all this out. I journal it out. And then it's like clarify my purpose. I figure out what my purpose is that day. And then there's like a list of prompts. I think today I did, I get to do this. That's what I did.

• 24:14Speaker 01

  I was like, I get to go and talk about my book with Dan. Like, this is really amazing that I get to do this. You know, like, I love Dan. Like, there's a podcast studio down the street in my publisher's house that's all set up. You know, that's like, all this good stuff is happening. And it's about not like, oh, fuck, I gotta go do this thing with Dan. And I was, you know, it's like, because it could. I love you, but you know what I'm saying? We all can just slide into that. So it's basically just like reframing it. So it's really positive. And then I'll read the Stoics and then I read other philosophy. I'm reading some Rousseau now. I'm trying to, I'm not trying to, but I enjoy branching out a bit. And then I'm like, ready to write.

• 24:57Dan Harris?

  This is so interesting. I just want to, for anybody who wants to do a bootleg version of this for themselves, it sounds like, roughly speaking, the exercise begins by restating what your life philosophy is.

• 25:13Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 25:14Dan Harris?

  And then the next click deeper is, how does that apply to what you're going to do today?

• 25:19Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 25:20Dan Harris?

  And then you do some reading, what might be cheesily called inspirational reading of Stoic philosophers, et cetera, et cetera. And then it culminates in some sort of journal prompt around, how am I going to, back to today, how am I going to apply one aspect of this very rich philosophical tradition to what's on my docket for today? Did I roughly restate that correctly?

• 25:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, that's exactly it. And then you're like, let's go, let's go do this thing, you know? Here's the important thing, is that I've set it up so that every single thing that I set out to do was 100% of my control. For instance, when I was coming down here, it wasn't like, what I wanted to do today, it wasn't like, I want Dan to love me, I want to sell a million books on the podcast, I want to become like an influencer. It was like, I want to be on time, I don't want to interrupt, I feel like I have, so I'm going to go into a shame spiral, but try not to interrupt, try not to swear. And those were like, the only three things I really intended to do today, was to, right,

• 26:27Speaker 01

  were those three things. And I'm like, maybe B plus or something, but it was like, I wanted to be professional, like love of work, I wanted to show up with my full self. And so, that's what's really fun about it. It's not like you set out for the day to like, write a bestselling novel. It's because you can't control that. You set out for the day to do like, a good day of work, and to focus and to concentrate, and not to just like, waste your time on the internet and take naps and things like that. That's what's kind of so fun about it. And that it's like, you only desire what's in your control. That's like a really big thing. And that's like, actually quite radical, is to shift, and that's why

• 27:11Speaker 01

  my top half of my philosophy of life is, it's like, to line up my desires, thoughts, and actions. Those are the three. Disciplines, I think, of Stoicism. It's thoughts, desire, and action. But desire is really the big one, which would be a very good segue to my book and my character. But I feel like you want to keep talking about Stoicism so we can put a pin in the segue.

• 27:38Dan Harris?

  No, no, no. I want to follow your lead here.

• 27:40Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 27:41Dan Harris?

  Because actually, I think it doesn't take us far afield from Stoicism. Because your protagonist starts the book in Act One in this state of feeling like she's got it all figured out. And in many ways, she does.

• 27:54Speaker 01

  Right. And she's, and I just interrupted. There we go. So it's like, now I just, okay. But that's, see, you're a friend. That's the problem is I feel like if I didn't know you. Friends, apparently, I steamroll over and I don't even care. That's like what it is to be a friend of mine. But so she basically has figured out that the key to life is to desire only what she has. Her name is Adora Hazard. She's a recently divorced woman who's moved to New York with her teenage daughter. Very similar to my story. Lives on the Upper West Side. And she has kind of figured out that if you desire what you have, then you're happy. And so she's set up this really fantastic life for herself. She's single.

• 28:38Speaker 01

  She assumes that she'll never find love because she's kind of later in life. So she doesn't desire love. She desires the company of her friends. And she lives on the seventh floor of an apartment building. And a lot of other single women live in the other apartments and they call themselves the coven. It's like the best, smartest people, her favorite people in the world. And they kind of share Netflix passwords and do things. And the idea is when they get old, they'll all just like take care of each other. And she's the moral tutor to a very wealthy eccentric family who lives on Fifth Avenue. And particularly to their twin boys. And so after they go to their private school and they're wearing their uniforms,

• 29:21Speaker 01

  they come back with all their really terrible, like, status obsessed values. She has to sit there and kind of talk them through it and try to like do moral training for them. And so she's quite, you know, pleased with herself, I should say, which is kind of one of the digs against philosophers. You know, it's like the arrogance of the philosopher. It's like the Christians, that's how they, when Christianity came along, they would talk about how, you know, Philosophers who were kind of running rampant until Christianity, believed that reason could solve everything. You know, you didn't need faith. So they got a, I guess, a bad rap because they didn't believe in faith. They just thought, no, I have everything I need to solve all the problems. And so there was kind of an arrogance to it.

• 30:05Speaker 01

  Even though Adora is not particularly arrogant, I did just kind of write it just with a little flavor of being pleased with herself. So then what happens is early on, she meets a handsome stranger at the ballet, a man at the ballet. And he pulls her into this kind of international mystery. And Adora kind of realizes that maybe desire, that she hasn't snuffed it out as well as she thought she did, that in fact, there is something like a flame that is burning inside of her. And this guy awakes it, and then this whole plot awakes it. And then we go back and learn about what happened to her and why she turned to Stoicism and why like, character became very important to her in the stories she'd been telling herself.

• 30:49Speaker 01

  And so it's all, my books are crazy. It's a pretty crazy plot. But it's very philosophy heavy, which is my, this aspect of exactly how this book is crazy.

• 31:00Dan Harris?

  Is it in the end, something of a repudiation of Stoicism then?

• 31:05Speaker 01

  You know, it's kind of interesting is that I think that one of the things that's to me interesting is that Stoicism doesn't love chaos. And I kind of like chaos, you know, like you say, oh, I love the low road. I, you don't really love the road, low road. But I mean, it's like kind of asking you not to be human, to not want to like lust or just like give in to your appetites or do the wrong thing and feel good sending a hundred angry texts to become a completely unhinged in the moment, like that is being human, you know? And so I feel like there's certainly a denial of that in Stoicism, of Stoic sage.

• 31:45Speaker 01

  And so, and I think love is, especially in the early stages, as I was writing about in my book, it's just by definition chaotic and you're unhinged and you're desiring what you don't have and you'll do anything to get it and to keep it and all of that kind of good, great shit that love is. And so I think at the end, she kind of is still a Stoic and, but maybe has modified it a little bit.

• 32:11Dan Harris?

  Where are you with Stoicism?

• 32:14Speaker 01

  I love Stoicism, but I will say I'm also kind of now getting into Nietzsche, who really hated the Stoics. He has his own set of problems, but there's something about just the creative will that I think is just really fascinating. But I will always, I don't know that I will ever not do my Stoic practice because it really does make me feel good. It's just now a practice. Do you meditate like every morning, Dan? Do you start out the day?

• 32:41Dan Harris?

  It really depends on the day.

• 32:43Speaker 01

  Okay, so I feel like, I certainly don't feel this when I meditate, which is why I rarely meditate. But I don't feel good when I meditate, you know, like I feel bad when I meditate, I will say. Sorry, I know this is a meditation podcast, it was supposed to be. But I mean, I just judge myself too much, you know, and it's like, Ben, I get anxious, I have all this anxiety. And I think Stoicism just at least makes me feel good while I'm doing it. I'm not just sweating with shame while I'm doing it. Sorry, is this not a good thing to say on this podcast?

• 33:17Dan Harris?

  No, no, there's no such thing of bad thing to say on this show. And it's not really, I mean, we talk about meditation and Buddhism a lot, but it's really about, we've done tons on Stoicism. We do sleep and it's all aspects of life. Maybe this is a little bit cute, what I'm gonna say. I do want to get back to Stoicism and your take on it and what you said about Nietzsche, which I need to learn more about because I don't fully understand. But just to respond to what you said about meditation, which is very common, the experience you're describing. And the cute part is I do want to reframe it if I can for you, that maybe this will be helpful. And this is not designed to browbeat you into meditating, it's just to help change the way you and some others think about it.

• 34:01Dan Harris?

  The point of meditation is not to feel any kind of way. The point is to be cool with whatever you're feeling. And that Leads to a kind of meta equanimity where you realize that whatever comes up externally or internally, you can handle it because you've sat with it, sat with all the ugliness of your mind and survived. One of my favorite little aphorisms, it's a coinage of Joseph Goldstein, who I know you're familiar with, my favorite meditation teacher, and he often tells people, it's okay, which does not mean everything's okay. It just means it's okay to feel whatever you're feeling right now.

• 34:45Dan Harris?

  And that creates a kind of equanimity that allows you to navigate all life's ups and downs with more skill. Does that make sense, what I'm saying?

• 34:55Speaker 01

  No, it does. And then you bring that into everything, then there's just kind of a general benevolence that then you will greet the day and other people with, right? Once you kind of give it to yourself. I can really see that. I have the same issue you have, which is anxiety, is I feel like when I sit to meditate, my heart races. It feels like it wouldn't be racing if I weren't meditating. So why, why am I putting myself in this situation? You know, maybe you have an answer for that.

• 35:28Dan Harris?

  I do a two-part answer, two-part answer. One is, you can think about it like, first, well, before I give you the two-part answer, I want to signal again.

• 35:37Speaker 01

  I know, I know. You've never, you've never been the seller, the peddler. I know.

• 35:42Dan Harris?

  Thank you. Two-part answer. One is, you can think of it as a kind of exposure therapy. The anxiety is a prominent and massively salient feature of your mind and my mind. And whether we meditate or not, it's gonna be there. And so meditation is a way to kind of learn to work with this gnarly, inconvenient psychological feature or bug more skillfully. So that's one answer. The second answer is, there are types of meditation that I think go right at anxiety. In particular, you use this word before, meta, not.

• 36:17Dan Harris?

  M E T A like the name of the company that owns Instagram. But M E T T A, which is a kind of benevolence or friendliness. And that style of meditation where you systematically envision certain people, send them good vibes, including yourself, which can be very cheesy, as you know. It was designed by the Buddha, it is said, as an antidote to fear. And it makes sense, love is kind of the opposite of fear. And so if you can just generate that skill of warmth and passion, it pulls you out of spirals of fear and anxiety. So that's my two part answer.

• 36:53Speaker 01

  Okay, so I love the Metta practice. Okay, it's like a drug. I just feel like a runner's high after I do it. So here's my question. If like my practice was to sit down in the morning and listen, do you have it on your app? I'm imagining a Metta practice. Okay, so let's say go to your app and I do Metta every morning. That feels like cheating for me is meditation. Like I have this idea that I need to sit there and empty my thoughts. And if something goes by, watch it like a cloud or whatever. And then, but could I just every morning do a Metta practice? Like if you guide me or another teacher, I'd like literally listen to a tape, but I'm not alone quietly with my thoughts.

• 37:35Dan Harris?

  Yes, a million percent. You could do exactly what you're describing. And just to say on the clearing your mind thing, that's impossible. And that's a pernicious misconception that people carry into their meditation practice. That makes it miserable because they're trying to do an impossible thing. So there's no cheating. Another Josephism is whatever works, do what works. If doing no meditation is what works for you, I want you to do no meditation. If doing some meditation of a specific variety is what works for you, then do that.

• 38:04Speaker 01

  Okay, God, you know, I'm actually gonna do this. I'm gonna do like a 10 day Metta practice because I love the Metta practice. Like I say, so I go into it without dread. I'd be like, oh yeah, you get to sit down and like send good wishes to the stranger, which I love doing. Okay, and I'll report back.

• 38:29Dan Harris?

  Coming up, Maria talks about the limits of Stoicism, the danger of baited bounties. I'll let her explain what that is. How to get shit done with non-attachment, using fantasy as a coping mechanism, and much more.

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• 39:49Dan Harris?

  This kind of brings us back to your character and your story and also your personal story, because we were talking before we went down this little rabbit hole about the limits of Stoicism. And I'm wondering if Stoicism's reputation, and I'm not an expert in it, Stoicism's reputation as kind of clinical and reasonable, is missing the warm and gooey piece that is the inevitable result, I believe, of loving-kindness practice.

• 40:21Speaker 01

  Right. I mean, there's a lot to be said here, and you can pull quotes. And, you know, like I say, justice is really about friendliness and being compassionate and the difficult people that you give love to and all of that. But I don't really think that's what it's about. Like, I think if you really wanted to defend Stoicism, that you could say, oh, no, it's in there, it's all in there. It is pretty cold. It is pretty purely rational. And I think it is rational to love people and to be kind to people and to embrace difficult people. But in Stoicism, it's like rooted in rationality.

• 41:05Speaker 01

  They say it's part of being human, so maybe that gets a little closer, you know, that that's what being a human is, and we have to get along with people and...

• 41:16Speaker 01

  What is it? What's good for the hive is what's good for the bee or what's good for, I don't know, what bee is good for the hive or whatever it is like. We all have to work together in a system. But no, it's not. And I'm not an expert. I mean, I, I spend a lot of time on it, but I certainly don't hold myself out an expert. We should get Ryan Holiday on the phone because he would have a good answer for this. But I think that the just about being purely loving, I'm not seeing that in the text of Stoicism, you know, just like running around joyfully and giving love.

• 41:48Dan Harris?

  Yeah. Just to say about Ryan Holiday, he's been on the show several times. I'll put a link to my interview in the show notes. I'll put a link to my interviews with Ryan. And I'm sure he would have a lot to say on this subject. But getting back to you and your main character, Adora, it seems like the while you and Adora both continue to love and practice Stoicism, there is this addition of a little bit more messiness and warmth and wild love that you're innovating on top of it.

• 42:23Speaker 01

  Yes. And just allowing that. And, you know, I'll tell you something that I was writing, but was kind of one of the sparks for writing the book, or there's this section in the middle of the book that's going into Adora's past. And one of the things that I really love about Stoicism, and what I wanted to write about, and particularly as it pertained to me, is that I realized as I was studying Stoicism, that I'd never thought about my personal character, which was really horrifying to me, that I was raised Catholic, but I feel like they didn't talk about character. They just talked about like miracles that Jesus did. And if you didn't believe it, you'd have to like say more Hail

• 43:06Speaker 01

  Marys. It was not, not a good priest I went to, apparently. I didn't learn about Just being in control of your character and always doing the right thing and having moral courage and separating that out from kind of status seeking and what society is telling you will make you happy, you know, all the bated bounties, as we've called them before, of just success and reputation and money and all that stuff. I realized that as I started getting into Stoicism that I was, I just kind of internalized all this garbage without really thinking about it.

• 43:47Speaker 01

  And so that's really what I wanted to write about was kind of character, that Adora kind of felt like she had bad character because she wanted kind of the wrong things, you know, she was like I was. I conveniently made her a former TV writer in Hollywood, as I was. And she was younger when she did it, as was I. She was chasing all these things that society tells you are going to make you happy. And so I think one of my real turn-ons with Stoicism was just kind of separating out all of that stuff, questioning that. The Stoics go really hard at that does not make you happy, you know, that is like the

• 44:30Speaker 01

  path of suffering, to pursue any of that, even if you get it, it's going to make you miserable. And so that's just something I hadn't heard. That's like really fresh and new, you know, if you're just sitting around mindlessly munching down, you know, just the messages of society, it's like, oh, wow, there's another way and I don't have to be a toxic person carrying this stuff around with me. And so that's kind of Adora's journey as well, you see, and that was really fun for me to write about.

• 45:00Dan Harris?

  What was the term you used, bated bounties?

• 45:02Speaker 01

  I used that, you don't remember, at dinner once a few months ago, and you really liked it. So I was giving you another shot at it, Dan.

• 45:09Dan Harris?

  That's so embarrassing. My memory is like Swiss cheese, but so.

• 45:15Speaker 01

  No, it doesn't matter, it was so minor. No, no, it's what Seneca calls things that get dangled in front of you. Stoics call them externals, that anything that's outside of your control and often you desire them. The baited bounties are basically like. riches or something that you think like, oh, it's bountiful, but it's like baited with treachery or with negativity and you think you're going for something that's going to make you happy, but it's actually something that you snap at.

• 45:44Dan Harris?

  So that I probably said this at dinner and don't remember that either, but um.

• 45:48Speaker 01

  Right, that's okay.

• 45:50Dan Harris?

  The Buddha talked about the terrible bait of the world.

• 45:54Speaker 01

  Oh, okay, that's what it is, the baited bounty, yeah.

• 45:58Dan Harris?

  It's all the same stuff. He also said, what the world calls happiness, I call suffering, and what the world calls suffering, I call happiness. And so it's all about the downside of desire. He's not anti-pleasure, but he describes it, and this is quite a simile here, as being like licking honey from the edge of a razor.

• 46:20Speaker 01

  Oh, okay, ouch, okay.

• 46:21Dan Harris?

  So there's, yeah, we need to eat and reproduce and lots of, he's not saying we, we need a completely monkish, although he was a monk, life. It's that if that's where you're placing all of your hope for happiness and fulfillment, it is unlikely to provide.

• 46:38Speaker 01

  Right. And that's what this is. The Stoics have one of my favorite terms, just because it's so clunky and it's so like such a bad translation, but I don't know how else to do it. So I think it's Seneca mainly who says that you can want money and pleasure and reputation, but that if you get it, you have to get it without attachment. You know what I'm saying? That you can like, as long as you're not attached to it, you can have it, which was convenient for him because he was like the richest man in the empire, you know, so he had to like come up with a workaround, right? About like, ah, I'm sitting here in my robes, you know, with all of my enslaved people around me. So how do I circle that square?

• 47:19Speaker 01

  He puts externals, which again is anything that's not your character, into two categories. And he calls externals indifference, I N D I F F E R E N T S, right? Indifference. They are like an indifference. And he says that there are preferred indifference, which is like comfort and pleasure and money. And then there's dis-preferred indifference. And I just think that's a really funny term is a dis-preferred indifference. So when something really bad happens, I'm like, that was a dis-preferred. Indifferent, that these things that happen, you can, you still can want good things to happen to you, you know what I mean? And I think that that does allow for humanity,

• 48:01Speaker 01

  because we are human. I want my book to do well, and I don't think that that makes me like a shallow, bad person, that I want people to read my book. I want it to get out in the world. If my whole sense of tranquility doesn't hinge on that, then that's okay.

• 48:17Dan Harris?

  It is, to go back to the edge of the razor, it's a very narrow path that I hear you describing, which is, you don't want to deny your humanity, you're a person who has spent several years working to create this beautiful book, so you want it to do well, you can't help that, you want it to do well, and you're doing these morning rituals that help you sanely tune into the fact that if you want things that are beyond your control, that is a reliable wellspring of unhappiness.

• 48:52Speaker 01

  Exactly. And so during the day, if I'm writing, I want to focus, I want to just try to do the best work I can. And then at the end of the day, I'm happy, and I guess that it is like a matter of faith, or not happy, but it's like I've done what I set out to do, so I don't have this whole extra thing of like being miserable from not achieving that. And then, you know, you put enough of them together, and then you've got a product, I guess, that's kind of the faith that you have to do, that it's not just about wanting the success of it. I want to finish a book, you know what I'm saying? Like, I'm not pretending that I don't want to finish a book, I am not just like totally floating in non-attachment.

• 49:32Speaker 01

  I mean, I always find, I'm sure I've talked to you about this, is how do you get shit done with non-attachment, right? How do you get through the day, and we both are accomplished people, and we obviously value finishing books, right? And having like crazy projects that we see to fruition. And that takes a lot of self-will, right? It takes a lot of determination and desire and a lot of fueled by fantasy, you know, in my case. And that's all like danger zone, danger zone. You do need that.

• 50:07Dan Harris?

  So how do you balance that?

• 50:10Speaker 01

  I don't know. I guess I go back to my practice, but I really believe that fantasy kind of kept me alive when I was a kid. I was a really lonely, kind of unhappy kid and unpopular. And I was fat and the bullies would beat me up and I would just really prefer my own company and I would just create these really elaborate fantasy scenarios, usually involving celebrities being in love with me. But, but it was, you know, these like very happy worlds that were just like highly determined and I would just have to be at school or something. Or I would be like in my fantasy world in the middle of like literally dialogue.

• 50:54Speaker 01

  And then it would be like, hold that thought. I have to go to class. And then I'd like come back and pick up right where I left off, you know? And I used to love like being alone and I grew up in Aspen, Colorado. And, and I would always like to be the single on the chairlift, you know? Like I always hated it when I'd be in the chairlift line. I always like kind of pretend I was with somebody and just like get on the chairlift by myself. Because it was just so happy for me to sit on this chairlift by myself. I would kind of hope the chairlift would stop. So I could just sit there and just like live very intensely in this fantasy world. And so I think that's what made me a novelist. It made me able to kind of sustain my attention over a long time.

• 51:36Speaker 01

  It made me create scenarios that were extremely pleasurable to me. And I think that that was a value that I bring to my books that I write. You know, I try to write like really nice places for people to go, even though it's like filled with ideas and suffering in some ways. Like generally, I really want to offer someone this very kind of over determined, happy world that, that they can live in for a while. So I'm not going to renounce fantasy. That kind of fantasy life. I think it's good.

• 52:11Dan Harris?

  Well, to my ear, what you've done, this beautiful thing, I think the term for this is sublimation, I think, maybe like of taking this difficult aspect of your childhood. And then you had this survival mechanism of the fantasy. And now you've turned it into art that is a service to the world.

• 52:31Speaker 01

  Oh, well, thank you. Yes. I mean, that's a nice way of looking at it. Thank you.

• 52:36Dan Harris?

  One last thing to say as we wind down here about this balance of trying to do big and meaningful and important and beautiful things in the world without being overly attached. One of the biggest sources of wisdom in my life is the CEO of our little company. Her name is Toni. We were in a meeting recently about my next book and planning a bunch of stuff. And I think she could sense that I was getting revved up and crazy. And she said, just keep in mind that good enough is pretty amazing. And I just, I was like, I want to get that tattooed on my forehead. Like, good enough is pretty amazing. If this project is just fine, you know, is good enough.

• 53:21Dan Harris?

  You know, it doesn't have to like, put a dent in the universe. It's gonna be pretty amazing for the people who read it, for my company, for me, for my family. And that's sanity inducing for me.

• 53:31Speaker 01

  Very much so. Yeah, I totally agree. And that something recently that's similar that I think you can definitely relate to, because I know you've been working on your book for a while. And I haven't written a book for 10 years. This is my first book in 10 years. So I'd taken a lot of attempts, abandoned novels, tried this one and it didn't work out, and abandoned it, tried other things. A friend of mine recently is having a book come out at the same time mine is. At lunch said to me, what do you want from this book? We were both like really pre pub and she's like, what do you want from this book? And I thought about it and I thought, I want to have written this book.

• 54:11Speaker 01

  So I really, that's like, I'm so happy I wrote the book. That everything else is gravy, you know, and right? I mean, don't you feel so proud, Dan, that you're gonna have written this fucking book finally?

• 54:22Dan Harris?

  Yes, I need to do a better job of occupying that space because it's very easy for me to get into the realm of not being indifferent and trying to control things that I can't control.

• 54:37Speaker 01

  But I don't know, I think by working hard and doing your best work, that does really set you up for being able to let go a little bit. You know, it's the only way to do it.

• 54:47Dan Harris?

  Yes. The Buddhists call it non-attachment to results, that you can work incredibly hard on a book or your child, as both of us are parents. Or anything, any project, you can work really hard on it. That's what you can control. But then you release it into an entropic universe and you have to do your best to be non attached.

• 55:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, definitely.

• 55:10Dan Harris?

  Before I let you go, can you just remind everybody of the name of the book? And then also your past books, just for people who want to take a deeper dive.

• 55:19Speaker 01

  Oh, thank you. So this book is called Go Gentle. It's called, it's a novel. And the other books that I've written, the one that people would know more than the others is called Where'd You Go Bernadette? I think that was your gateway book, Dan, into my universe. I wrote a book called Today Will Be Different and one called This One Is Mine. And so Go Gentle is my fourth book. I'm feel very fortunate to be able to be talking about it. So, thank you.

• 55:49Dan Harris?

  Where'd You Go Bernadette was my gateway, but I had met you before that. I met you and didn't know, I didn't know anything really. And I just liked you. And then I was at a book sale at my kid's school and saw that Where'd You Go Bernadette was available. So I bought it, read it and loved it. And then we stayed being friends.

• 56:08Speaker 01

  Exactly. No, that was a really awesome text that I still remember getting from you. That was like a year later, like, hey, by the way, I read that book. I was so happy. That was very nice of you. Thank you for texting me. Yeah.

• 56:22Dan Harris?

  Well, I sent a similar text after I read Go Gentle, which in my opinion is even better. Where'd You Go Bernadette was amazing. This is even better. So you just keep getting better.

• 56:32Speaker 01

  Thank you. Thank you.

• 56:34Dan Harris?

  All right. Maria, thanks again for coming on.

• 56:37Speaker 01

  Thank you, Dan. This was fun.

• 56:44Dan Harris?

  Thanks again to Maria Semple. Don't forget to check out her book, Go Gentle. Also, don't forget to check out my meditation app if you're into that kind of thing. DanHarris.com is the place to get it. There's a 14 day free trial if you want to try before you buy. And if you can't afford it, just let us know and we'll hook you up.

• 57:01Dan Harris?

  Finally, thank you very much to everybody who worked so hard to make this show. Our producers are Tara Anderson and Eleanor Vassili. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our managing producer. Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer. DJ Cashmere is our executive producer. And Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme.

• 57:34Speaker 03

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