Is This Really An Obstacle? | Reduce Wants, Increase Happiness

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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, where each day we bring you a Stoic-inspired meditation, designed to help you find strength and insight and wisdom into everyday life. Each one of these episodes is based on the 2,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women, help you learn from them, to follow in their example, and to start your day off with a little dose of courage and discipline and justice and wisdom. For more, visit DailyStoic.com.

• 0:56Ryan Holiday?

  Epictetus's most powerful line is about how it's not things that upset us, but what we think about things that does all the damage. What he really meant is that our sense of what an obstacle or a disadvantage or a trial is, our subjective understanding, is more powerful than the objective reality. For instance, if you tell yourself that you were failed by your teachers, and that's why you're not as smart as other people, for the rest of your life, you're going to have trouble learning and understanding things. It may be true that your teachers were less than adequate, but this story you've chosen to tell yourself is the true failure. And you can see how a person who tells themselves a different story about the same facts, for instance, "I attended underperforming schools,

• 1:40Ryan Holiday?

  but my hunger for learning allowed me to rise above it." Or, "My street smarts make up for what I lack in education. I'll do much better in life." As Epictetus said, "Sickness is an impediment to the body, but not to the will unless the will wants to be impeded. L lameness is an impediment to the leg, but not to the will. If you tell yourself this every time, you will find the impediment is to something else, but not to yourself." And let's not forget, he was saying this as a person whose leg was crippled, from his time as a slave, no less. He refused to see a physical impairment as something that changed who he was as a person. He refused to tell himself that depressingly myopic narrative

• 2:25Ryan Holiday?

  that he was somehow inherently broken or deprived as a result of this injury. Instead, you can see in his teachings that, over and over again, he chose to tell himself a bigger, better story, that he had learned how powerful he really was, that no person could stop or harm him, even if they tried. That's the narrative we want for ourselves. Yes, we have problems, but we are not the problem. We have flaws, but we are not flawed. We might do something dumb, but that doesn't mean we are dumb. We decide what things mean. We decide what is actually an obstacle and what isn't. We have the power.

• 3:14Ryan Holiday?

  Reduce wants, increase happiness. The Stoics knew that wanting less increases gratitude, just as wanting more obliterates it. Epictetus focused much of his teachings on helping his students reduce this destructive habit of wanting more. In it, he saw the key to a happy life and to relationships. By practicing the art of wanting less and being grateful for the portion that we already have before us, we are hopping off the so-called hedonic treadmill and taking a real step on the path to a life of real contentment. That's what we're journaling about in the Daily Stoic Journal. That's where this little meditation comes from. We've got three quotes from Epictetus. He says, "Remember to conduct yourself in life

• 3:59Ryan Holiday?

  as if at a banquet. As something is being passed around and comes to you, reach your hand out and take only a moderate helping. Does it pass you by? Don't stop it. It hasn't yet come. Don't burn in desire for it, but wait until it arrives in front of you. Act this way with children, a spouse, towards position, with wealth. One day, it will make you worthy of a banquet with the gods." That's Epictetus's Incoridion. When children stick their hand down a narrow goody jar, they can't get their full fist out and start crying. Drop a few treats and you will get it out. Curb your desire. Don't set your heart on so many things and you will get what you need. That's Epictetus's Discourses 39.

• 4:41Ryan Holiday?

  Freedom isn't secured by filling up your heart's desire, but by removing your desire. Epictetus's Discourses. It's not that the Stoics didn't like stuff. I mean, they did. They enjoyed life. But they also knew that there is such thing as too much of a good thing. And they tried to enjoy what they had while they had it, but also not be dependent on it. And also, more importantly, not desire and achieve and acquire so much that it becomes its own burden. I think that's something we miss, for instance, even about the Epicureans. We think the Epicureans were these sort of pleasure lovers, and to a sense, they were. But it was the simple pleasures. It was the right amount that brought them pleasure.

• 5:23Ryan Holiday?

  And too much becomes not only not a pleasure, but a punishment. There's a joke I like. Someone attended one of Aristotle's dinners and they said, Aristotle, you know what I love about your dinners? I don't regret them the following morning. So this, this idea of moderation is, is so essential. It's the key to happiness. The right amount. I remember Steve, my editor and collaborator on The Day of Stoic and The Day of Stoic Journal, said to me once, he said, moderation in all things and some things not at all. And I thought that was beautifully expressed. And that's kind of how I try to live my life. Seneca probably took it too far in one direction. Maybe Epictetus took it too far in the other direction.

• 6:03Ryan Holiday?

  And maybe Marcus Aurelius is right there in the Aristotelian mean enough, but not too much. There's two beautiful metaphors there from, from Epictetus that I think are worth pausing on. He talks about the kid sticking their hand in the candy jar. They get too much. They could let some of it go, they could get it, but since they can't let it go, they get none of it. That's a beautiful image. But this other one that, that we're life at a banquet. And I don't know about you, but whenever I'm at a buffet or a banquet, I I tend to eat too much and then it's unhappy. It's unpleasurable. As Aristotle said, you regret it the next day. But if you can find a way to enjoy it, that the food is not really the point. The food is extra. The point is the conversation, the company, the experience. And to take too much, to take more than your share, to be distracted. Oh, that's coming over here.

• 6:48Ryan Holiday?

  I want seconds of this. This is just take yourself out of the present moment. And in a sense, it ultimately ends up sort of punishing you and it takes the fun and the joy out of it. So moderation in all things. He's being explicit. This banquet thing is a metaphor. He says, act this way with children espoused towards position with wealth. And one day it will make you worthy of a banquet with the gods. The less you need, the less you want, the freer you are, the happier you are, and the more you enjoy what you do have. That idea of enough, that idea of the right amount is key. And that's what I'd love for you guys to spend some time thinking about this week. What is enough? Do you have it? Do you really need what you think you need? Do you just want it? What would happen if you actually got it?

• 7:31Ryan Holiday?

  Would it really fulfill the desire the way you think it would? Maybe not. Be well, be moderate. Talk soon.

• 7:44Ryan 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.