Solve The Problem First

Yeah, it’s frustrating. Yeah, it was preventable. Yeah, you told them it was preventable, you warned them what would happen. They didn’t listen and now here you are. Yeah, it’s gonna be costly. Yeah, you’re pissed. But you know what you should do? You should solve the problem first. You can put your emotions about it aside. You can worry about blame later. “You don’t have to turn this into something,” Marcus Aurelius wrote in Meditations. “It doesn’t have to upset you.” He also writes about how easy it is to waste energy investigating the causes of things, taking things personally, extrapolating out what everything means. He’s saying: Just deal with it. Solve the problem, worry about ‘accountability’ later. Right now, you’ve got to figure out what you’re going to do about the fact that your spouse left the keys at home. Right now, you’ve got to deal with the fact that one of your kids is hurt and crying—that your other one is responsible can be addressed later. Right now, you’ve got payroll to meet, you’ve got an order that’s late, you’ve got a boat to get on the trailer. Get your emotions under control, resist the urge to argue and fight about the situation you’re in. Deal with the fact you’re in the situation first. You can deal with the rest later.…and you just might find, after you’ve solved the problem, that you don’t much care about whose fault it was anymore.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee 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.

• 0:03Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength, insight, and wisdom in everyday 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, dailystoic.com. Solve the problem first. Yeah, it's frustrating. Yeah, it was preventable. Yeah, you told them it was preventable. You warned them what would happen. They didn't listen, and now here you are. And yeah, it's gonna be costly. And yeah, you're pissed. But you know what you should do? You should solve the problem first. You can put your emotions about it aside. You can worry about blame later.

• 0:48Ryan Holiday?

  You don't have to turn this into something, Marcus Aurelius wrote in Meditations. It doesn't have to upset you. He also writes about how easy it is to waste energy investigating the causes of things, taking things personally, extrapolating out what everything means. He's saying, just deal with it. Solve the problem. Worry about accountability later. Right now, you've got to figure out what you're gonna do about the fact that your spouse left the keys at home. Right now, you've got to deal with the fact that one of your kids is hurt and crying, that your other one is responsible, can be addressed later. Right now, you've got payroll to meet. You've got an order that's late. You've got a boat to get on the trailer. Get your emotions under control. Resist the urge to argue and fight about the situation you're in.

• 1:33Ryan Holiday?

  Deal with the fact that you're in the situation first. You can deal with the rest later. And you might just find, after you've solved the problem, that you don't care that much about whose fault it was anymore. Shout out to my wife, who put this rule into place when we take our RV around, our little camper trailer. We said, when we got it, if we're gonna get it, if we're gonna take places, we gotta agree, we'll solve the problem first, backing it in, taking it somewhere, doing this. Found out someone forgot to do this. We'll solve the problem first. We'll deal with the rest later. It's great advice, so thanks, Samantha.

• 2:17Ryan Holiday?

  Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us, and it would really help the show. We appreciate it, and I'll see you next episode.