Don’t Lose the Day in Expectation of the Night | It's Not Too Late, But Don't Wait (ft. Chris Guillebeau)

The clocks have been changed. Summer is gone. Fall is here, and winter is on its way. 📚 If you liked this episode, pick up a copy of Time Anxiety: The Illusion of Urgency and a Better Way To Live https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/time-anxiety-the-illusion-of-urgency-and-a-better-way-to-live?_pos=1&_sid=436c56048&_ss=r by Chris Guillebeau: https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/time-anxiety-the-illusion-of-urgency-and-a-better-way-to-live?_pos=1&_sid=436c56048&_ss=r https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/time-anxiety-the-illusion-of-urgency-and-a-better-way-to-live?_pos=1&_sid=436c56048&_ss=r Watch the episode with Chris Guillebeau on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHyEgbTg-BA Follow Chris on Instagram @193Countries https://www.instagram.com/193countries/reels/ and on X @chrisguillebeau. https://x.com/chrisguillebeau?lang=en Check out his podcast the Side Hustle School https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/side-hustle-school/id1188487073and more of his work at chrisguillebeau.com http://chrisguillebeau.com 🪙 We have a collection of items in the Daily Stoic storehttps://store.dailystoic.com/collections/memento-morito help you in your own memento mori practice https://store.dailystoic.com/collections/memento-mori, check them out here:https://store.dailystoic.com/collections/memento-morihttps://store.dailystoic.com/ 🎟️https://www.dailystoiclive.com/DAILY STOIC LIVE https://www.dailystoiclive.com/| Ryan Holiday is coming to a city near you https://www.dailystoiclive.com/! Grab tickets here https://www.dailystoiclive.com/ | https://www.dailystoiclive.com/ Nashville, Tennessee - November 20 https://www.eventbrite.com/e/daily-stoic-live-onstage-with-ryan-holiday-tickets-1991992836196?aff=oddtdtcreator Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - December 8 https://www.eventbrite.com/e/daily-stoic-live-onstage-with-ryan-holiday-tickets-1987339339462?aff=oddtdtcreator Washington D. C. - December 9 https://www.unionstagepresents.com/shows/daily-stoic-live-09-dec 🎙️AD-FREE https://dailystoic.supercast.com/| Support the podcast and go deeper into Stoicism by subscribing toThe Daily Stoic Premium https://dailystoic.supercast.com/ - unlock ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content:https://dailystoic.supercast.com/ ✉️ FREE STOIC WISDOM https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail | Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email athttps://dailystoic.com/dailyemail Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  So I just got back from two weeks in New Zealand and Australia. I was on tour for Daily Stoic Live and we stayed in two different places in Bondi Beach. I would wake up every morning, go for a long run, and it's been one of my favorite places for like a decade and a half. Actually, it made me think while I was there that the very first time that my wife and I went to Australia, part of how we paid for that trip was we listed our house on Airbnb while we were gone. That was something we would do back then, especially as I was making that transition from marketing, my corporate career to writing, is that when I would travel for talks, we would list our house on Airbnb. We had this little house in East Austin, and that's how we covered the mortgages. When we were gone, people would stay in it while we were out of town. If

• 0:42Speaker 00

  you have space and you're going to be away, maybe that can be a memorable place for someone else to stay. Your home might be worth more than you think, and you can find out how much at airbnb.com/host. Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help you bring those four key Stoic virtues: courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world.

• 1:09Speaker 00

  Don't lose the day in expectation of the night. The clocks have been changed. It is officially starting to get cold. Vacations have ended. The beach and the pool and the parks are quieter. Summer is gone. Fall is here. Winter is on its way. And there's a part of you that can't wait. You're done with the heat. You long for cooler days, for a change of seasons, change to your fall wardrobe, maybe even a fresh start. Deer season, skiing, whatever. But Seneca speaks

• 1:51Speaker 00

  of those who lose the day in expectation of the night, and night in fear of the dawn. He's saying that our anticipation of what's to come, positive or negative, it robs us of what is right here, right now. We miss out on being present, on being still, on enjoying life for what it is right now. So whatever season you would call this moment, don't wish it away. If you can still swim outdoors where you live, if you can still use the back patio in the evening, enjoy it. Maybe the mornings require a light jacket where you are. Enjoy that, because soon enough,

• 2:30Speaker 00

  you'll be scraping ice off your windshield before you drive to work. As the weather cools, as the days grow shorter, as the sun sets on another day of your life, remember that Seneca also encouraged us to begin at once to live and to count each day as its own. Another season of your life, of your partner's life, of your kids' lives, of your parents' lives, has come and gone. A period of chances taken, opportunities missed, gone and never to return again in the same way.

• 3:09Speaker 00

  Don't waste it. Don't miss it. And you know, it's funny, I wrote this email actually much closer to when summer was ending, and then I had to rewrite it earlier this week. And then this morning, before I recorded this, I had to go back inside before I walked the dog to grab a pair of gloves. It was hot like three days ago, and then it happened, which is sort of the point. It sneaks up on us. The transitions happen quicker than we think, and there is a Stoic reminder in that.

• 3:50Speaker 00

  So we live on Halloween Street, and we go crazy over Halloween decorations. And we're having to do it twice this year because someone stole a bunch of our Halloween decorations. I don't blame them. We have awesome Halloween decorations. We actually got a bunch of them from Wayfair. Wayfair delivers high-quality, customer-trusted products for your home, so you can host and celebrate without the stress. So if you're in an arms race with your neighbor about who can have the scariest, biggest Halloween stuff, coolest, prettiest, most awesome Christmas lights, well, Wayfair is the place for you. Wayfair has thousands of products across every style and budget, whether simply replacing an appliance or transforming your home from top to bottom

• 4:34Speaker 00

  for the holiday season. My favorite thing about shopping about Wayfair is the reviews. You know, you buy stuff online sometimes, and then you get it in its way smaller than it looked, or it's garbage, you know? You want to see real photos from real people, so you know what you're actually buying. When refreshing your home this holiday season, Wayfair delivers exactly what you need. Head to wayfair.com to shop all things home, W A Y F A I R dot com.

• 4:57Speaker 01

  Wayfair, every style, every home.

• 5:00Speaker 00

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• 6:31Speaker 00

  So when people hear this idea, like the Stoics talk about memento mori, right?

• 6:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:35Speaker 00

  Life is short.

• 6:36Speaker 02

  Think about it all the time.

• 6:37Speaker 00

  But I think that causes people a lot of anxiety.

• 6:39Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 6:39Speaker 00

  How can meditating on mortality and the shortness of life be invigorating as opposed to anxiety-inducing?

• 6:47Speaker 02

  Yeah. So I think there are two things. The first is there's a difference in understanding, I was going to say existential, that's not the right word. It's more of like the intellectual understanding of mortality, right? Like, everybody dies versus the emotional or personal understanding, someday I will die. And I had this previous book about quests and going to every country in the world, and people who'd done different quests. And one of the things, the commonalities I saw among them is they often had this very personal or emotional awareness of mortality.

• 7:17Speaker 00

  Yeah, where they had a near-death experience.

• 7:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. Or someone close to them, or something, you know, or sometimes it wasn't anything like that. They just had this from a young age. But yes, however they got there, they had that. And I think, so it can be very anxiety-inducing, as you said, or it can be very purposeful, and it can help you understand, okay, well, I am, instead of living in ignorance of this fact, which is true for you and for me and for people we love and for everyone, I'm actually aware of it. I accept it. It's just how things go. And therefore, the gift is that I have this awareness, and the gift is I understand every day is precious. I understand that I get to

• 7:57Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 7:57Speaker 02

  you know, do something that matters to me. I get to have important relationships and invest in those people and hopefully create something. And yeah, who knows if it'll, if it matters in 100 years or 200 years, right?

• 8:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:09Speaker 02

  Like you said, but this is what's in front of me now, and that is a gift. And so I think, you know, thinking about death every day, which is a phrase I've used, and I've used that as well, I think it is purpose-inducing rather than anxiety-inducing.

• 8:22Speaker 00

  I think when you think about memento mori, it's not that you will die tomorrow, right? It's not, an asteroid is coming, and humanity is not going to survive. Remember a couple of years ago, there was that like missile alert in Hawaii. There's no, you're on an island, there's nothing.

• 8:37Speaker 02

  That's right. That's right.

• 8:38Speaker 00

  Knowing that, on the one hand, would be settling in the sense that it's certain, but profoundly unsettling because almost nihilistic in that like, everything is now rendered potentially meaningless, because the future has disappeared. That's not what memento mori is supposed to make you feel. Memento mori is that you could die tomorrow.

• 8:58Speaker 02

  Right.

• 8:58Speaker 00

  You definitely will die. It could be tomorrow.

• 9:01Speaker 02

  Right.

• 9:01Speaker 00

  Like, if you knew you were gonna die tomorrow, maybe try heroin.

• 9:04Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 9:05Speaker 00

  Like, you're now immune from the consequences, or inured to a certain degree, of the long-term consequences from your decision. It's that you could die actually makes the consequences of your decisions immediate and urgent. That's the difference, right? So I think if you're thinking like, well, why does it matter? I'm gonna die. You're not doing it right. It's that, hey, tomorrow is not guaranteed and the next day is not guaranteed. And what is guaranteed is that at some point, there's no more tomorrows. So don't do it later, do it now. Don't do it crappy, do it well, because it could be the last time you're doing it.

• 9:44Speaker 02

  That's right. I think I wrote in the book about this gives you a built-in excuse.

• 9:47Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 9:48Speaker 02

  For not doing anything that you don't want to do.

• 9:50Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 9:50Speaker 02

  And I understand what you mean about like, we would just take heroin if it was gonna be tomorrow. But I still think like, if you're just like, when you have requests or opportunities for your time, demands for your time, that you don't want to engage with, I think it's good to just be like, no, thanks. I can't do this because I'm gonna die one day.

• 10:08Speaker 00

  No, Mark's in meditations, he says, um, let me see if I can find it. He says.

• 10:12Speaker 02

  This meeting sounds great, but I'm actually gonna die. So, you know, probably not tomorrow, I don't think, but I don't know.

• 10:17Speaker 00

  Well, what he says is, and I think this is a great question. He goes, whenever you're doing something, ask yourself, am I afraid of death? Because if I die, I won't be able to do this anymore. Right? There's a bunch of things that I don't wanna die because I love playing with my kids. I love nature, I love, I love my job, I love writing. I don't love standing in line. I don't love traffic. I don't love, you know, there's a lot of things I don't love. And so the meditating on your mortality, it gives you this perspective. As you said, a built-in excuse to go, why the fuck am I doing this? I'm, I'm only here for so long. It also can have the effect of going like, this is why I'm fucking doing this. Because I'm only here for so long.

• 10:59Speaker 00

  So it cuts both ways and it's very clarifying in that sense. I remember I was standing, you know, Waverly Cemetery in Australia, like on Bondi Beach, that, that, that walk.

• 11:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, I know the walk.

• 11:12Speaker 00

  There's that cemetery right over the ocean. I remember I was looking out over that cemetery once and, and I was thinking, for almost no one in this cemetery where they're like, it's time. Like, everyone else, it was like, it's too soon. It snuck up on every single one of these people here, as it will sneak up on me. But the, the practice of memento mori is supposed to, to announce the presence, right? To make it not catch you by surprise. You'll still probably be surprised, but ideally you won't have gone, I can't believe I just wasted the last 20 years on that.

• 11:43Speaker 02

  Right. You wanna look back and be proud. Like, I want more of it. Sure, I would like more, I would like it to continue.

• 11:49Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 11:49Speaker 02

  You know, if it were up to me, but it is ultimately not up to me, you know? The timing is uncertain, so I want to be proud of what I've done.

• 11:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, Seneca says you should have more than a large number to show at the end of your life.

• 12:01Speaker 02

  That's great.

• 12:01Speaker 00

  Right? Because people are like, I'm 87, can you believe it? And it's like, I've met 17-year-olds that have done more than.

• 12:07Speaker 02

  That's right, that's right.

• 12:09Speaker 00

  Like, did you become what you were capable of becoming? And I think that's ultimately, if there's anything that should give us anxiety, it's that. Not, hey, uh, if I don't get there by three o'clock, someone's gonna be mad at me.

• 12:22Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 12:22Speaker 00

  You know?

• 12:23Speaker 02

  Sure, sure. Or is it too late? I think that's something that drives a lot of anxiety. It's too late for me. I feel like, uh, I'm too late in life. But, you know, speaking of the age thing, it's interesting because I did a lot of research and asked this question of a lot of people. And, uh, I had people who were 17, who said the same thing. Yes. Oh, it sounds so silly, but it's, right? But it's just as dumb, you know, if you're 30 or 40 or any age, it's too late. Like, there are some hard limits to some things. You know, you can't become a gymnast at certain ages or Olympic gymnast, you know? Let's say, right?

• 12:55Speaker 00

  Like, even that distinction is interesting, right?

• 12:57Speaker 02

  Right, right, exactly.

• 12:58Speaker 00

  Like, we say, oh, it's too late, it's like, is that too late to really love gymnastics?

• 13:02Speaker 02

  Yes, 100%.

• 13:03Speaker 00

  It's not too late to work at a gymnasium, right?

• 13:05Speaker 02

  Right, right, right. There's, there's alternatives, right? So, yes, there are some, some limits, but, but there is so much more. So, yes, at, at all ages, people have this sense of like, oh, I've missed my chance, right? And you haven't missed your chance. There's, there are more chances. You probably haven't missed whatever chance you're thinking of, but there are also other chances.

• 13:34Speaker 03

  Hey, we're Nick and Jack, hosts of The Best One Yet. Behind every episode, there's research, emails, spreadsheets, and our shared Google Doc, the headline hammer. With Google Workspace with Gemini, Google's AI is built right into the premium versions of tools we already use, like Gmail, Docs, and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalized AI for the way we work. That means less time on the work around the work and more time finding the stories worth talking about. Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at goo.gle/workspacewithGemini. That's goo.gle/workspacewithGemini.