8 Lessons From Epictetus (To Live A Stoic Life)

Born a slave, Epictetus spent the first 30 years of his life in chains. Epictetus never actually wrote anything down. It is through his student Arrian that we have a written account of his lessons. And if everyone from Emperors to war heros have been grateful as they found guidance, solace and strength in Epictetus’ lessons, then there must be something for us. But only if we choose to. Learn more about Epictetus: https://dailystoic.com/Epictetus/ The Jordan Harbinger Show is one of the most interesting podcasts on the web, with guests like Kobe Bryant, Mark Manson, Eric Schmidt, and more. Listen to one of Ryan's episodes right now (1, 2), and subscribe to the Jordan Harbinger Show today. MUD WTR is a coffee alternative with 4 adaptogenic mushrooms and ayurvedic herbs with 1/7th the caffeine of a cup of coffee. Go to mudwtr.com/STOIC and use code STOIC to get 15% off your first purchase. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemailCheck 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.

• 0:06Speaker 00

  Bienvenidos a la edición de la semana de la每日 Stoic. Cada viernes, nos traemos una meditación inspirada por los antiguos estoicos, algo que os ayude a vivir los cuatro virtudes estoicas de coraje, justicia, temperance y sabiduría. Y aquí en la semana, nos enteramos de los temas mismos. Intervemos a filósofos estoicos. Investigamos a largo plazo cómo estas ideas estoicas pueden ser aplicadas a nuestras vidas reales y a los problemas desafiantes de nuestro tiempo. Aquí en la semana, cuando tenéis un poco más de espacio, cuando las cosas se han detenido, aseguráos de tomarte un poco de tiempo para pensar, para ir a caminar, para sentarte con vuestro diario

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  y, lo más importante, para prepararos para lo que puede traer la semana de adelante.

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  Epictetus nació como esclavo. Pasó 30 años de su vida en cadenas. Y no es como una buena esclavitud. Su pierna se rompió. Los esclavos romanos tenían muy poco en la medida de derechos. Y se le pasó a ser esclavo en la corte de Nero, donde vistió depravidad e insanidad y todo tipo de cosas. Y aún así, se convirtió en este fantástico, brillante, mundo cambiante filósofo. De hecho, lo que creo que es tan fascinante sobre Epictetus es que aunque él es powerless, sus escritos resonan e influyen en los poderosos, ¿verdad? No sabemos sobre sus interacciones con Nero, pero sabemos que sus escritos Epictetus,

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  bueno, en realidad no son escritos, fueron sus lecciones escritas por su estudiante Arian. Pero eso sigue buscando su camino a Marcus Aurelius, cambiar el mundo a través de meditaciones. También encuentra su camino a Admiral Stockdale, de lo que hemos hablado muchas veces. Todo esto es decir, si esos dos hombres, Stockdale y Marcus Aurelius, muchos, muchos, muchos en medio podrían aprender de Epictetus, así como podemos. Y en el episodio de hoy vamos a hablar de lo que Epictetus puede enseñarnos sobre vivir una vida estoica.

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  You have to be willing to look stupid. That's what Epictetus says. He says, "If you wish to improve, you must be willing to look clueless or stupid about some things." I think that means, one, you have to be willing to ask dumb questions. If you don't ask, you can't learn. If you're afraid of what other people think, you'll never learn what you don't know. But I think the other part is, you have to be willing to not care about stuff, right? To be like, "I don't care about that. I'm not following that. I'm out of touch about that." That's one part. Then I think the other part is, you have to be willing to be bad at stuff, right? To be at the beginner stages, to be embarrassingly figuring it out, to be mediocre, to be in the process of rediscovering, or changing, or growing. So if you want to improve, the Stoics say, you have to be willing to look stupid, to

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  look embarrassed, to be ridiculous, to not be good, because that's how you get from where you are to where you want to go.

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  The whole thing boils down to this one idea. There's some stuff that's up to us, and some stuff that's not up to us. Epictetus says, "Our chief task in life is, is this up to me, or is this not up to me?" And I know that seems really basic, but the truth is, most of us, most people, spend most of their time on stuff that's not up to them, right? We complain about stuff, we wish stuff was otherwise, we spend our time worrying about the future, or regretting the past, and none of that is energy spent towards what we actually control, which is right now, what's right in front of us. So that's the idea. Is this up to me? Is this not up to me? And this dichotomy of control, as the Stoics say, what really the dichotomy of control is about, is resource allocation. Are you going to spend your time and energy on things that are up to you, or things that are not up to you?

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  Every second you spend on something that's not up to you is wasted, and at least, if you spend it on something that's up to you, it might make a difference.

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  Are you putting in the work? That's the question. You hear people say stuff like, "Oh, I'm going to trust my gut on this one," or "I'm going to trust my instincts." But the Stoics would say, "Have you actually done the work to trust those instincts? Have you put in the training and the study, and asked the questions, and learned from the masters enough that you deserve to do that?" Right, a lot of people's instincts lead them to very dark, screwed up places. So it's not simply a matter of trusting your gut. It's about training and putting in the work so your gut is worth trusting. Epictetus says the key is to get to a place where when something happens, you go, ah, this is exactly what I trained for, right? But a lot of people don't get there. They just want to be able to trust their gut. They just want to go with their emotions.

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  They just want to justify what they're thinking about doing anyway by saying, ah, this is what the universe wants. No, you have to put in the work. You don't just magically get there. And it's a lifelong journey. It has to be, or else anyone would do it.

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  Don't focus on how far you've come. Focus on how far you have left to go. Epictetus says there is nothing less philosophical than someone who puts on airs about their progress, about their study of wisdom, about their breakthroughs. Marcus Aurelius, even as an old man was saying, you're still a long way off from being a philosopher. This is a lifelong pursuit. If you focus on how far you've come, you get arrogant and complacent. If you focus on how far you have left to go, all the things you have left to learn, then you get better. A great physicist once said that as our island of knowledge grows, so does the shoreline of ignorance. That's true for self-improvement too. As you get better, you should be seeing constantly

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  all the things that you have left to get better in. So don't get complacent, don't get egotistical. Focus on how far you have left to go.

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  Moving forward begins with one thing, always, acceptance. If you're fighting it, if you're denying it, if you're blaming about it, you won't be able to make progress. You won't be able to do anything with it. And you certainly won't be able to move on. That's why for the Stoics, this idea of the art of acquiescence was sort of step one. But step two is amor fati, a love of it. You not only don't run from it, you embrace it. You say, I don't have to do this, I get to do this. You don't say, it's unfortunate that this happened to me, as Marx realized. Did you say, it's fortunate that this happened to me? You accept it, you run towards it and you use it. And that's how you move forward.

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  You gotta blow your own nose. To me, that's the core idea of Stoicism. Nobody's coming to save you. Nobody can handle this for you. You're not magically gonna get better on your own. Your problems aren't gonna solve themselves on their own. You've gotta do it. You've gotta make the changes. If you wanna be beautiful, Epictetus says, make beautiful choices. Work on getting better. Focus on getting better. Focus on what you can do today. That's how you solve your problem. Step by step, action by action, as Marx really said. That's how we improve, day by day, by making the little choices, the little actions, not by waiting for other people to save us, but by blowing our own nose, getting active in our own rescue.

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  Epictetus says, who cares that you read? What matters is what you read. Seneca talks about how it's not about how many books you read in your life. It's whether you're digesting the works of the master thinkers. So it's good that you wanna be a reader, and you should read, and you should spend a lot of time reading. But it's not about quantity, it's about quality. Read great writers. My rule is, I wanna read books that have changed people's lives, one. And two, those tend to be older books, right? Books that have stood the test of time. And I know this is crazy as someone who puts out new books, but I have a bias towards old books, books that have stood the test of time, that were relevant 100 years ago, 1,000 years ago. Books that have stood the test of time are likely going to hold up in the future, and you won't have wasted your time reading them.

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  That you wanna read is great, but it matters what you read and how you read, not just that you're shoving this information down your gullet. If you want some more tips on reading, check out the Daily Stoke Reading Challenge at dailystoic.com/reading.

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  Epictetus tells us that every situation has two handles. He says there's the handle that will bear weight and the handle that won't. He says, you could look at it as, your brother has wronged you, he screwed you over, he's hurt you. Or you could say, I only have one brother. This is my brother. I'm gonna forgive this person. I'm gonna be patient, I'm gonna be better. We're gonna be better for having gone through this. So this idea that every situation, you can choose to see it as the way that disempowers you, that makes you the victim, or you can choose- To see it as the opportunity for growth, as the thing that will make you better, as the thing that will make you stronger for having to wrestle with. So I just love this idea and it comes from a person who's not speaking about this idly. Like you and I are so privileged compared to Epictetus, who's born a slave in Rome. He spends 30 years in slavery, but he doesn't see this as a huge disadvantage.

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  He sees it as a learning experience. He sees it as a fate that he's struggling with that's making him stronger. He says, "You've been paired with a tough opponent and this is what's making you Olympic class material." That's Epictetus seeing the right handle in his own situation. So whatever you experience today, think about this. This has two handles. Which one am I going to pick? The one that will bear weight, that will make me better, or the one that won't bear weight, that will make me worse?

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  Thanks so much for listening to the Daily Stoke Podcast. If you don't know this, you can get these delivered to you via email every day. Check it out, dailystoic.com/email.