Ask Daily Stoic: Dec 21, 2019

In each of the Ask Daily Stoic Q&A episodes, Ryan will answer questions from fans about Stoicism. You can also find these videos on the Daily Stoic YouTube channel. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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  Welcome to The Daily Stoic, where each day we read a short passage designed to help you cultivate the strength, insight, wisdom necessary for living the good 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 at DailyStoic.com. Welcome to Ask the Daily Stoic. So, the question we're starting with today is one we get a lot, which is like, "How does a Stoic deal with failure? How do we deal with setbacks?" And this is kind of a hard question to answer, because I think it's like, this is the core of what Stoicism is, right? A Stoic is all about bouncing back and rebounding from the

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  things that life throws at us, right? So when Marcus Aurelius says, like, you know, "The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way," that, to me, is like, the core of Stoicism. It's deciding to see all the things that happen to you in life as opportunities. So like, I'm going through something now, and I'm in the middle of this transaction that's going haywire, and I don't like it, and I wish that it had gone swimmingly and smoothly, but it didn't, right? And it might end up, like, sort of going completely pear-shaped or completely upside down. So what I've been trying to remind myself through it is like, "What can I learn from this experience? How can I be better for it, right? What can I do inside of it that will make me better, right?" So it's, is that having uncomfortable conversations? Okay, well, I'm gonna have

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  practice now in doing that. Is it being firm or drawing a line in a place where naturally I'd like to just not do that, right? Is it learning and analyzing and thinking about the mistakes I made that contributed to that? That's how a Stoic thinks about failure. And so, a Stoic walks through life, and again, we're all humans, so we don't do it perfectly. But what a Stoic tries to do is walk through life and see everything as an opportunity to practice virtue, right? So, a failure is a chance to get familiar with failure, right? To learn from it. A business issue is a chance to manage your temper or teach something with someone. Traffic is a chance to learn patience. And accept things that are outside of our control. A rude person, a bad friend, a betrayal is a chance to do the right thing.

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  Even though you don't want to, it's a chance to practice forgiveness. That's what the Stoics do. That's how we see failure. You know, in my book, I just shortened Marcus's quote to like, "The obstacle is the way." And so to me, that's how the Stoics see failure, as the way forward. And then if you're not failing, you're not trying enough, you're not doing enough, you're not putting yourself out there enough. And as a result, you're not growing and getting as good as you can be. All right, someone's asking like, "How does a Stoic respond to pain?" And so I think it's important that we don't confuse uppercase Stoicism and lowercase Stoicism. Lowercase Stoicism, I think, would posit that the Stoics don't feel pain, that they're invincible, that they never get sad, whatever. That's not true. A Stoic does feel pain.

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  What a Stoic tries to do is what we do after, right? So Seneca talks about, "Look, if I punch you in the arm, that's gonna hurt. If I dump freezing cold water on you, that's gonna shiver." You have these involuntary reactions. What do you do after, right? So yes, there is a certain amount of endurance in this. You know, Marcus Aurelius is saying, "Whenever you suffer pain, keep in mind that it's nothing to be ashamed of, and that it can't damage your intelligence, nor keep you from acting rationally or for the common good." And he quotes Epicurus. He says, "You know, pain is never unbearable or unending, right? But what about chronic pain? Well, eventually it does end, right? Marcus Aurelius was a sufferer of chronic pain. And what he would try to tell himself is like, "Look,

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  my death will bring an end to this pain." And that seems dark, but the point was not to believe that there was no light at the end of the tunnel, that there was no end to this. So he says, "When they start to get you down, tell yourself that you are giving in to pain." So it's about having an attitude of cheerfulness that perseveres. Through the pain. And in Daily Stoic, I tell this story about Winston Churchill. He's walking across the street in New York City. He's about to engage in a lecture tour that he desperately needs for the money. And boom, he gets struck by a taxi. And it's extremely painful. He very nearly dies. But he somehow manages to use this experience in the sort of perfect Winston Churchill way to get better. He starts writing articles about it in the newspaper. He loves the publicity.

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  He uses it to catch up on a bunch of writing he's put off. He says, "Nature is merciful and does not try her children, man or beast, beyond their compass." He says, "It is only where the cruelty of man intervenes that hellish torments appear. For the rest, live dangerously, take things as they come, dread nothing, and all will be well." And I think that's the kind of attitude. You can't go through life trying to avoid pain. You can't go in life, through life, in fear of pain. You just have to keep going. Bill Bradley says, "There's never been a great athlete who did not know what pain is." It's beautiful. There's no human, great human, who has not experienced pain and loss. But we've got to remember that the things we do in response to that pain,

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  whether it's getting angry, it's blaming others, it's taking pills, etc., this outlasts hurt. That was Seneca's thing, anger outlasts hurt. So does a lot of the things we try to do to escape pain. And so, again, as always, the Stoics saw pain, suffering, difficulty as opportunity. He said, "Misfortune is virtue's opportunity." You know, the military says, "Embrace the suck. Lean into it. Let it make you better." Every painful moment, every struggle, every mischance, every foul-up, it's a moment you can practice the virtues of Stoicism. You can practice calmness and strength and fortitude and resilience. You can practice virtue. You can be good, you can be patient, you can be forgiving. You can think about other people because other people are in pain too. So I hope you feel better.

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  I hope this isn't serious pain. But I think there's a lot in the Stoics that can help guide you on this journey. So today's question comes from someone who I can certainly relate to. They're saying, "I'm insanely competitive."

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  But I want fulfillment in my life. How does Stoicism help me balance those things? And I think that balance between ambition and Stoicism is a core one, right? If you've seen the movie Gladiator, this is what Commodus talks to his dad about. He says, "Can't ambition be a virtue? Seneca was clearly ambitious. Marcus Aurelius wouldn't have been emperor if he didn't have at least some ambition." So, how can these Stoics who are successful, how do they also balance contentment, happiness, the feeling of enough? And in stillness, I have that amazing story from Joseph Heller. He's sort of like, "What does it feel like that this billionaire you're with made more money this week than you'll make in your life?" And he says, "I have something he doesn't have. You know, I have enough."

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  And so I think at the core of Stoicism is this idea of realizing that you can be ambitious and simultaneously be very grateful and appreciative for what's in front of you. And in fact, the way you achieve greatness and do great work is not to be distracted or motivated by some distant thing in the future, but to give everything you have to this present moment, right? So Marcus Aurelius was trying always, you know, not to be seduced by his legacy, by history, and he just tried to instead focus on doing the right thing right now. I love John Wooden's idea of an inner scorecard, right? He says, "Winning or losing is not what makes a team a winning team or a losing team."

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  Like, the box office score is not what matters. What matters is, like, did the team do what we were supposed to do, what we practiced to do? Warren Buffett, same thing. He says, "Live your life by an inner scorecard, not an outer scorecard." But again, still extremely successful, right? So I think what it is, is about having standards that you hold yourself to that are not as dependent on external events, but are more about process-driven, that are more about being present, that are more about giving your absolute best, and not being focused so much on what other people think and whether it goes down in your favor. So, like, when I think about someone like Nick Saban, and he's talked about this, like,

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  why he doesn't seem happy on the sidelines, it's that he has a love of the game and how he wants his team to play that's more important than whatever the score is. But I think this also sustains him when they lose, when it doesn't go his way, because he's like... I'm getting to do this thing I love. We're playing great. We're putting in the work. He's thinking in a bigger picture than just, you know, the win-loss record and the immediate thing. And so too often, I think people's ambition leads them to take shortcuts, leads them to cut corners, leads them to do things that are illegal or illicit. And a person who's instead said, I have enough. I am enough. These external results don't change who I am. That's a person, that's like sort of the difference

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  between the tortoise and the hare, right? It's steadier. It's more sustainable. It's ultimately a better way to live and be. So I don't think stoicism and ambition are incompatible, but it's about rooting your ambition in the right thing. So Marxian realism is saying like insanity is tying your ambition to other people. Sanity is tying it to what you say and do. So I want to be ambitious about my own capacity, my own capability, the work that I put in, the creativity I bring to my work. What my ambition is not about, my competition is not about, my competition is with myself. It's not with the other people on the New York Times Bestseller list, right? It's not in who's selling the most books this year.

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  It's who's doing the best work. And that's something much more rooted in my philosophy, much more rooted in me personally. And that's where I think the best place to put your interest in is going to be.