So, How Did You Do? | Think About It from the Other Person’s Perspective

Ryan talks about the lasting impact that COVID-19 has had on the world around us, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal. For a limited time, UCAN is offering you 30% off on your first order when you use code STOIC at checkout Just go to UCAN. CO/STOICSign up for the 14-day Daily Stoic Alive Time Challenge to take control of your life and get the most out of your time. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://DailyStoic.com/emailFollow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

• 0:05Speaker 00

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast. Each day, we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, illustrated with stories from history, current events, and literature to help you be better at what you do. And at the beginning of the week, we try to do a deeper dive, setting a kind of Stoic intention for the week, something to meditate on, something to think on, something to leave you with, to journal about, whatever it is you're happening to be doing. So let's get into it.

• 0:35Speaker 00

  It's been a year, and then a year again. As unbelievable as that is to write, time has dragged, it has flown by. So much has happened, fortunate and unfortunate. But on March 14th, 2020, exactly two years ago, we put up an episode on the Daily Stoic about the rising threat of COVID-19 and its relation to that timeless Stoic dictum that we can't control what has happened, but we can control how we respond. And we asked one year later, and now we are asking again, how did you do? 24 months, countless obstacles, countless difficulties, countless dilemmas and stresses,

• 1:17Speaker 00

  but also a nearly infinite set of opportunities to practice this philosophy, to focus on what you control, to try to make the most of a situation that we all found ourselves in. Maybe you picked up running, or maybe you just doom scrolled. Maybe you learned how to cook, or maybe you put on 30 pounds from all those delivery meals. Maybe you moved to a different city, or maybe you barely got off the couch. A core Stoic practice is journaling. And what is journaling but the process of contemplation and self-reflection? It's putting you and your actions up for review. So take a minute to do that today, or more than a minute. Don't lie to yourself. Look at your successes and be proud of them.

• 2:01Speaker 00

  That you're still standing is no small feat. Be grateful for that. And sadly, far too many of our fellow humans did not make it. It's terrible to think that on March 14th, 2020, just 65 Americans had died of COVID-19. By March 2021, over 500,000 people had perished in the United States and millions more globally. And here in March of 2022, more than 900,000 are dead and gone. Some 5.6 million around the world have lost their lives. Others lost jobs or opportunities or experiences they can never get back. We were all affected. But take a second to look at where you were lucky,

• 2:46Speaker 00

  what you have to be grateful for, what skillful maneuvering and resiliency and random luck allowed you to endure and adapt. Don't shy away from looking at your failures either. Where did you waste time and energy? Where did you fall short? What mistakes did you make? What bad habits did you pick up or continue? Were you part of the problem more often than you were part of the solution? And now let us learn from these successes and failures, vices and virtues, so that the next time, and there is always a next time, we can be better, better citizens, better people, better Stoics. It's been one hell of a year. It's been a hell of a two years. But if we don't find the meaning from this suffering,

• 3:28Speaker 00

  if we don't improve because of it individually and collectively, then we have added harm on top of misfortune. And that is inexcusable. In March of 2020, we talked about this idea of a lifetime, dead time. How are we going to use that time? That's been the philosophy I've applied. A bunch of us Stoics have tried to apply. And it's what I keep doing, even as we enter what mercifully appears to be a new phase of the pandemic, we still have to focus on that because so much of life is out of our control. The Alive Time Challenge is still running. I think it's still relevant. It's still donating money to people in need, which if you'd like to join us, you're welcome

• 4:13Speaker 00

  to. You can sign up at dailystoic.com/AliveTime. And of course, if you're a Daily Stoic Life member, or you're looking for an excuse to join, you can jump in there as well. Be safe, everyone. I know I sound a little congested on this. I've been saying on the podcast, I do not have COVID. I know I do not have COVID, but I got sick and it's run me ragged for quite some time, but I'm doing well, and I hope you are too. Be safe and strong, everyone. Think about it from the other person's perspective. And this is from this week's entry in the Daily Stoic Journal, "366 Days of Writing and Reflection on the Art of Living" by yours truly and my co-writer and translator,

• 4:55Speaker 00

  Stephen Hanselman. I actually do this journal every single day. There's a question in the morning, a question in the afternoon, then there's these sort of weekly meditations. As Epictetus says, "Every day and night, we keep thoughts like this at hand. Write them, read them aloud, and talk to yourself and others about them." You can check out the Daily Stoic Journal anywhere books are sold. You can also get a signed personalized copy from me in the Daily Stoic store at store.dailystoic.com. We tend to assume the best about our own intentions and the worst about other people's. Then we wonder why life is so full of conflict. The Stoics flipped this habit around, reminding themselves to be suspicious of their own first reaction and approach

• 5:35Speaker 00

  others first with sympathy. Powerful people are often surprisingly terrible at behaving this way, but Marcus Aurelius, the most powerful man on earth during his reign, was renowned for his humanity in dealing with others. He told himself always to take a moment to remember his own failings and to contemplate how another might see the situation. He reminded himself, as we should, that most people are trying their best, even though that's easy to lose sight of in the rough and tumble of daily life. Let's remember that today and think about each interaction from more than just our own point of view. That's the Daily Stoic Journal weekly entry.

• 6:18Speaker 00

  And we've got some quotes from Marcus Aurelius here. He says, "Whenever someone has done wrong by you, immediately consider what notion of good or evil they had in doing it. For when you see that, you'll find compassion instead of astonishment or rage. For you yourself may have had the same notions of good and evil, or similar ones, in which case you'll make an allowance for what they've done. But if you no longer hold the same notion, you'll be more readily gracious for their error." Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 7, 26. And then he says, "When your sparring partner scratches or headbutts you, you don't then make a show of it, or protest, or view him with suspicion, or as plotting against you.

• 7:03Speaker 00

  And yet you keep an eye on him, not as an enemy or with suspicion, but with a healthy avoidance. You should act this way with all things in life. We should give a pass to many things with our fellow trainees. For, as I've said, it's possible to avoid without suspicion or hate." You know, I tell the story in Stillness is the Key, I open Part 1, the Perception part of the book, the story of Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Kennedy and Khrushchev face off over some nuclear ballistic missiles placed on the island of Cuba. And what's so remarkable about this moment, why I look at Kennedy and why I think he embodies what Marcus Aurelius is talking about, in both senses, both in the, "Why did they do this?

• 7:48Speaker 00

  What are they trying to do?" And also, you know, people are not, "Great, they're gonna try to cheat or pull one over on you, but you can't let that break you or make you bitter. You've gotta be cognizant and aware of it." Kennedy thinks, not just what he's gonna do, but he's conscious enough to think, "What is Khrushchev going to do? What is Khrushchev trying to do with this?" And in fact, Khrushchev's real fatal calculation is that he doesn't have a good read on Kennedy. He'd sort of bullied Kennedy at a conference, had seen Kennedy bungle the Bay of Pigs. He thought he knew Kennedy, and he thought he knew America, but he didn't. He could not have, he couldn't conceive of how America would react to these missiles right on that island.

• 8:31Speaker 00

  And Kennedy, though, realizes, especially when his military advisers are telling him, "You gotta bomb Cuba, you gotta bomb the shit out of Cuba, it's gonna be, you know, we gotta, we gotta go in to avoid World War III." Kennedy knows that to do that, he thinks about Khrushchev, how they're in the same position. They're both leading these sort of loose coalitions and with divergent interests and are human beings, but also heads of state. He's really able to think about Khrushchev's position. And he says, "Look, I'm not worried even about what Khrushchev's going to do in response to what I'm going to do. I'm worried about like step six or seven in this chain of escalation." And so, we think about things from people's perspective,

• 9:16Speaker 00

  not just because empathy is good, not just because justice is important, but strategically, it's essential, right? I talked to, when I was in public relations, you would see people get so consumed with the truth of what they had to say or their own experience or their own point of view. They couldn't conceive that the reporter has their own interests, that the public has their own interests and position. You have to effectively navigate the world to be successful. You've got to understand other people's perspective. You've got to think about what's going on with them. And this allows you to not only be more patient, more forgiving and more gracious, as Marcus says, but it also allows you to be more effective and successful at whatever it is that you are doing.

• 9:59Speaker 00

  So, I urge you today to spend some time practicing, let's call it strategic empathy. It will make you better. But most importantly, as we saw in the Kennedy and Cuban Missile Crisis example, it may well save the world. It makes the world a better place if we are more empathetic with each other. As Seneca said, "We're all wicked people in a wicked world. If we can understand this, if we can be kind and patient and tolerant and understanding, we will all get more of what we want and need."

• 10:28Speaker 00

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