This Will Be Your Undoing… If You Can’t Stop | What’s In Your Way Is the Way

“There is one thing at the root of the downfall of so many powerful people. There was Xerxes, enraged at the imprudence of the Greeks, whose anger drove him to overreach and underestimate his foe. There was Nixon, ranting and raving about his enemies, authorizing retaliation that he would come to regret, saying things on tape that would drive him from office.”Ryan explains why anger is what you must get under control, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Athletic Greens is a custom formulation of 75 vitamins, minerals, and other whole-food sourced ingredients that make it easier for you to maintain nutrition in just a single scoop. It tastes great and gets you the nutrients you need, whether you're working on the go, fueling an active lifestyle, or just maintaining your good health. Visit athleticgreens.com/stoic to get a FREE year supply of Liquid Vitamin D + 5 FREE Travel Packs with subscription. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow 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.

• 0:04Speaker 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 happen to be doing. So let's get into it.

• 0:34Speaker 00

  This will be your undoing if you don't stop. There is one thing at the root of the downfall of so many powerful people. There was Xerxes enraged at the imprudence of the Greeks, whose anger drove him to overreach and underestimate his foe. There was Nixon ranting and raving about his enemies, authorizing retaliation that he would come to regret, saying things on tape that would drive him from office. Even when anger has utterly destroyed a person, it still causes them massive problems. Ask Harry Truman, who sent his fair share of angry letters, whether he wished he could have grabbed many of them back before they were delivered. Ask Elon Musk, who has sent emails and tweets he wishes he could take back.

• 1:17Speaker 00

  Ask Kanye West, who lashed out at his wife publicly when she tried to get him help for his mental illness. The Stoics knew that what we did out of anger in the rush of passion was almost always the wrong thing. Athenodorus, an early Stoic who tutored the Emperor Augustus, gave these parting words to his powerful student. "Whenever you feel yourself getting angry, Caesar," he told him, "don't say or do anything until you've repeated the 24 letters of the alphabet to yourself. It's a simple rule: Before you do anything out of anger, pause, let it sit, count, go for a run, sing that song Mr. Rogers liked, go to bed, read a book, call a friend, take a piss. What you do doesn't matter.

• 2:01Speaker 00

  What matters is what you don't do. Don't say the first thing that pops into your head. Don't meet anger with anger, fire with fire, tit for tat. Don't charge in throwing punches. What's done in anger is the source of one's doing. At the very least, it's the source of headaches and drama and needless problems, which is why we must pause, which is why we have to stop before anger gets the best of us."

• 2:26Speaker 00

  What's in your way is the way. Obstacles are a fact of life. Even the most powerful and lucky of us are not exempt from this reality. But we have a superpower at our hands through Stoic philosophy in that our purposes, our intentions, our attitudes can adapt to any conditions to find a way forward. The Stoics talk about acting with a reserve clause that allows us to reconsider and set a new course of action if needed. And Marcus Aurelius tells us that "any obstacle can actually become raw material for a new purpose." So that's what you should think about today and this week. How might the obstacles you're facing reveal a new path?

• 3:11Speaker 00

  And this is from the Daily Stoic Journal, 366 Days of Writing and Reflection on the Art of Living. Every week, we have a sort of a daily meditation. And we've got three quotes from Marcus Aurelius along these lines today. "While it's true that someone can impede our actions, they can't impede our intentions or our attitudes, which have the power of being conditional and adaptable. For the mind adapts and converts any obstacle to its actions into a means of achieving it. And that which is the obstacle to action is turned to advance action. The obstacle on the path becomes the way." That's Meditations 5:20. Marcus also says in 8:35, "Just as nature turns to its own purpose, any obstacle or

• 3:55Speaker 00

  any opposition sets its place in the destined order and co-ops it." So every rational person can convert any obstacle into the raw material for their own purpose. And then Meditations 8:32. So clearly, he thinks about this a lot. He says, "You must build up your life action by action and be content if each one achieves its goal as far as possible, and no one can keep you from this. But there will be some external obstacle, perhaps," he says, "but no obstacle to acting with justice, self-control, and wisdom. But what if some area of my action is thwarted? Well, gladly accept the obstacle for what it is and shift your attention to what is given, and another action will immediately take its place, one that better fits the

• 4:39Speaker 00

  life you are building." And, and as you know, this is what I built the obstacles, the way around these ideas. Let me read you Gregory Hayes's translation in that same line, 520, because it's obviously been so instrumental to me. And I think Hayes does it quite well also. And, and it's interesting, he's clearly referring Marcus not to a specific kind of obstacle, difficult people. "In a sense, people are our proper occupation." This is Meditations 520. "Our job is to do them good and put up with them. But when they obstruct our proper tasks, they become irrelevant to us, like the sun, wind, or animals. Our actions may be impeded by them, but there can be no impeding our intentions

• 5:23Speaker 00

  or our dispositions, because we can accommodate and adapt. The mind adapts and converts to its own purposes the obstacle to our acting. The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way." And then let's, let's look at the Robin Waterfield translation of the same line. "From one point of view, nothing is more proper to me than a human being, insofar as it's my job to do people good and tolerate them. But insofar as some people threaten my proper work, I count a human being as just another indifferent, no less than the sun, or the wind, or a wild animal. These things may impede some of my activities, but they can't impede my impulses or my state of mind,

• 6:06Speaker 00

  because I have powers of reservation and adaptation. The mind can adapt and alter every impediment to action to serve its purpose. Something that might have hindered a task contributes to it instead, and something that was an obstacle on the road helps you on your way." And then here's Waterfield's note. He says, again, Marcus stresses the independence of the mind and the possibility of seeing the world in a positive light. So it doesn't matter which translation you read, the message is the same. Stuff happens, stuff gets in our way, but it presents us the opportunity to do something different. So in this sense, the obstacle is the way. It's not that, you know, life erects this wall in front of you, and the way is through that wall. It's that when the door shuts, a window opens.

• 6:51Speaker 00

  It's that when you wanted everything to go well, and then someone screws it up, now it's a chance to practice patience. Now it's a chance to practice forgiveness. Now it's a... Chance to start over. Now it's a chance to extricate yourself from this toxic relationship, whatever it is, right? What Marcus is saying is that everything that happens in life, every obstacle, as maddening and frustrating and painful as they might be, they are opportunities to practice a different virtue, that virtue is always the way and that nothing stops us from being able to do that. I just love that passage so much. If I had the time, I'd grab the Pierre Hadot chapter

• 7:34Speaker 00

  on this very idea, which also helps inspire The Obstacle is the Way. He talks about the art of turning obstacles upside down. To me, this is a central practice in Stoicism. It's why I've got it tattooed on my arm. It's why I wrote a book about it. It's why we talk about it so much. It's the idea of amor fati, we accept and then we use what's happened to our advantage. That's the essence of Stoicism. I hope that inspires you a little bit today. People are our proper occupation. We tolerate them. We put up with them. And all the obstacles, they roll into our way. All the problems they cause us are actually not problems, but opportunities to practice the very virtues of courage, temperance, justice, and wisdom. That's what we're doing here. And by the way, we do have the new leather bound edition of The Obstacle is the Way,

• 8:19Speaker 00

  which comes with the Obstacle is the Way challenge coin as well. Really proud of this thing. You can check that out at dailystoic.com/ObstacleLeather.