What Comes Next Matters Less

It’s not that the Stoics didn’t love. It’s not that they didn’t like the nice stuff that they had or the jobs they had worked hard to earn. Of course, they liked these things and would have preferred to keep them, would have preferred a world in which fortune was less fickle, where everything lasted and no one ever grieved or missed or regretted. When Richard Feynman was in high school, he fell in love with a woman named Arline Greenbaum. They had a lovely, youthful kind of happiness that seemed like it would last forever. But while Feynman was a graduate student at Princeton, Arline was diagnosed with tuberculosis. Despite the terminal diagnosis and their parents' protest, they married a year later. She died within a year and a half. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Check 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.

• 0:03Speaker 00

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength, insight, and wisdom in everyday 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, dailystoic.com.

• 0:26Speaker 00

  What comes next matters less. It's not that the Stoics didn't love. It's not that they didn't like the nice stuff they had or the jobs they worked hard to earn. Of course, they liked these things, and they would have preferred to keep them, would have preferred a world in which fortune was less fickle, where everything lasted and no one ever grieved or missed or regretted. When Richard Feynman was in high school, he fell in love with a woman named Arline. They had a lovely, youthful kind of happiness that seemed like it would last forever. But while Feynman was a graduate student at Princeton, Arlene was diagnosed with tuberculosis. Despite the terminal diagnosis and their parents' protests, the two married a year later, and she died within 16 months. This was tragic and devastating,

• 1:10Speaker 00

  and it took a long time for Feynman to heal. It's wrong to think that a Stoic would be less devastated by such a loss. Cicero grieved deeply for his daughter. Seneca wrote three beautiful Essays on Grief, and Marcus Aurelius, as we talked about recently, grieved the children that he had lost. How did they carry on? In part, by relying on an insight that Feynman also expressed. With Arlene, Feynman said, "I was really happy for a while, so I've had it all. After Arlene, the rest of my life didn't have to be so good, you see, because I had already had it all." In Meditations, Marcus Aurelius talks about how just a day, just a minute of happiness, of perfection, of peace, is enough. And the same goes for the people we love, the things we've gotten to do, the glory we've experienced.

• 1:54Speaker 00

  That you have, or you have had it, or them, is itself a wonderful thing, something to be so grateful for. Whatever comes after, whatever fortune has in store for us for the future, it can't change that. It can't take away that we've had it all. And in fact, we need it less in the future now. What happens next matters less because of the wonderfulness of these few fleeting seconds.