You Don’t Get Time. You Make Time. | Solve Problems Early

Ryan talks about how to read more, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day. InsideTracker provides you with a personalized plan to improve your metabolism, reduce stress, improve sleep, and optimize your health for the long haul. For a limited time, get 20% off the entire InsideTracker store. Just go to insidetracker.com/STOIC to claim this deal.✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/Follow 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.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. On Thursdays, we do double duty, not just reading our daily meditation, but also reading a passage from the book, The Daily Stoic, 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living, which I wrote with my wonderful co-author and collaborator, Stephen Hanselman. And so today, we'll give you a quick meditation from one of the Stoics, from Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius Seneca, then some analysis from me, and then we send you out into the world to do your best to turn these words into works.

• 0:38Speaker 00

  Look, the Stoics practice the art of memento mori. They know that life is short and unpredictable, but that doesn't mean they're trying to die faster, right? Marcus Aurelius has a doctor. He wants to live as long as that's possible, as long as that's within his control. And if you're looking for ways to extend your lifespan, or slow down the aging process, key to that is, is in your blood. And that's why today's sponsor, InsideTracker, provides you with a personal plan to improve your metabolism, reduce stress, improve sleep, and optimize your health for the long haul. Created by leading scientists in aging, genetics, and biometrics, InsideTracker analyzes your blood, your DNA, and your fitness tracking data, like from a smartwatch or smartphone, to identify where you're optimized, where

• 1:21Speaker 00

  you're not. You'll get a daily action plan with personalized guidance on the right exercise, nutrition, and supplementation for your body. And you can add their product, Inner Age 2.0, any plan for a definitive calculation of your true biological age. See how you're aging from the inside out. For a limited time, you get 20% off the entire InsideTracker store. Just go to insidetracker.com/stoic. That's insidetracker.com/stoic. I'm waiting on my DNA results right now, see about the changes that I'm going to make in my life. I'm excited to see what you all come up with. Try InsideTracker, insidetracker.com/stoic.

• 2:06Speaker 00

  You get 20% off using that landing page.

• 2:13Speaker 00

  You don't get time, you make time. Nothing illustrates how little control we actively assert over our lives than our relationship with reading. "Oh, I wish I had time to read more. Oh, I'll squeeze in a few more minutes of reading before bed. Oh, when the kids are older, I'll get back into the habit. Oh, my secret is audiobooks on 2X speed." 2,000 years ago, Seneca talked about how people mistakenly prioritize a million trivial responsibilities and give the leftovers to philosophy and reflection. That's how we treat books, too. We act as if everything is more important. Only when we're alone, or have some unexpected quiet time, or literally have nothing else to do, that we finally sit down with a book.

• 2:57Speaker 00

  It's preposterously out of balance. You read on your phone all day, Facebook posts, Instagram captions, YouTube subtitles, when you can't watch a video with sound. Sometimes you even read articles. And at the same time, you read and respond to emails all day, most of which are not remotely important. And at no point during this tsunami of garbage do you say to yourself, "I don't have time for another stupid meeting. I've got to get through this volume of history." The opposite? Well, it's just implied. If you want to read, you have to make time. If you want to get better as a person, you have to make time for philosophy. Carve it out, make it non-negotiable, prioritize it. Give the leftovers to the errands, or see what errands you can avoid. Gladly pay the grocery delivery fee if it means a few more minutes with Marcus Aurelius.

• 3:41Speaker 00

  Cancel the phone call and savor that audiobook on regular speed. Put your phone in a drawer and sit down with your journal. Make the time. De Gaulle did, Napoleon did, Marcus did. You can do it, too. Solve problems early. And I'm reading to you today from The Daily Stoic, 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living by yours truly, my co-author and translator, Stephen Hanselman. You can get signed copies, by the way, in the Daily Stoic store. Over a million copies of The Daily Stoic in print now. It's been just such a lovely experience to watch it. It's been more than 250 weeks, consecutive weeks, on the bestsellers. It's just an awesome experience. But I hope you check it out.

• 4:25Speaker 00

  We have a premium leather edition at store.dailystoic.com as well. But let's get on with today's reading. Today's quote is from Seneca Moral Letters 116. "There is no vice which lacks a defense, none that at the outset isn't modest and easily intervened. But after this, the trouble spreads widely. If you allow it to get started, you won't be able to control it when it stops. Every emotion is at first weak. Later, it rouses itself and gathers strength as it moves along. It's easier to slow it down than to supplant it." Publilius Cirrus, he was a Roman slave and a Stoic philosopher, he said, "Rivers are easiest to cross at their source."

• 5:09Speaker 00

  And I think that's what Seneca means too. "The raging waters and deadly currents of a bad habit, ill-discipline, chaos, dysfunction. Somewhere, they began as no more than a slight trickle. Somewhere, they are a placid lake or a pond, even a bubbling underground spring." What would you rather do? Nearly drown in a dangerous crossing in a few weeks across now while it's still easy? It's up to you. You know, there's that expression, "You nip it in the bud." That's what I think. I'll give you somewhat of a personal example.

• 5:46Speaker 00

  I am not an addict in the sense that I am like in recovery, but I find that just about anything I do, I can do compulsively, tend to do compulsively, and can very easily develop an unhealthy relationship with. So people ask me like, "What did the Stoics say about drinking or drugs? Do you do those things?" And I don't. I don't do them exactly because the Stoics forbid them, or that I specifically have a problem abusing them. I just know it's a slippery slope for me. It's a road. Better not gone down by me. So I nip it in the bud. I just sort of have a bright policy.

• 6:30Speaker 00

  I just, I don't really drink. I don't smoke, don't do drugs. I just don't do it. I keep it away. It's easier for me now, like, you know, I sometimes joke. I was like, I don't really like the taste. Cause I don't, I don't enjoy the taste of, let's say alcohol. And people go, oh, it's an acquired taste. And I go, but yeah, knowing myself, getting over that hurdle is not going to put me in a better position now. Now I have the instinctive, almost childlike aversion to it. And I want to, I want to keep it that way. Cause once I get over it, that buffer is not there anymore. So I like to joke, I don't do acquired tastes. The point is not doing the things at all, not putting myself in a position where I can abuse

• 7:14Speaker 00

  or do them to excess has been quite beneficial to me. Another way to think about this would be like, what's the person that really pisses you off? Or what's a subject matter that you find when you talk to your parents about is always a source of conflict or argument? Well, maybe just steer clear of that altogether, right? And the way again, like a gambling addict doesn't go to Las Vegas. Cross the things early, nip them in the bud early, notice the warning signs, notice the grumblings, notice the aversions and listen to that, listen to that voice headed off at the pass, right?

• 7:54Speaker 00

  Solve it in advance. Put yourself in a position where you don't need superhuman willpower, where you don't need strength and perseverance and the inner citadel. You don't need that stuff. That's what I think the Stoics are talking about. And to me, this is a nice definition of temperance, moderation, sort of having a sense of self-awareness, what you can do, what you can't do, who you are, how you're wired. Think about it that way and then make your decisions accordingly. And if some people think that's weird or lame or unusual, or you're missing out on fun, you know, that's their issue. You know yourself, you know what you should be thinking about, what you know

• 8:37Speaker 00

  you should be doing, the decisions you can make to put yourself in a position to be successful and choose and act accordingly.

• 8:48Speaker 00

  Thanks for listening to the Daily Stoic Podcast. Just a reminder, we've got signed copies of all my books in the Daily Stoic store. You can get them personalized, you can get them sent to a friend. The Obstacle is the Way, He Goes the Enemy, Stillness is the Key, the leather-bound edition of the Daily Stoic. We have them all in the Daily Stoic store, which you can check out at store.dailystoic.com.