You’ll Never Get Your Pound of Flesh | Living Without Restriction

“They screwed you over. Hurt your career. They disrespected you. They blew it. They did...whatever. Now, you want your revenge. You want them to suffer as you suffered. You want them to know, to feel, the same thing that you’re feeling. The Stoics talk about justice, so that’s OK, right? They shouldn’t be able to get away with this!”Ryan explains why you cannot dwell what is done to you, even if you know that it’s not right, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. This episode is brought to you by Scribd, the e-book and audiobook subscription service that includes one million titles. Scribd uses the latest technology with the smartest people to recommend you content that you’re going to love. We’re offering listeners of The Daily Stoic a free 60 day trial. Go to try.scribd.com/stoic for your free trial. That’s try.scribd.com/stoic to get 60 days of Scribd for free.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow Daily Stoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicSee 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 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, and some analysis from me. And then we send you out into the world to do your best to turn these words into works. "You'll never get your pound of flesh. They screwed you over, hurt your career, they disrespected you, they blew it, they

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  did whatever. Now, you want your revenge. You want them to suffer as you suffered, you want them to know, to feel, the same thing that you're feeling. Stoics talk about justice, so that's okay, right? They shouldn't be able to get away with this. Remember, in the year 175, Marcus Aurelius was betrayed by his most trusted general, Avidius Cassius, in an attempted coup. Marcus could have been angry, he could have demanded all the sadistic revenge possible for a man with his unlimited power. Yet, we know from the historians that he handled even this moment with grace and understanding. In fact, he wept when he was deprived of the chance to grant clemency to his former enemy.

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  The best revenge Marcus would write in meditations is to not be like that. When he found himself getting pissed off by something someone had done, he urged himself to think about the wrong that he himself had done to others at other times. He tried to practice forgiveness, and when that was beyond him, at least indifference or tolerance. We have to accept that we cannot get even, that it's an extra injury to ourselves to lower ourselves to the kind of cruelty or stupidity of our opponents. They may steal from us, but we ought not steal time from ourselves, stealing from them, or worse. There is no pound of flesh that will make us feel better. Only we can make ourselves feel good again by focusing on what we have to be grateful

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  for, by being good to others, and by moving on."

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  Living without restriction. "The unrestricted person who has in hand what they will in all events is free, but anyone who can be restricted, coerced, or pushed into something against what they will is a slave." Epictetus's Discourses, 4:1. Take a look at some of the most powerful, rich, and famous people in the world. Ignore the trappings of their success and what they're able to buy. Look instead at what they're forced to trade in return. Look at what success has cost them. Mostly, freedom. Their work demands that they wear a suit. Their success depends on attending certain parties, kissing up to people they don't like. It will require inevitably realizing that they are unable to say what they actually think.

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  Worse, it demands that they become a different type of person or do bad things. Sure, it might pay well, but they haven't truly examined the transaction. As Seneca puts it, "Slavery resides underneath marble and gold. Too many successful people are prisoners in jails of their own making." Is that what you want? Is that what you're working hard towards? Let's hope not. And this is March 11th entry in The Daily Stoic, which you can get as an audiobook, or as a physical book, or we have a leather-bound edition in The Daily Stoic store. This sort of picks up what we talked about last week, which is that success, properly defined, is not money, or power, or fame, it's autonomy. Are you in control of your own life?

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  Are you in control of your schedule? Are you in control of your thoughts and emotions and desires? Or are these things in charge of you? Who is the slave and who is the slave driver? Who is the boss and who is the employee? Are you the boss of your own life? Is your life the boss of you? And what's interesting, there's a great little story from Upton Sinclair, and I think it's in one of my books, but if not, it should be. I've written about it before. He has this thing he calls the dress suit bribe. And he talks about, he says, "You pay five cents to get your shoes shined." This is a long time ago. But he says, "What are you getting paid to be a person who has to have their shoes shined?" And he's basically saying, like, you think you're in control, that you...

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  You know, you think you're so much better than a McDonald's employee because they have to wear the silly uniform and the silly hat, but is your suit really any less ridiculous? Right? Are the constraints or the hoops you jump through as part of your job, is it really that different? Or is it just a slightly more lucrative form of slavery? Is it just, you know, you think you're getting paid, but you're paying a bunch of things to get paid? And that question of what are you paying to get paid? What are the costs of your success is just a really important question. And frankly, it's one Seneca should have asked himself more. Sure, he becomes the second richest man in Rome, one of the most powerful men in Rome, but look at the cost.

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  It comes at the cost of being chained to Nero, as Adam Schiff talks about. You know, he is bound to Nero by the cords of history, and nothing can ever break that association. And that's a shame, and I don't think it was worth it. So think of a little bit today about the cost of your success. What are you paying to get paid? What's the uniform you're wearing? What's the freedom you're giving up? And is that worth it? That's, to me, that's the ultimate question because, sure, it's nice to have the accessories of success, but if you're giving up the most important thing, freedom, mental freedom,

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  physical freedom, freedom of choice, freedom to be yourself, freedom to do the right thing, well, that's definitely not worth it. So think about some freedom today and think about how you're giving it up, maybe make some changes. Be good, be safe. Talk soon. Thanks for listening to another episode of The Daily Stoic. It's mind blowing to me now that we are well over 30 million downloads of this show. It means so much to me to have all of you listen. If you want to help spread the word about the show, please leave a review on iTunes or whatever your favorite podcasting platform is. It helps a lot. And then, of course, click subscribe. That's how we know how many people are listening and that makes sure you get the episodes

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  as they come in. So thanks again for listening to the Daily Stoic Podcast.