This Is Why You Do It | Be Ruthless To The Things That Don't Matter

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Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast. On Friday, we do double duty, not just reading our daily meditation, but also reading a passage from the Daily Stoic. My book, 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance in the Art of Living, which I wrote with my wonderful collaborator, translator,

and a literary agent, Stephen Hanselman. So today, we'll give you a quick meditation from the Stoics with some analysis from me, and then we'll send you out into the world to turn these words into works. This is why you do it.

They lived in disorienting times. They faced change. They faced criticism. Many of them lived under tyrants. They lived through wars and chaos and dysfunction. So how did the Stoics stay sane through all of this? How did Seneca not lose his mind under Nero? How did Marx realize not become Nero when anointed with the same power?

The answer is, as for most things, hard work. The Stoics worked hard to maintain their perspective, to shake off the misinformation and the noise to find the truth, to maintain control over the greatest empire themselves. To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle or well-wrote of living through totalitarianism and authoritarianism.

But there was a habit that most of the Stoics had that Orwell also recommended. One thing that helps towards it, he said, was to keep a diary or any rate to keep some kind of record of one's opinions about important events. Otherwise, he said, when some particularly absurd belief is exploded by events, one may simply forget that one ever held it.

In meditations we see Marcus Aurelius trying to hold himself accountable on the pages of his journal. In Seneca's letters we see him and Lucilius trying to make sense of the deranged world they lived in. And every day tens of thousands of people all over the world use the daily and weekly prompts in the daily stoic journal to find their bearings and to center themselves.

What am I doing with my soul?" Marcus really writes in Meditations, and then he says that he and you need to interrogate yourself, to find what inhabits your so-called mind and what kind of soul you have. He says, is it a child's soul and adolescence, a tyrant's soul, the soul of a predator?

or its prey. Marcus Aurelius was an all-powerful emperor. No one else was interrogating him. No one else was subjecting him to these hard questions. He knew that if he didn't do it, no one would. Well, today, no one else is concerned with your soul.

It's no one else's business. So if you don't interrogate yourself about it, if you're not examining your own mind, who will? If you're not using the pages of your journal to get to self-awareness, to get to clarity, how will you ever stand a chance of seeing what's in front of your nose? You have to do it every day.

And look, I have here, actually, it's under my computer. I'll lift it up. I have the Daily Stoke Journal, and I have my One Line a Day Journal. I'm doing my journaling practice every night before bed. Sometimes I do it in the morning also. Look, a new year is a great time.

to build a journaling habit if you don't have one. That's what the daily stoic journal is all about. There's a weekly stoic meditation, then there's prompts for each day a question, ask you a question to think about in the morning and at night the prompts you to sort of do this stoic practice.

And I think I like it. I have this cool leather cover that we make at the Daily Stokes Store. It says, make time, the front. It's a reminder, we got to make time for this essential practice. We got to make time to interrogate ourselves, see who we are, see how we're doing.

And you can grab all this at store.dailystoke.com. I'll link to it in today's show notes. And then just a reminder that the Daily Stoke e-book is $2.99 on Amazon right now as an e-book in the US. I think in the UK also. So you can grab that. I think at dailystoke.com slash discount. Anyways, get journaling. And as Orwell says, we got to see what's in front of us 20. 25 is going to be a crazy year. And I'm going to be leaning on my journals. And I assume you'll get some benefit out of them too.

Hello, welcome to another episode of the daily stoic podcast today. We are reading the January 3 entry in the daily stoic book. I am holding a cloth band edition. I don't know where. Well, I know where this one came from. This came because it's got a target sticker on the front. I guess they were briefly available in target.

Maybe they still are. We've got the Leatherbound Edition and, oh, the e-book edition is discounted right now. I will link to that in today's show notes. I believe the daily stoic e-book is like $2.99 for the first week or so of the year, which is really exciting. And grab that on Amazon or iBooks or wherever you get your e-books. You can pair it well with the journal. But anyways, here we are. Be ruthless to the things that don't matter.

Today's quote is from Seneca on the brevity of life. How many have laid waste to your life when you weren't aware of what you were losing? How much was wasted in pointless grief, foolish joy, greedy desire and social amusement? How little of your time was left to you, you will realize that you are dying before your time.

One of the hardest things to do in life is say no, to invitations, to requests, to obligations, to the stuff that everyone else is doing. Even harder is saying no to certain time consuming emotions, danger, excitement, distraction, obsession, lust.

None of these impulses feel like a big deal by itself, but run amok they become a commitment like anything else. And if you're not careful, these are precisely the impositions that will overwhelm and consume your life. Do you ever wonder how you can get some of your time back, how you can feel less busy? Start by learning the power of no, as in no thank you or no, I'm not going to get caught up in that or no, I just can't right now.

May hurt some feelings. It may turn some people off. It may take some hard work, but the more you say no to the things that don't matter, the more you can say yes to the things that do. And this will let you enjoy your life, the life that you want. I told this story before, but I have two pictures of my kids right here to the right of my desk.

One's very cute, it's my boy's wearing an elf costume, we're mowing the lawn together, and then above it's my youngest, he's basically a baby. We've got their hand prints on it, beautiful little pictures of her kids, everyone has those in their office, I imagine. And then in the middle is this sign sent to me by the sports psychologist, Dr. Jonathan Fader, and it's Oliver Sacks in his office, talking on the phone, like I do many times, but behind him is a giant sign that just says no, exclamation point.

It was a reminder Dr. Fader told me to have pitch discipline. He works with a lot of sports teams. You're saying, you know, what pitches are you going to swing at? What balls are you going to let fly right by? And I have to the right of it two things signed by one of my favorite presidents, Harry Truman.

And the first one is from July 7, 1969, after he left office. It says Independence, Missouri. And it says, dear Mr. Hartuin, thank you for the campaign material. I appreciate your thoughtfulness and we'll turn it over to the library for a collection of items of this kind.

And he says, I regret that I cannot comply with your request as it has long been my policy not to respond to questions. I received so many requests similar to yours that I could not begin to keep up with all of them. I know you will understand, sincerely yours.

Harry Truman. Now, obviously a secretary typed that up because it was part of a longstanding policy and all Truman had to do was scribble a signature. And I know it was part of a longstanding policy because I have an earlier memo from when Truman was president. This is just a little chunk of a tiny memo that was been cut out. It's like a little scrap of paper from, you know, secretary back in those days. And it says, since the president will be out of office when this celebration will be held, how do you think we ought to answer it?

Should we say that because of many similar requests, the president must ask to be excused. And then underneath it, in Harry's writing, it says the proper response is underlined. The underline, because of many similar requests, the president must ask to be excused. And then it's signed HST.

Gotta say no. It's hard, but you gotta say no. And I was just in DC myself, actually, at the White House. I told you why I was there, but it was funny. After I gave my talk, I went across the street. I ate at Old Ebbets with my speaking agent, and I was just telling them, man, look, I was too busy last year. I appreciate all the work that you got from me. I've loved every audience that I got to talk to, but

I want to do less in 2025. And I said, how can we do this? Do we need to raise my fee? Will that make some of the requests go away? I need you to pre-filter some of them. I was like, I am not saying no enough, and it's hard for me to say no, so how can we get better at this?

And he said, because some of my other clients do this, he said, going forward, we'll send you the offers. And then you can reply and say, tell me why I shouldn't do this. And not in the way that we sometimes mean that, like the opposite of how we mean it. He was saying, like,

ask them for reasons not to do it. And he said, they're more than happy to provide. They will argue against their financial interests and help give me reasons not to. And they do is sometimes they go, Hey, you know, this is going to be a really busy period. Are you sure you want to sign up for this? Or, Hey, you know, this fee is lower than you normally accept. And it's at far travel. I think you should

you know, pass on this and hope maybe you get something closer to home. That's maybe less, but we'll take less time or they go, you know, I just don't think this is the right thing for you to be associated. They do give me reasons, but you know, ultimately it's a business. And so we're the idea of like defaulting to know and coming up with reasons arguing why we shouldn't do it as opposed to

that sometimes more seductive of why we should do it. That's what I'm working on in 2025. So that's just a little glimpse into my life and how I am getting better at this. Not perfect. We all struggle with it, but that is where we are. So anyways, I hope you are doing great. Hope the new year is off to a good start. Don't think it's too late to sign up for the Daily Stoke New Year New Challenge. We're just letting a few more people in. You can play catch up a little bit. That's at dailystoke.com slash challenge. And then of course, don't forget you can get

daily stoic as an e-book right now for $2.99 anywhere you get your e-books and I'll link to that in today's show notes. Be well, everyone. Thanks so much for listening to The Daily Stoke Podcast. If you don't know this, you can get these delivered to you via email every day. Check it out at dailystoke.com slash email.

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