The Daily Stoic

I'm reading that one next but this is Gandhi the activist in South Africa he went to school in London then immigrated to the colony of South Africa where he suddenly faced all this scene and you're really similar to what would later happen in America sort of Jim Crow S.K. Laws so I don't know this is probably two three thousand pages worth of books but when you treat reading like a job and you take it seriously you can get a lot done and in a normal month I'm at home more so I it's actually harder for me to read because I was traveling so much time and airplanes try not to watch tv or movies I try not to space out I don't need I just sit and I read on the airplane I get a lot done and this is a great reading for me but I think of the main lessons of this month I think there's a couple a big one is of course it's easy to over commit and be too busy right when I look at the calendar and when I was starting to get stressed my wife and I laid the calendar down we wrote everything out that we had to do for the month and it was too much it's a calibration as the world kind of adjusts and we embrace like whatever this phase of the pandemic is I agree to more that I wanted and so I emailed my speaking agency and I said this is as busy as I would ever want to be this is the line can't go past it so that's important from a like work-life balance standpoint but also professionally by drawing the line by creating scarcity here's what I'm willing to do here's what I'm not willing to do here's how many slots there are you'll soon increase value so saying no to me is the big lesson momentum worry that life is short you can't take people for granted you have to be with them while you can be with them and this is something I remind myself of every night when I touch my kids in the bed I'm not rushing through this I'm not rushing to try to get them to sleep I'm not saying no I'm not gonna read you one more book because what are my rushing towards Netflix you know email none of that stuff matters but I'm also rushing away from one of however many nights I get with my kids I'm rushing away from them as three-year-olds and five-year-olds I'm rushing away from this moment and I don't want to do that I want to be in this moment presents to me is an important lesson and you just have to practice it and actually it's funny one of the things we we rolled out for daily stoke this month is this momentum worry calendar this your life is made up of roughly four thousand weeks this month was you know four weeks how did I spend those four weeks did I live those four weeks Sena says death isn't something in the future death is happening now yes my grandmother died now but she died slowly over eighty five years she actually exceeded the four thousand weeks on the chart which is great that's wonderful but what do you have to show for those weeks and she had a wonderful life but you know if I was just on autopilot this month or today or this minute I'm rejecting that gift I'm not being present I'm taking life for granted and then you know I have tattooed on my wrist here and I talked about it in a couple of different talks I gave it when I think of all the moments that I'm happiest that I did my best work you know I wasn't doing 50 things at one time I was connected I was present I tuned things out the stokes talk about adoraxia right not being disturbed by internal or external forces but I think the idea is like you don't control what's happening in the world you don't control necessarily how busy your month is or all the things that could go wrong so you have to find a way to be still and content and focused in the midst of that there's a letter from Sena Corrie's in Rome trying to write and there's crazy noises going on and someone's getting arrested and you know the rooms too hot you you have to be able to tune all that out and focus especially as a writer in this digital world where there's alerts and interruptions and attempting can you focus amidst the crates can you be still as the world is spinning faster and faster around you because if you can't not only you're not going to perform at a good level you're going to miss all the wonderful moments you're going to miss the sunset you're going to miss the dinner with people that you care about you're going to miss the sweetness of that bedtime you're going to miss all the little things that Marcus really observes you know grains of wheat bending under their own weight or you know the furrow of an animal's brow or the way that bread splits open you're going to miss the ordinary extraordinary ness of life and so when I think about this month I think about the time that I spent with my kids I think about the progress that I made on my book I think about the runs that I took on the beach and all of that to me made it a wonderful month I hope you like this video I hope you subscribe but what I really want you to subscribe to is our daily stoic email one bit of stoic wisdom totally for free to the largest community of stoics ever in existence you can sign up at daily stoic.com slash email there's no spam you can unsubscribe at anytime I love sending it I've sent it every day for the last six years and I hope to see you there at daily stoic.com slash email you can listen to the daily stoic early and add free on amazon music download the amazon music app today or you can listen early and add free with wonder plus in apple podcasts. The early 2000s was a breeding ground for bad reality competition series from shows like kid nation CBS is weird lord of the flies style social experiment that took 40 kids to live by themselves in a ghost town to the swan a horrifying concept where women spent months undergoing a physical transformation and then were made to compete in a beauty pageant hi i'm micha brown and i'm the host of wonderry's podcast the big flop each episode comedians join me to chronicle one of the biggest pop culture fails of all time and try to answer the age old question who thought this was a good idea recently on the big flop we looked at the reality TV show the swan the problem this dream opportunity quickly became a viewing nightmare they were isolated for weeks berated operated on and then were ranked by a panel of judges follow the big flop on the wonderry app or wherever you get your podcasts

I was very excited that Admiral Steph Riddis sent me a galley of his new book about Navy Adenrals and captains who took huge risks there's a lot of great stories in here and I read this on my way to the Naval Academy

this one was highly recommended to me it's about Gandhi but not Gandhi in India I'm reading that one next but this is Gandhi the activist in South Africa he went to school in London then immigrated to the colony of South Africa where he suddenly faced all this scene and you're really similar to what would later happen in America sort of Jim Crow S.K. Laws

When I read it I almost broke down in tears. It was just an absolutely beautiful book.

It reminded me of this this great essay that Kafka wrote called Letter to the Father.

It's about basically a young son struggling with a sort of an overbearing stern distant father and reckoning with this they're trying to get closer speaking very different languages having very different experiences.

It's not an abusive relationship by any means but there is something some gap that they struggle to close and it's a haunting moving memoir I absolutely loved it.

I'm going to start carrying the painted porch Half the Way Home a memoir of Father and Son

That new book is called American Midnight, The Great War of Violent Peace in Democracies Forgotten Crisis about World War One, about this period of the Woodrow Wilson presidency America is on the brink it feels like the social fabric is falling there's violence in the streets there's a reactionary anti-immigrant movement and anti-immigrant movement or race movement.

I interviewed these two writers earlier today who who have been writing about Mr. Rodgers, you know Fred Rogers and um it struck me that what you didn't have is what Fred Rogers tried to so gracefully give to so many young people which was this idea that I like you for who you are or you are you are I'm proud of you for who you are I love you for who you are

It is a vast kingdom to be able to cope without a kingdom

I was really thrilled with a new book called Existential Flourishing by Irene McMullen yeah and she she she suggested that when we look at virtue ethics we really think of one component of our practical rationality is focused on justice and I was like here we go wouldn't that be sure some norms about justice

His two books, Inward and Clarity & Connection were both instant bestsellers.

Diego's third book, Lighter, debuted as a #1 New York Times best seller.

if you're not following him on instagram you should that's young poebleau why you ng underscore poebleau and young poebleau.com on twitter at young poebleau

we sell this book and my bookstore

it was totally unexpected

and then also her sort of coffee table book Nasty Galaxy

well it's interesting Ryan because I wrote this book Wise Up really thinking about nicomachian ethics and senica's letters to a stoic so yeah it was never I never wrote it as a parenting book I wrote it as as an epistolary because I thought this is a great way to express how much I love the gift of stoicism but I was not it was never a parenting book it never occurred to me until my publisher and so I used my son uh I asked him if I could address the letters to him and he said yes and I because my son we have a great relationship I really enjoy a sense of humor and I thought in writing letters where my son essentially stands in for the reader I could have a lot more fun and fill it with bits of trivia and historical information that it just found fascinating so it was really a way to write the most entertaining book that I was proud of I am a bit of a magpie I find bits of information and treasure them up and then I could tell where by reading all your books um and that's what I love is that like you've lit the fuse for so many people their lives are going to be enhanced because of sharing the sharing of the knowledge which is such a gift um so thank you for that