RockneCAST
The Stoic Sentence that Changed My Life (#249, 27 Sept. 2024)
Can one sentence change your life?
In this episode, I share this sentence from the beginning of the Enchiridion by Epictetus, one of the founders of the Stoic philosophy.
I learned about this book in the Happiness Lab a podcast by Yale professor of positive pschology, Dr. Laurie Santos and her interview with Dr. William Irvine.
Irvine opened my eyes to the wonders of Stoic philosophy. If you are interested, you should buy his book: A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy.
- Broadcast on:
- 27 Sep 2024
- Audio Format:
- other
What is going on guys, dude, I'm going to share with you a sentence that completely changed my life. If you apply this particular sentence, you can totally transform your life. If you fail to implement this sentence and you don't follow this sentence, you could be on a path to misery. So what is this particular sentence? Well, I'm going to be discussing with you the first sentence of the end choridian, one of the first stoic philosophers, and it was drafted by Epictetus. You know when we talk about the big three of stoic philosophy, we got Epictetus is kind of like the godfather. Here's the one that influenced all the others. Then we got the good stoic emperor, Musonius Rufus. You know what's not Musonius Rufus, I'm getting mixed up, Marcus Aurelius, the good emperor. He is freaking awesome in his book, Meditations. And then we got the Ringo star of the Stoics. And that is Musonius Rufus, who I did an episode on comparing Musonius Rufus and Bruce Lee that had some degree of success, but I don't know how many people actually listen to it. But Epictetus is the architect of all the stoic philosophy and his little book, End Choridian, in particular the first sentence has the capacity to completely transform your life if you will follow its principles. So dudes, I'm going to share with you number one, how I learned about this particular author and the book, the end choridian. Number two, I'm going to riff on some examples of how to actually implement it. And number three, I'm going to give you a really good book recommendation that you can use if you really want to know more about stoic philosophy. I have not done any episodes on stoicism in a while, but I am a lifelong stoic. And just like Christianity, this is something that we always have to remind ourselves of the power of these stoic texts because stoicism of all the philosophies, I think probably in my view, only Buddhism comes close to most accurately describing the day-to-day experience of men and women as it's actually experienced. Not as we want it to be, not in some kind of abstract way, but as it is, and it instructs us how to have a beautiful life in the context of life as it is rather than life as we want it to be. So what is this life-changing sentence and how did I learn about it? This sentence is the first sentence in the end choridian, and I'm going to read it a couple of times because you have to absorb its true power, ignore it at your peril. What is this sentence? There are some things within our power. This is the very first sentence of the end choridian. There are some things within our power, and there are things which are beyond our power. That's the sentence. And some of you are like, "Oh my God, that's the sentence that you're talking about. What's so great about that?" That sounds like a little bullshit. We'll look at, and once you hear this sentence and you hear really high-achieving people, whether it's in sports or music or coaches, you'll hear this sentence made manifest in a slightly different way. Normally you will hear them state the things that are within our control and things which are beyond our control. It's kind of the serenity prayer for life. And a lot of you are probably thinking like, "Oh my God, isn't this just really obvious?" Yeah, it's incredibly obvious. But it's something that we rarely do, and we ignore it all the time. And when we ignore it, we place ourselves on a formula to misery. So let's elaborate a little bit on what Epictetus actually said, and then I'm going to share with you how I actually learned about this and give you a book recommendation in terms of the power of this sentence as it applies to Epictetus. So then he elaborates a little bit in his first paragraph. Within our power, our opinion, aim, desire, aversion, and in one word, whatever affairs are our own. Beyond our power, our body, property, reputation, office, and in one word, whatever are not properly our own affairs. Now I would quibble with Epictetus a little bit, obviously your body is within your power to some degree, property can be, reputation can be, office can be. I think there's an intermediate category that he doesn't get into a lot, those issues and those parts of our life for which are in our partial control. But you get the point. There are certain things that we can control, we can influence, and we are within our power, and there are certain things that are without our power. Ultimately, it's for each one of us through the act of writing it down, and that's what I would encourage you to do, is sit down and write, what are these things that are within my control related to well-being? What are these things beyond my control that are related to well-being that can make me miserable if I place all my emotional energy on them? So then he goes on to explain, he says, "Now the things within our power are by nature free, unrestricted, unhindered, but those beyond our power are weak, dependent, restricted, and alien. Then he advises his readers, remember then, that if you attribute your freedom to things by nature dependent and take what belongs to others for your own, you will be hindered, you will lament, you will be disturbed, you will find fault with both gods and men. But if you take for your own, only that which is your own, and view what belongs to others just as it really is, then no one will ever compel you, no one will ever restrict you, you will find fault with no one, you will accuse no one, you will do nothing against your will, no one will hurt you, you will not have an enemy, nor will you suffer any harm. Is your mind like, are you going to read an ingredient right now? Oh my gosh, I feel that every high school student, every college student, every professional class should know this one sentence and should read these paragraphs to find out what that one sentence means. My mind is just like popping every time I read this, I'm like, oh my God, this is so good. Are you tracking? Are you with me? So then he continues, aiming therefore at such great things, remember that you must not allow yourself any inclination, however slight, toward the attainment of the others, but that you must entirely quit some of them, and for the present, postpone the rest. But if you would have these and possess power and wealth, you may miss the latter in seeking the former, and you will certainly fail of that by which alone happiness and freedom are pro cured. Whoa, I just that this is just are you tracking me? Listen to that sentence again. But if you would have these and possess power and wealth, likewise, you may miss the latter in seeking the former, and you will certainly fail of that by which alone happiness and freedom are procured. Seek at once, therefore, to be able to say to every pleasing semblance. You are but a semblance and by no semblance and by no means the real thing, and then examine it by those rules which you have, and first and chiefly by this. Whatever it currents concerns the things which are within our power or those which are not. And if it concerns anything beyond our power. Be prepared to say that it is nothing to you. Are you tracking with me? Are you understanding the true power of this? Ultimately, this is going to be for you to kind of listen to and apply. I think once you start applying this one sentence, I think you can unlock so many awesome things within your life. If you apply the sentence. So let's share, I'll share a little bit with you how I've applied this thing in my own life. And of course, how I've applied it is just about one example. Ultimately, it's going to be up to you to tether this particular principle to your own life. That is for you to ask, what are the things that are truly within your control. And what are the things that are not in control. So how did I come across this particular author, and the philosophy of stoicism. I'm following my lawn one day, and I came across a podcast called the happiness lab. I believe it was because I was listening to Malcolm Gladwell's podcast revisionist history. It was a related podcast. It's so good. It's such a good podcast. It's done by Dr. Lori Santos, who is a professor of positive psychology at New Haven State University, otherwise known as Yale University. It's a very fantastic university. And she had on her on her podcast, Dr. William Irvine, the professor of philosophy, I believe at Wright State University in Ohio, who wrote the book guide to the good life, the ancient art of stoic joy. And in the course of that particular podcast, he talked about how people get stoicism all wrong. And he addressed kind of what I had thought about stoicism, which is, and actually the word stoic means kind of silent without emotion, kind of like life sucks, you might as well suck it up buttercup and just say that life sucks and just kind of leave it at that. That's kind of way I learned it in high school which is stoicism is kind of like the killjoys, and the ones that have a lot of fun are the Epicureans and really elaborate between the two. But that was kind of the focus there and that's all I really got out of that but he said no it's so much more than that. And then in the course of that he talked about the great primer to learn about stoicism which is this little book called the end Caribbean by Epictetus, basically the founder of all stoicism. It's a book that you can complete in an hour two hours it's not a very long book, but if you don't have time, you can read that one sentence. The things that are within your control and not things that are within your power and not. And so I was really interested in this so I bought the actual book and then I bought the end Caribbean as well which you can get for a very reasonable price I will include the links in the show notes but of course all of you know how to go to Amazon. But I bought these books and once I started applying it it completely changed the direction of my life and let me explain. What is something that is not in our control politics. For a while I was an aspiring politician. I wanted to influence the policy in my own community in terms of direction the community was going. And of course to some degree once you get elected you do have some degree of power. But those things that are within your power are relatively limited. And the thing that you give up when you become a politician or when you serve on a particular board is something that is probably one of your most valuable assets that you have in connection with your life. And that is your time. Time is probably the greatest determinant of your well being more than anything else. If you have control over your time, you are happy. If you have no control over your time and you are time starved, you are poor. If you don't have time, you don't have one of your most valuable assets. What I came to realize was that I was spending so much time on something over which I had very little control that I did not have time to exercise. I did not have time to go on walks. I did not have time to spend the time with my family. I did not have time to enough time to work on my career. I did not have enough time to do the creative pursuits. I did not have enough time to pursue time with my daughter. All of these things were things that I did not have time to do. And it was directly because I wasn't following the first sentence of the end. So I decided I'm going to start taking control over my time. Because it was within my power to decide whether I was going to want to take control over my time. I did not have the time and as a result of that, I didn't have time to do the things that I truly wanted to do. So I decided I'm going to start taking control over my time. I did not have time to do that. And in the process of doing that of that one article on the happiness lab and this book by William Irvin, I started looking into all this literature in connection to well-being, literature related to sleep, literature related to fasting, literature related to when you, the types of foods that you eat. The types of exercises that you can apply. And once you start doing it, doing it, it's freaking awesome. It's one of the best things you can do to reassert control over your life. Now, if you control, you can control what you do. But if you place your well-being in other people, you are losing control over your own well-being. There was a time in my own life where I really wanted to be a professor. The reason why I wanted to be a professor was I wanted really more time. Looking back at it. I wanted to read more and I wanted to have more time because I did not have a lot of time as a lawyer. But one of the things that I really realized is that why don't I have enough time as a lawyer? Well, one of the reasons why I don't because I'm spending all this time on something that I don't need to do to make a living run for office. One of my friend Larry Baker once said that in city council, 98% of people could make these decisions. A trained monkey could make these decisions. 2% is why you run. You spend a lot of time to get to be able to exercise modes on those 2%. But then I started really realizing, gosh, there's a ton of things that I do have control over. I can experience the sunrise. I can experience the blue sky. I can experience a daily workout. I can incorporate a sprint workout three or four times a week. I can do Wim Hof breathing. I can breathe through my nose. I can have a positive attitude. There are all these things that I can control. And what I do is it's the serendi prayer to life. Focus on what you can control. Let go of what you can't. So I hope you find and I think Epictetus. It's just if you focus on things that you can't control. Things that are beyond your power. You become weak, dependent, restricted, and alien. And that was exactly the experience in my life. Now, ultimately, you have to tailor the individual aspects of a life that you can control. So that's ultimately going to be up to you. But this is a principle. This sentence is one that we so often talk about, but we so often fail to actually implement. And, you know, I think of in my own extended family, I won't name his name, but there's. One family member who's a Democrat that seems to put a lot of his emotional well being in the hands of others. I think other people do that too in terms of politics. I do not want Pamela Harris to win, but. I'm not going to let all my emotional well being because I can't control that. I only can control one little tiny way, which is to vote. And that's it. And I have to let go after I make the vote. It's going to be in the hands of fate as to who wins this next election. But that's ultimately going to be beyond my control. So I'm not going to spend a lot of emotional well being based upon things that I cannot control. And I hope you will be able to control your weekend and to be able to enjoy a wonderful and productive weekend. And to regain control of the things that you actually do have control over things like your time, your health, your sleep, how you respond to things. You do have control over that. So I hope you found this particular episode helpful. And if you do share it with friends, family members. Apply it in your own life share it with your son share it with your daughter share with yourself and implement these things by yourself. So that's it for this episode of the Rock Bcast Infinite Gratitude for each one of you for tuning in. Until next time you and I see each other on the Rock Bcast.
Can one sentence change your life?
In this episode, I share this sentence from the beginning of the Enchiridion by Epictetus, one of the founders of the Stoic philosophy.
I learned about this book in the Happiness Lab a podcast by Yale professor of positive pschology, Dr. Laurie Santos and her interview with Dr. William Irvine.
Irvine opened my eyes to the wonders of Stoic philosophy. If you are interested, you should buy his book: A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy.