Love Not Hate

You’ll likely know Charlamagne Tha God as the host of the nationally revered radio show The Breakfast Club where provocative celebrity interviews help drive the daily national conversation about issues related to hip-hop, race, society, and politics. Lesser known, the unique and compelling media personality is a Stoic. When Daily Stoic saw Charlamagne sharing pages from The Daily Stoic book across social media, we had to know more. We interviewed Charlamagne to talk about Stoicism and his new book Shook One: Anxiety Playing Tricks On Me. His advice about anxiety? You might think it the words of Seneca if we didn’t tell you beforehand,“What I would tell people who struggle with fear and anxiety is that it's natural, just always try to be aware of the source of it. That's why I believe in rational anxiety and irrational anxiety. Rational is when you know why you're afraid and anxious. Irrational is when these thoughts just flood your mind and you don't know where they are coming from, so you're just scared and having a panic attack for no reason.”Compare that to what Seneca wrote in On Groundless Fears, “What I advise you to do is, not to be unhappy before the crisis comes...some things torment us more than they ought; some torment us before they ought; and some torment us when they ought not to torment us at all. We are in the habit of exaggerating, or imagining, or anticipating, sorrow.”Next time you’re feeling anxious, let that be a cue. Let that be a command to stop and analyze. Where is this coming from? Am I bringing this on myself? The cure to anxiety is often simply in dissecting the source. It’s natural for anxiety to creep in. Just don’t let it stick around for no good reason. Nip it. Don’t help it grow. Check out our interview with Charlamagne Tha God and his brand new book Shook One: Anxiety Playing Tricks On MeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

30 Okt 20182min

On one of his more arduous hunts, after days of patiently tracking (and weeks of planning before that), crawling through the dirt and enduring difficult conditions, Theodore Roosevelt finally got the bull caribou he had been chasing. It was a big animal, felled by several shots in a chaotic confrontation. “It was one of those moments,” he later wrote, “that repay the hunter for days of toil and hardship; that is if he needs repayment, and does not find life in the wilderness pleasure enough in itself.”What he was saying is something we all know but constantly lose sight of in life: Yes, the rewards are nice, but the process of earning them is plenty wonderful too. A hunter who only enjoys bagging their quarry is likely to be a disappointed hunter, nine times out of ten. More importantly, they are a blind and deaf hunter who needlessly misses out on the majesty of life outdoors. Too many of us are like this in all aspects of our lives. We are so focused on an end-result, on achieving the success or fame or wealth we crave that we don’t even notice the little pleasures of the experience and the people around us. The Stoics speak constantly of returning to the present moment for a reason. They practiced their power of observation for a reason too--so they wouldn’t miss out, so they would truly see and feel and take in just how lucky they were to be alive. By practicing the dichotomy of control, they also knew that the journey is up to us, while the outcome is not. As a hunter, Roosevelt understood this innately: Getting the kill--that’s luck. Listening to the birds sing, breathing in the forest air, enjoying the time away from the city--that’s up to you. Find pleasure enough in what’s present today. Don’t get distracted by the outcome you crave (or fear). Don’t demand repayment for the struggle--because the struggle is where the true rewards live. The weight is supposed to be heavy--that’s where strength comes from. Your lungs are suppose to burn--that’s where speed and energy come from. Cherish these things while you can, while it’s still in your control. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

29 Okt 20183min

A few miles outside Rome, along the still-smooth stone-paved Appian Way, is a tall brick tomb that is rumored to belong to Seneca. Unfortunately, no one is certain if this rumor has any truth to it. There is no sign that marks the tomb. There is no clear archeological proof that the bones or ashes of the famous Stoic ever laid underneath it. What the tomb looked like in ancient times is uncertain as well, for no one bothered over the intervening two thousand years to paint, sketch, or describe Seneca’s grave, even as time slowly wore it away. The same is true of the many ornate and enormous monuments which line the roads to Rome. Despite the many thousands of sesterces spent to build them, despite how large their owners loomed in life, today they are but curiosities, best used as sources of much needed shade for bike-riding tourists. This would have been a surprise to many people at the time, possibly even to Seneca himself, despite the philosophical work he did to prepare himself for death. It’s almost always a surprise to powerful and important people, who fancy their reputations as immortal. In Samuel Johnson’s A Journey To The Western Islands of Scotland, he writes of a series of enormous tombs that dot Iona, known today as “the cemetery of the Scottish Kings.” As he says, “By whom the subterraneous vaults are now peopled is now unknown. The graves are very numerous and some of them undoubtedly contain the remains of men who did not expect to be so forgotten.” The same is true for Seneca--sure we remember him here in these emails, but the vast majority of the world has never even heard of him--and it will also be true for each one of us. This is why the Stoics warn against the temptation and the ego of chasing fame, living or posthumous. Because it inevitably fades away. No matter how much money we accumulate or acclaim we receive. No matter how beautiful our tomb. We will all soon be forgotten. So let that humble us today while we are still alive, let that curb selfish or toxic ambition, let that help us choose between doing the wrong thing to get ahead and the quiet thing we know is right in our heart. Memento Mori. Let that inform what we do today. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

26 Okt 20183min

When we get dumped or we fail or we lose someone, we often hear that “Time heals all wounds” or some such remark, all of it in consolation. Obviously this is meant well, but it’s also frustrating--if only because it’s trite...and way too simple. As Rilke wrote, “Time does not ‘console’ as people say superficially; at best it puts things in their place and it creates order.” There is a Zen story about a man whose horse ran away. People said it was bad luck. Then the horse came back, which people thought was good luck, and then his son broke his leg while falling off it and people thought that was bad luck come round again. But because his leg was broken, the man’s son was saved from fighting and dying in a war, and the cycle went on and on. Time doesn’t make things better or worse, it simply makes them what they are. That’s why the Stoics talk about not rushing to judgment about anything, about waiting and seeing. Because we don’t know. Just giving something time isn’t automatically going to make it better--but it does at least give things a chance to shake out, for us to see the full picture. If there is one aphorism about time that we CAN rely on, that the Stoics would agree with, it's that 'time will tell.'That’s the moral of the Zen story too. Trying to label things as good luck or bad luck is shortsighted. It assumes that all the facts have been entered into evidence. It’s better to hold off on forming an opinion, because fate is constantly unfolding around us, and today’s bad luck may very well be setting up tomorrow’s good luck (and vice versa). Time isn’t a panacea, but it is a form of truth. So watch for it. Time will, in fact, tell.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

25 Okt 20182min

One of the things that separates us from other people--indeed that has been responsible for our success--is our ability to be strict and self-disciplined. Where other people are fine making excuses or taking shortcuts, we are not. Where other people wing it or do what’s easiest, taking the path of least resistance, we don’t. That’s really the essence of Stoicism and why those of us who have committed to doing the hard work have been able to get so much out of it. But it can be a problem when people like us come into positions of leadership or become fathers and mothers. Suddenly it’s not just our own behavior we’re regulating, we’re now responsible for other people as well. It’s tempting to try to hold them to the very same standards we hold ourselves to, but this is not only unfair (they didn’t sign up for that), it’s often counterproductive. It burns people out, and it sets you up for disappointment. Or worse, disillusionment. This observation from Marcus Aurelius’s most thoughtful biography, by Ernest Renan, explains the right way to do it. “The consequence of austere philosophy might have produced stiffness and severity. But here it was that the rare goodness of the nature of Marcus Aurelius shone out in all its brilliancy. His severity was confined only to himself.”That’s exactly the key. Your standards are for you. This philosophy is about your self-improvement. It’s about being strict with yourself and forgiving of other people. That’s not only the kind way to be, it’s the only effective way to be. It’s the only defense to being constantly upset and let down. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

24 Okt 20182min

Robert Greene’s five international bestsellers earned him descriptions like genius and master of human behavior. His newest book was just released. The Laws of Human Nature is the culmination of his life’s work to understand why. Why do humans behave the way we do? As well as penning manifestos on subjects inherent to the human experience, Robert Greene has been a student of Stoic philosophy for over three decades. Daily Stoic sat down with Robert for what we think is our best interview to date. It was his first interview since suffering a stroke only weeks before The Laws of Human Nature’s release. The Stoic influence is obvious throughout, but perhaps no more than in his response to our question about empathy. “Let's start with the primary law of human nature. If I had to say what the primary law of human nature, the primary law of human nature is to deny that we have human nature...The truth is we all evolved from the same source, from the same small number of people. Our brains are basically the same. We are wired in a similar way. We experienced the world, emotionally, the same way that hunter-gatherers experienced the world. Very little has changed in that sense. So if we all come from the same source, why would it be that only a small number of people are aggressive or are irrational? We are all the same.” This is what Marcus Aurelius meant when he wrote, “the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can't tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own—not the same blood or birth, but the same mind." This is what Abraham Lincoln meant when he said, “Don’t criticize them, they are what we would be under similar circumstances.”Aren’t we all just the sum of our circumstances? It’s not so much that we are unique individuals, but that our circumstances are uniquely individual. The family we happened to be born into, where that family happened to live, who else happened to live there. In a lot of ways--for the most part in fact--we can’t help it. We can’t help the circumstances that shaped us, our thinking, our interests, our beliefs, our attitudes, our responses. So next time someone is driving you insane, or you just can’t believe the ignorance, you can’t fathom the stupidity--remind yourself, you are shockingly similar to them. We all share the same nature. We all have the same flaws. Try to understand them...while you work on improving yourself.Check out our full interview with Robert and check out his new book The Laws of Human Nature. It might change the way you look at the world.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

23 Okt 20183min

“The hunter worthy of the name always willingly takes the bitter if by so doing he can get the sweet, and gladly balances failure and success, spurning the poorer souls who know neither.”Theodore Roosevelt was talking about the philosophy of hunting when he said this, but he was also describing his philosophy of life. This is how the Stoic looks at things as well. So much of life is outside of our control, and indeed much of that is bitter. We set out to do something and we are quickly beset by challenges, by loss, by other people’s frustrating tendency to think about themselves over our needs. Yet we continue to put up with this. Not just because we have to, but because we know what’s on the other side is wonderful: friendships, success, excellence, life-changing experiences. It is said that Marcus Aurelius was dour, but his Meditations is full of odes to the many sweets of life. Seneca’s writing, too, captures life’s great balancing act--he speaks of how unpredictable and unfair fate can be just as eloquently as he speaks of joy and flourishing.If today ends up being another one of those days for you, try to remember what Roosevelt was talking about. Try saying to yourself, ‘I am taking the bitter to get to the sweet.’ Say, ‘It all balances out and I am lucky to have both when so many have neither.’ In this way you will not only grow stronger and more able to endure any misfortune that comes your way, but you will also be more grateful for and appreciative of the gifts you are given as well. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

22 Okt 20182min

Michael Lombardi is a former NFL coach, GM and front office strategist who is largely responsible for introducing Stoic philosophy to professional sports. In 2014, he read The Obstacle is the Way and spread it around the locker room of the New England Patriots. They went on to win the Super Bowl that year and Stoicism became a favorite of teams not just in football but in the NBA, MLB, the NHL and many other sports. Lombardi spent the last few years writing his own book, and it’s brilliant--a lifetime of wisdom on sports, leadership and life. The book is called Gridiron Genius: A Master Class in Winning Championships and Building Dynasties in the NFL and we were lucky enough to interview him for Daily Stoic about two important Stoic concepts--how to do with winning and losing. As he told us about heartbreaking defeats,"In the NFL most teams exaggerate the wins and forget about the losses. Belichick is the same with both.  He does an autopsy after each game and understands there is a fine line between winning and losing. The outcome is significant, but the process has to be the same after each game. Mentally, physically, and emotionally. Chess champions keep their emotions in check because they are in deep thought. The same deep thinking should happen after a win or loss."And what about when you win?"The best way to win is first not to lose.  How to avoid losing, is the first step to having any success. Great coaches must have a system of checks and balances to assist them in assessing their team. Working in football is much like being in the veterinarian business. The patient cannot speak. Therefore a coach must establish a set of checks and maintain discipline after the good and the bad."That sounds a lot like Stoicism. Absorb the losses--but learn from them. Accept the winning--but don’t let ego creep in. Maintain excellence, always. Mike’s book is great. Check it out: Gridiron Genius: A Master Class in Winning Championships and Building Dynasties in the NFLSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

19 Okt 20183min