The Stoic Trick to Stop Wasting Your Life

Welcome to the Social Community Show where it's our goal that we learn, grow, and transform the person you wanna come. Today, I'd like to talk about a concept, memento mori. Not familiar with this? It Translates to remember, you must die. Remember, you will die. Things along those lines. Ryan Holiday says, you can leave life right now. Let's talk about death. I think, it's a it's a concept that, Fortunately, if you're in, 1st world, more advanced country, It's something we don't see anymore.

We don't encounter anymore. Death, Here in America, especially, I'm sure other western type countries are the same. When you're getting ready to die, you go off to hospice. It's uncommon, I would say, for, you know, people and children to see, death, you know, other than maybe, like, the Internet stuff like that or whatever. It's it's a detached part of our life. And I I feel like as society evolves, You know, these are things that evolve out of society. You know, death, you know, goes to the wayside per se, you know, out of sight, out of mind versus back in the day and even to this day in in some other places in the world. You know, death is a common thing.

Death is seen all the time. Some other cultures to celebrate that. Some you know, all the cultures, you know, you walk by dead bodies every day on the streets, on your way to school and to work and and and to these different places. And I and I think, you know, in in one aspect, that's a nice thing. And but another aspect, I think what it does is it removes death from our life, and then, therefore, it removes death from our thoughts. It removes death from, you know, our mind and our vision. And it can create, I think, this this allure, this sense of, we're not gonna die maybe, or, you know, death isn't a big thing or that's that's a long way out. And at the concept It's something I I came across some years ago, when I got interested in stoic philosophy.

And at first, it's like You know? I think the the maybe the the normal Western response is like, listen. We don't do we don't do that stuff. Like, you go off to hospice. You go off to a funeral potter. You go off to these places. That happens over there. It's not something we talk about here. It's not something we do.

I don't remember ever talking about death growing up. I don't know very many people that have died. I've been to, I think, 2 funerals. So that's something that's definitely devoid from my life, and I'm sure it you know? And I know it's a common theme. So I wanna talk about it because I think it's something that's important to contemplate. And it and and and you may be thinking, oh, that's morbid. It's put to complete death, and it can be if that's the way you frame it. Like, everything in life is all about how you frame things.

Is it good or bad? It depends. You know? Or you can just say, hey. Everything's good. And you can find out how you know, a way to make that happen. But, You know, when you when you when you contemplate this stuff and you look at these things, then you can understand, like, you know what? And especially when you're young, it doesn't it's like, listen. I'm a live forever. I'm not gonna die. You probably haven't known very many people to die.

So you have that, you know, that veil of, you know, immortality, you know, maybe even the invincibility or something along those lines. So, You know, when I came across this, you know, it was hard. It was very hard at first, and I'll go into a passage later that really was kinda my first, dive into this, my 1st exploration into this, and it was hard to think about. And I think that goes back to, like I was saying earlier, It's something that's devoid from our life. We don't think about that. We don't talk about that. It's not something that's talked about at all. You know? And so it's funny that, you know, The origins of this concept is, as it's believed, is it's from ancient Roman tradition.

And the tradition was when you came back from battle and you're marching through the, you know, down the the street and and whatnot, you know, celebrating the victory. There was a a peasant or a slave or something like that, you know, that was whispering behind the commander's ears. You are mortal. Like, reminding him, like, listen, dude. I know you just won. I I know you think you're high on your horse literally and figuratively right now, but you too can die. And that was a way that they kinda grounded themselves and said, listen. Yes.

I may be Victorious right now may be the great general, the great leader, or the great whatever right now, but I too shall die. And, you know, when you look at the graveyard, you don't You don't know who was the rich guy, the king, the you know, maybe gravestones on. But if if you looked at the bodies, you don't know who each of these people are. Everybody dies, and we all return to the same place as the next person. So that's an interesting way that this came about. You know? I encourage you if you're interested to read read that. But I would like to jump into, some passages from from some books that I've read. They really kinda talk about this concept of first, what I'm gonna Jump into here is is the daily laws by, Robert Greenfield.

It's a great it's a great daily book. It's got, you know, every day Of the year, it goes through a different concept. Every month has got a different theme, and December's theme is, you know, contemplating debt and and and these different things. So I'd like to read a little bit first. Please forgive me. I'm working on my reading out loud skills. So here we go. You determine the quality of your mind by the nature of your daily thoughts.

They'll circle around the same obsessives and dramas. You create an errored And momentous mental landscape that is secretly makes us miserable. Instead, you must seek to Read your mind outward to unleash your imagination, intensify your experience of life. It goes on to talk about here in this passage here. I'll I'll I'll read here. Death is our greatest fear, but this fear has effects we are not even aware of. It affects our mind, our mental life in general. It secretly insists instills a fear of life.

Much of the latent chronic anxiety that plays most of us is rooted in the inability to confront our own mortality. We live in a culture that takes death denial to the extreme, banishing the presence of death as much as possible. If you go back 100 of years, you could not have failed to see people dead in front of you to see people die in front of you. You might see it on the streets or in your home, but most people had to kill their own food. You saw animals being slaughtered in front of your eyes. Death had a persistence. It was constantly there, and so people were thinking about it all the time. And they had religion to help soothe The the idea of of our mortality.

We now live in a world where it's the complete opposite. We have to repress the very thought of it. We can't see it anywhere. It's it put into it's put into, excuse me, hospitals where it's Sanitize where it's behind closed doors. Nobody even talks about it. Nobody tells you this is probably the most important Life skill that you could have to know how to deal with the fear of your mortality. Nobody teaches that. Your parents won't talk about it.

Your girlfriend or boyfriend, they don't talk about it. Nobody. It's a dirty little secret, but it's a reality we reality we have. We're all going to die, and it continues to go on from there. But it's an interesting concept. When I learned it, I taught my son you know, he was a a little boy. And the interesting takeaway he kinda got from it was every time I leave, he doesn't wanna not make sure I get a hug because he's like, you know, I this might be the last time, and I'm gonna I would feel guilty if you left the house and I didn't get a hug and stuff from you. And so, you know, I think it's okay to teach children when they're young these the concepts because they can internalize them, and they can, make them their own, make them a practice, and and help them appreciate things like that where you don't know.

Like, I mean, how many times do parents not come home. How many times does mom and dad not come home? It it happens. And and I think thinking about this and talking with your children, especially, and you can be prepared for these things. And then, you know, it's like that old adage. You know? You don't rise to your level of you know, rise to your expectations, you default to your level of training. So if you've never talked about death, you've never had the the opportunity to to to do anything about death, you've You've never had the conversation. You never had the thought when it comes about. You know? Especially as a child, what are you gonna do? You don't know what to do because you've never talked about it.

You've never contemplated mom and dad are gonna die or, you know, or or whatnot or grandma and grandpa, whoever it is. You know? So This is one of those opportunities where you need to train this stuff. Like, everything. Like, you've gotta you've gotta go through these scenarios. You gotta talk about it. You gotta think about it. You can't sweep it under the rug. You can't hide it because you're not training.

So, therefore, when it happens, you're not prepared. And when you're not prepared, you don't have anything to fall back on. You You don't maybe necessarily have a protocol. You don't have memories to to fall back on. You don't have any of these things. So this is why We need to constantly train all these different things. We need to think about these things even if they're difficult, even if they're hard, and especially if we don't wanna do it. Those are the ones to me where it's like, I don't wanna do this.

Well, therefore, that says to me, that's because it's something that's uncomfortable, something I don't like, something maybe I don't dis I disagree with. So I should go deeper on this. I should look into this and figure out where this is coming from why I'm feeling this. There's another interesting concept around this. It's called a lifetime and dead time, and I'll and I'll read a little bit about this too. It also is from the daily law. This is for December 6th. The time that you are alive is the only real possession you have.

Everything else that you have can be taken away from you, your family, your house, your car is your job. The time that you're alive is the only thing you truly possess, and and you can get and you can give it away. You can give it away by working for other people. They own your time, and you can be miserable. You can give it away by reaching for external pleasures and distractions, spending the time that you have as a slave to different passions and different obsessions, or you can make the time that you're alive your own. You can actually come and possess it and take ownership of this time and make each moment count. And When you do that, that means that that time is yours. It's alive within you.

It's green. It's growing. You own it, and you're making it happen. Another way of looking at it, The way I've always thought of it is making things your own. Everything that you do in life It's a process of making your own, your time, your ideas, your mental life, and on and on and on. And then the daily law, never waste time. Make today your own, whether you're stuck in traffic, stuck in bed, or working long hours. Let's let's think about that for a bit here.

Right? How much time do we spend dead time, right, scrolling on the apps, mindlessly watching television. You know? Being with people, going to events and things that you don't wanna be at. You know? Standing in line at the grocery store, you know, riding in your car, getting mad at traffic when you could be doing other things that time. You know? You can you're in your car. You you're gonna do a traffic every day. You know every day you wake up. You know this is gonna happen. Is a common thing.

Or maybe where you live is not a common thing. When it does happen, it's unexpected. That's okay. Good. That's an opportunity for you maybe to continue listening to an audiobook. Maybe continue listening to a podcast. You know? Maybe just having sign in the car and and that'd be your meditation time, you you know, or different things. There's lots of different things you can do with this dead time, which can become a lifetime.

Or like Tony Robbins talks about, net time. It's like no no extra time. So when you're doing something already, like doing a dishes or doing a chore, you can be doing an additional thing there, which then just goes back to same concept. A lot of time. Right? So you take these these tasks or these things that that, you know, you you choose. Right? You want this to be thing that that's dead and and is it's just a waste of time, which is a horrible saying and a horrible thing. Think about that the belief in your head. I'm just wasting time.

Well, on your deathbed, you're gonna be like, fuck. Like, imagine we could count that back. Like, they'll jump on the app and be like, Hey. You wasted 17 hours this week. Oh, shit. Like, you would be like, hey. Wait a minute. No.

I'm not having that. You know? But that's a common thing. It's like, Sometimes I feel like it's a it's a badge of honor. We do all just wasting time. Like, yo. Like, that's the only thing that's finite in this world is time. Right? You know? So that's something to think about. Right? What what are you doing? What what are you taking this moment? Are you standing in the Line in the grocery store.

Are you putting your phones going through apps? Maybe just stand there and and and take this as a meditative opportunity. Take this opportunity to look around other people, Make some connections. Smile at some children. You know different things. It's up to you how you wanna use that time, and that's what that concept talks about. It's a great book. It's got a lot of stuff. December kinda goes through all that desk stuff.

That's that's what I have from there for now. But there's some great thoughts around this that I'd like to kinda kinda explore a little bit. Probably one of my favorites is Marcus Aurelius. He was a the Roman emperor. If you're not familiar with who he was, he was considered, the last Great emperor of Rome. And he kept a journal, a diary. It's just for himself. He wrote down, and it's kinda funny and interesting to see That at the time, the most powerful man in the world, he could have had and done anything he wanted, gone wherever he wanted, and everything is all powerful, almighty, wealthy.

And yet he kept this journal, and if you read, He he would tell these things to himself. It was never meant to be published. It was found and later published, so many, I think, 1000 years later, but he would tell himself these simple things. And and the thing he talked about on this subject to memento mori is you could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do, say, and think. And this is what he was telling himself. This is what he reminds himself as the most powerful person in the world. Listen, homey.

Like, I can die. He's writing this down to himself, like, reminding himself. Like Like, the the the slave in the back, you know, telling the commander, like, listen, dude. Just because you're high and mighty right now, you could die. Same thing. Right? These guys are telling us the same thing. This guy hires this guy has hired somebody to tell them as you're being cheered on for your victory. Listen, man.

You can you you could you could be dead next. Mike is really the most powerful person in the world telling himself, I can die right now, and that this has got to dictate how I act, how I carry myself, how I lead, How I present myself to my kingdom. You know? It's a very powerful book. So much great things in there, and they're just tossed to himself and the things he says to himself. You know? What what is life made for? You know? Not to lay under the blanket and stay warm. This gotta I gotta could have been working. Like, he says all these great things. Like this if you if you're on the video posted behind me, it just says, waste no time arguing what a good man should be be 1.

This is what he wrote to himself. So it's a great I had a great book or whatever. And then Epictetus, probably my favorite stoic. I think his name literally translates to slave or something along those lines. And I guess his real name is unknown, but he was known as. He was one of the rare slaves that was freed, and he and because of his, Enshamed when he was enslaved, he had a, a bum leg, but he didn't ever complain about it. He he wound up going on and teaching. This is where these His things live on.

His notes his students took. So this is one that he he urged his students, and this is what he says To the students, keep death and exile before your eyes each day along with everything that seems terrible. By doing so, you'll never have a base through nor will you have excess desire. So come on. This is what you guys talked about. Right? Keep death and exile before your eyes each day. I mean, just just just think through this. Let's think about this for a little bit.

You know? Along everything else that seems terrible. You know? And then by putting that in perspective, All this other stuff is meaningless. All this chatter on the Internet, all this crap that the news hypes you up about and social media hypes you about, it's Bullshit distractions. If you kept death before your eyes each day knowing, I'm gonna die. Another tick off my count. You should go look at those those life counters so you can go and set you up from, you know, The average life expectancy or whatever you wanna put 80 years old and however many days you are, and you see this calendar year that you look at that in a visual perspective. I'll link to something so you guys can see what this is like. But it's amazing.

You look look at that and go, woah. Like, I only got, like, 17 more summers left before I'm dead. You you start thinking about it that way. You're like, woah. Wait a minute. Like, that's not a lot. You know? So when you kinda start thinking about these, all these other things are trivial. You know? And a lot of this stuff that we're hyped out about nowadays and The thing is it's all distractions distractions.

But if you were to keep death and exile before your eyes each day, you would see that these distractions are pointless and meaningless, and they're part of your dead time. You need to reclaim that to your alive time. What are you trying to accomplish? What are you trying to do? What are your priorities? Not the priorities set for you by mom, dad, Society, your teachers, whoever, what have you sat down and contemplated your priorities? What are the things you wanna accomplish before death? You can even call it your legacy. I'm not fond of that word, but we can go with that. What kind of legacy do you wanna leave? This doesn't have to be my name on a museum. It could be as simple as, and it probably should be as simple as, how do I want my children to act? How do I want the people around me to act? Like, I like talking about our pockets of greatness. What that is is is is your sphere of influence, your neighborhood, your community, that's your pocket. And you create greatness in that pocket.

Right? So that should be what you consider about your legacy. The things you directly impact, You know? Is your pocket of greatness? Are you setting the right example? Are you doing the right things? Are you being truthful? Are you being honest? So there's all this other stuff. Right? Just think about that. Let's take a moment to reclaim ourself and reclaim our stuff. Lot of us don't, and I know I did this early on in life. I never spent the time to think about it. You know, we've kind of fall Pray or victim, if you wanna call it. I don't like the word victim either, but we fall prey to these kind of things.

We think maybe that's what life is until we get a little older. We take the time to contemplate. Hardship happens. Life is losing when a lot of these things, you know, kinda come to fruition. You start to think about these things when you do have a death of something or you do have a near death experience. You know? I was just the other day, I was going on a walk, and, you know, almost got bang by 3 cars in a row because people are turning, and they're not paying attention. And that's an opportunity for me to to think like, dude, I I could I could get seriously injured or death from a simple act of crossing the road. You know? And that's an opportunity instead of, you know, getting upset or, you know, or whatnot when the situation comes up.

It's an opportunity to say, I gotta remember that I could die today, and this could be my last thing. Am am I worried about the right things? Am I doing the right things? Am I pursuing my My goals, my dreams, my passions, whatever. Am I being a good kind of person? Right? So let's think about these things. The whole point of this episode, I want I'm not here to prescribe anything. I want you guys just to think. Take something away from here, I hope, and go think about it. Give yourself opportunity, maybe dig through some of these resources, find some stuff that resonates with you. Another great, so philosopher, Seneca, he was a little bit more on the Morbid side of things, I would say, if you, he's tends to resonate with people that, suffer from depression and those types of things.

He seems to resonate with those types of people better, and I think it's probably because he wrote about a little bit more more of a things you could say. You could also possibly argue he was a little bit more of a realist. He kinda, you know, saw things maybe in that kind of, of light and perspective. But he writes, in the moral letters to, let us prepare our minds as if We've come to the very end of life. That is post postpone nothing. Let us balance life's books each day. The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time. Right? So life isn't short.

Instead, we waste time. That's what makes life short. Right? This is also a stoic concept. That's it right there. Right? Let us prepare our minds as if we've come to the very end of our life. What is the the things that you that are, like, the number one things that people say on their deathbed? Not I didn't do enough overtime. Not I didn't Fucking argue so much on the Internet. Like, no.

It's I didn't I didn't do what I should've been doing. I didn't spend time with family. I didn't do the things I knew I should've done. I was captivated, and I was lost in dead time. Right? These are the things. If you go look at people that are interviewed under the bed, these are the types of things that they say. Right? So but if we if we contemplate this now and we prepare our minds as if we've come to the end of life, That's it. You don't wake up tomorrow morning.

Let us postpone nothing. Right? Let us balance life's books each day. I'm gonna think about this. It's man, I'm telling you, when you first come across, this is hard. But the funny thing is is when you kinda start doing it for a little bit you get over that fear and that anxiety and that that weird kinda feeling in your gut, it's kinda freeing. And it come becomes easier to think about these different things and to talk about them and have a free flowing conversation like I'm kinda having now on this subject. It doesn't bother me anymore. And it was something I never wanted to talk think about.

I never wanted to discuss my possible death or you know, especially when I was a mentor, you had to you had to kinda go through these things. Like, Who do you want your stuff to go to? What do you wanna do with this thing? And I'm like, I don't wanna think about it. This is bullshit. Like you know? But When you're able to go through these things, you can start doing this stuff. You know? But then it also helps you get your affairs in order because you've gotta think about these things. Right? Yeah. Think about that. Who's your successor? Who's who's gonna you know, do you have a will or a trust or whatever these things are? Who who who's gonna be the benefactor? Who's gonna take care of your family? Your wife or your husband or your Child or your parents or whatever.

Whatever is going on in your life. How great things are you know? What about your business? Sometimes these things happen, and the owner of business dies. Excuse me. And and then all of a sudden, there's nobody that can sign checks. There's no nobody that can do these things. Nobody has, You know, any powers or anything. And maybe this 100 person, multimillion dollar a year company goes out of business Because we never thought I was gonna die. I never thought about it.

Oh, I'm young. You know? Especially nowadays, if you look at the new news kind of statistics here and, we're in the beginning of 2024. Excess death is up in most Western countries. A lot of younger people are dying of different things, whether it's heart conditions, being fat, being out of shape, being stressed out, being malnourished. So When you're you're in your thirties, maybe the things we didn't think about before and we didn't think we had to, oh, we got them now, especially if these things are going on, and you're a part of that That cohort of people that these are things are happening to, we gotta think about these things. And it's like I was saying earlier, Seneca's saying here, it is not that We have a short time to live, but that we waste much of it. I'm guilty of this shit too. I mean, don't die.

But It's interesting when you're you're you're you're scrolling on the Gram or or TikTok or whatever you're doing, and then you're like, When you when you thought about these things, you catch yourself. You're like, the fuck am I doing right now? Like, why am I even on here? Like, I jumped on to check my messages, And next thing you know, I'm, like, 17 fucking reels deep on some whatever nonsense that I thought was entertaining. Like, 3 videos before, and then I'm looking for that again. Right? Because It's the way it works. And then you're, like, shut it down. You know? So this is this is the point of the episode, like I said, Couple times here. It's the thing of wise things, cause these things. And I think when you do that, you will find a lifetime.

Right? And you'll you'll identify dead time. A lot of us don't identify dead time. And it's definitely, probably a novel concept to most of us. So when you think about this stuff, you know, look especially, I think a good place to see this is, like, in a grocery store or something like that or when you're standing in a line. And or, like, even I thing that bothers my mind is at, like, practice, your kids, sports practice or something like that or or a play event or something along those lines, every single parent pretty much in our face staring at their phone. Yet the most important person to them, the thing that theirs are responsible for is over there at their game or practice, And you're you're not even looking because you're so involved in this dead time activity. When you could be present in this moment and and enjoying the show. Your kid comes, like, did you see that play? Did you see that thing? You're like, oh oh, yeah.

No. You fucking didn't. You didn't even look. And I bet you didn't know you're fucking lying. They they they internalize that as it. I'm a fucking I don't even care what I'm doing, what I'm up to. You know, your kids come home for school and just like, Oh, whatever. Like, man, take a minute.

Like, stop what you're doing. It's like because you could jump in the car. I think you just headed over to the store real quick, and then boom. You're done. How much you can remember? I don't know. My fucking mom was always fucking on her phone. I don't even know. You know? Is that the legacy you want? I don't think you do.

And if you do, hey. As long as you've as long as you've consciously made that choice, that's up to you. I'm not here to tell you what to do. And I'd like to talk about, like, An adjacent philosophy or an adjacent thing, along his mental momentum more is another, Still a concept. It's amorphati is the love of fate. I think this is these 2 things work hand in hand, so I want to kinda introduce this concept to you folks. I'll leave a link in the show notes if you're interested in digging down more into it. It it's, here it goes here.

Stoics encourage acceptance and then love of one's fate regardless of whether it appears favorable or unfavorable. This concept underscores the idea that challenges and setbacks are opportunities for personal growth. If you're from a Jocko, he's got a saying. Good. Shouldn't went to hell? Good. Shouldn't went well? Good. You know, there's a there's a interesting fable story. I I've heard a few different versions of it.

You know? I'll give a quick rundown. The the the farmer the farmer's son breaks his leg and and oh, that sucks, and the farmer's like, I don't know. We'll see. And then, you know, then then then then the horse escapes, and then because the kid broke his leg, couldn't get the horse or something like that. And then the horse so Something happens to horse, and, like, oh, good thing your kid broke his leg because then, like, the he would've died on a horse. Yeah. I don't know. We'll see.

And then the army comes to the town. Says all able-bodied males Go to war. Oh, you're so lucky your son broke his leg. You can't go to war. He's like, I don't know. We'll see. You know? Like and so you don't know right what's gonna be good or bad. You don't know.

It's whatever. Everything in life, whether your feelings are hurt, whether a thing happens, it all comes down to you. What label you put on it, what meaning you assign it. Nothing in this world has a meaning until you assign it a meaning. Good or bad. Right? So you must love fate. Right? On the coin here from Ryan Holiday's, they stole it. It says, not merely to bear what is necessary, but love it.

Right? How much better and smoother would life go? We just went with it favorable and favorable. Oh, man. That shit ought to suck. I don't know. Good. Fuck. I don't care. I'm a I'm a roll with it.

Right? How much less anxiety could we have? How much less stress could we have? How much more ability will could we have to detach? And then look at that situation and say, oh, I have a solution. Right? When we're not so involved, we're not adding these meanings onto these. We're not assigning good or bad labels these things. It is what it is. I'm down. So the universe is gonna do what it's gonna do. The world is gonna do what it's gonna do. The Earth is gonna spin.

Things are gonna happen. It's gonna rain. It's gonna snow. It's gonna be hot. It's gonna be cold. So what? Right? We gotta adapt. Right? We we can overcome. Think about this.

You are the descendant of people that suffered and endured the worst shit ever. All the way back from they they live in caves and other trees, have their own food, been through wars and depressions, and now you. Right? So you know, deep down aside, you can do it because your ancestor the the the blood and flesh and atoms and molecules made you live through it. You can too. It's simple. It's not necessarily easy. But go back to what I said earlier. We train.

Right? Default to training. Don't rise to a level of expectations. We default to the level of training. So if we're training, If we're literally training, moving heavy shit, walking around, doing this stuff, right, we build resistance. We are contemplating these things. We're contemplating a a more. We're contemplating memento more. We're contemplating these different things.

Right? We are getting reps. We're training. So when these things happen, when something favorable or unfavorable appears, I am prepared. I don't necessarily know the answer to the situation, but I have a framework. I practiced. I did these things. Right? This is the stuff I wanna talk talk about today. These are the ideas I want to jump up in your head.

Now I'd like to jump into the passage from the daily stoic. We'll care from from Ryan Holiday. It's it's similar to the daily law. Actually, I think same concept. I think, Ryan Holiday inspired Robert Green to do the daily laws. This is the 1st type of daily book that I was introduced to, and this is for Thanksgiving. Well, on the year I did it, November 24th in this book here. In this in this section, it's about.

Anyway, let's get to the book here. Train to let go of what's not yours. And this is the this is when I first read this the very first time. This is the kind of the concept that got me into this kinda realm of thinking, and this is the one that hit me real hard. K? So I want to bring this up and and introduce this to you guys as well. It feels you are unfamiliar with it. Whenever you experience the pangs of losing something, don't treat it like a part of yourself, but it's a but it's a breakable glass. So when it falls, you remember that it won't be troubled.

So too, Whenever you kiss your children, sibling, or friend, don't layer on top the experience all the things you might wish, but hold them back and stop them. Just as those who ride behind trial and fit generals, remind them they are mortal. In the same way, remind yourself that your precious one isn't of your possession. But something given for now, not forever. Epic. That's that that's I mean, that's a tough one. Right? And it goes on to say here. I wanna skip down here a little bit.

That was just a quote. This is, Ryan's commentary here. When there's something we prize or someone that we love, we can whisper to ourselves that is fragile, mortal, and not truly ours. And continues down here. They just mean the loss will be all the more jarring when it occurs. Loss is one of our deepest fears. And, I mean, not just like, think of, like imagine Whenever you kiss your child, sibling, or friend, don't layer on top of the experience all the things that you wish. Hold them back, and let them know you they're mortal.

Right? I mean, that that was tough for me when I first read that. I'm like, Imagine, like, kissing your child or your spouse or or significant other or whatever. Good night and be like, you're mortal. Like, oh, man. That's that was that was hard. That was, like, deep. You know? When I first read that, and I was like, first my first instinct goes like, Man, fuck this bullshit. And then it's like, oh, man.

Something you don't like. Okay. Why don't you like it? Because it's hard. And I don't wanna think about my child especially when I'm alive. Right? And that's why I said earlier, you know, once you encounter something like that, you don't lash back and lash out and cancel this motherfucker. No. You're like, woah. Why why am I upset about this? Because it hits home.

And it's tough, and it's hard. And I don't wanna think about my child dying. And sometimes when I you know, I'm watching a movie or something, either a show or whatever, and And, you know, something happens to a kid, you know, my son's a he's or something like that, it's like, damn. Like, yo, let me get a hug. You know? Like, shit. So nice reminder, like and, you know, just hope it's not, but this could be the last time this happens. You know? And it's something it's something good to think about. No matter you know, if you do if you feel it's it's kinda, you know, dark and and whatever, that's good.

Examine that. You know? And then here in, back to the daily law, in the here again along the same concept. I'd like to round this out here. This is a quote from, Frederick Nietzsche. My foreman for greatness And a human being is a. That one wants nothing to be other than it is. Not in the future, not in the past, and not in in all eternity. Not merely to endure that wish of is necessary, but to love it.

I mean, come on. How much pain and suffering can we can we eliminate or or diminish or decrease? We did that. Right? Do those things that happen to you suck? Sure. That's the label and the belief you have centered around it. It's up to you to to define and to forgive and to let go and to work through. But if you can embrace some of these concepts, I think you can be further down or onto the path of healing and moving on and moving forward and not carrying that trauma onto the next generation or onto strangers or onto different people. So I've got a fun little list here. I'd I'd encourage everybody to jump into the show notes and look at these things and and journal on them or or at least just think about them.

It's Related things to this, momentum concept. So, impermanence, Prioritization of values, carpe diem, sees a day. You know? Legacy and impact, humility, gratitude, spiritual reflection, preparation for death, mindful living, and then, you know, integration into daily life. There's a small little snippets about these different things. I I would Encourage you folks to jump in to show us and take a look at that. I want you guys to think of us. I want you to journal about it. I want you to Spend some time, jump outside, go on a walk, and think about this.

Right? Like, you know, get outside and walk around. Damn. You know? What what what would happen if I died? Oh, shit. I don't got life insurance is something you need. Right? I don't got nothing set up. Man, I didn't tell my wife or my spouse or my husband or whatever, my mom or my dad. I love them enough. Damn.

You know? Go go go look at these things, contemplate these things. Right? I'll I'll drop some links to these concepts and these different things for you guys to explore More, learn more, go more in-depth on this. Some books on this topic, subject you'd like to get into. All stoic theme, this is a lot of where this all all this stuff comes from is from from the stoics. If you're not familiar with them, I would encourage you to get familiar with some of them. Find one of your favorites. You know? I'm I'm a big fan of Epictetus, and I really like, you know, Marcus Aurelius as well, and I like, Masonius Rufus. Those are my favorites.

I like those guys. Seneca is also very popular. I can't think of anybody else on top of my head, but I'll drop some show and listen to the daily stoic. It's a daily book. I think it's great. Go through these different concept. Daily laws as well. December tackles all of this.

If you don't wanna get the books, head over to the library or bookstore and sit down for a little bit. Do this. Check it out. You know? Meditations by Mark Israelis. Discourses and select writings from, and letters from by Seneca. Only got us for you guys to to to dive deeper into this subject matter. And then this week's challenge, Epictetus would ask his students, Do you then ponder how the supreme of human evils, the source mark of the base in Carly is not death, but the fear of death. And then beg them to discipline yourself against such fear.

Direct all your thinking exercises in reading this way, and you will know the only path to human freedom. Ask yourself that question. Answer yourself that question. And the final thought, then this episode here, I'd like you guys to take a moment each day when things happen, when saying goodbye or good night, that this may be the last time one of you could die. Leave nothing unsaid. Remember Marcus Aurelius' words, you could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think. And with that, Good night.

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