Here and now: a practical way to live
Good morning everybody, Thursday week eight of the Octagon Challenge, but some of you are listening Turtle members, just members on the the app only, so a mix of you all listening. And last night did a book club on the Turtle on the Octagon Challenge and we're doing a book on stoicism by Dawn Robson. It's a bit heavy so I wouldn't really suggest it as a starter stoicism book. There is a better one that's easier to read which I'll share in the groups. But let me just go over a few things you spoke about because it's important.
Speaker 1:I think this topic is essential to understand and we've all gone through it in different ways through podcasts snippets and chats and all that but let's have a deeper look into stoicism which is a philosophical school set up you know two thousand five hundred years ago, two thousand four hundred years ago. It doesn't mean to be without emotion, that's the wrong definition that is the lowercase stoic which is annoying that it's called that. But stoicism is a philosophical school about just living a happy life and looking at what we actually control and disregard and what we don't control and being in charge of our days basically. And if we can do that day to day we can live in harmony with ourselves or what they called living in harmony with nature which is ourselves. And that's it really in a nutshell, but let's go through it.
Speaker 1:So the first thing that stoicism will teach you and this might be useful you guys to understand is they say if you wish for any good thing get it from yourself. And they say nature itself teaches us that if we want true happiness and the good life we must seek it within rather than in external things. If we can only do this consistently Epictetus says we will achieve perfect freedom and liberate ourselves from emotional suffering. Like how many of us listening here now put our happiness in a job promotion or a certain job title or more money or a nicer house or a better relationship, all these things that aren't actually that we can get in ourselves today. The only thing you can get from yourself right now, the only thing you actually control is your voluntary actions.
Speaker 1:You can't even control your body because the stoics would say someone stronger than you could come around and you know punch you in, people putting you against the wall, pin me against the wall, some massive seven foot block, I can't control that. And that's an extreme example but you know what they would say then is like the only thing you can control is your voluntary actions, nobody can take it away from you. Like you know they talk about being in prison and the body's changed but your voluntary actions, voluntary, attitude is always within your control and it's hard to grasp in a sense because like wow that is you know wow like but that's horrible why would I feel in control or whatever but in day to day life, in day to day life, right, if we can just focus on what we can control and leave goal we can't. So we can only focus on our voluntary actions in the present moment, that's where we get joy. So instead of thinking, I wish I didn't do that yesterday or I wish could buy that.
Speaker 1:That's outside yourself where you say, well, I can control my voluntary action. I'm gonna make that voluntary action now a good thing, which is I'm gonna go and do my steps. I'm gonna go and track my macros. I'm gonna go and send a message to a friend. We do these small things, the voluntary actions and if we put the good and happiness in the fact that we can do that, then we don't need anything else external.
Speaker 1:We don't need loads of money. We don't need that posh fancy car. You know. And they go on and say this is the next part of it, say seek not for events to happen as you wish, but rather wish for events to happen as they do and your life will go smoothly. So an example of this is you're about to do a presentation and you wish that this presentation goes on the slide show screen perfectly and you wish the mic works.
Speaker 1:You wish that's how it happens you walk and it all works perfectly, but you walk on stage and the presentation is not working and the mic doesn't work. Okay, now people go I wish it wasn't like this why me, why me, why me? But actually the exact thing you need to do next isn't to wish it was different is to accept the fact that monitors not working and that mic doesn't work. Things don't go to plan all the time. That's fine.
Speaker 1:What do I do next? Okay, let's check, let's apologize guys, things go wrong, mic's not working, presentation not working, I'm gonna fix it. What do we need to do next? I think we do this all the time I wish it wasn't like this, I wish it wasn't like that, wish it wasn't like that. But accepting facts and moving on with facts is one of the most liberating things you can do.
Speaker 1:Honestly for me it changed everything for me. Being able to look at facts and accept and not wish they were different and move on with the next action that's obvious you know. I think we need to do that. And it talks about emotionally detaching from things that we think are indifferent. So like for me cars are indifferent to me like I don't care about the piece of metal with a brand on the front, you know, doesn't bother me.
Speaker 1:So I'm indifferent to where I have no emotional attachment to any car. You know, have no emotional touch meant to a specific house and bricks. Know I have no emotional attachment to design the labels and brands you know. And I think like the more we can go and look at these things as indifferent and not actually things that bring us happiness. Emotional detachment from the scale, weight on the scales, that's a big thing a lot of you have had.
Speaker 1:You look at the weight on the scales and you go, yeah, well, that's a number, that's data, I'm a scientist and I'll collect data. And you're indifferent to it if it goes up or down, just know that's data, happy days. The problem we have is we attach so much of our emotions to things that are outside of our control that when they don't go right or in the way we want them, we then get a disturbance and emotional, we get emotionally disturbed which caused our days to be havoc, right, basically. And this is what they say and this is what Donald Robertson says in the book, the fact we're troubled and life doesn't go smoothly because of our upset and desires and emotions is a warning sign that we haven't completely digested the basic doctrine of stoic ethics. That virtue is the only true good and what is not up to us is ultimately indifferent.
Speaker 1:As long as I have the sense that things are going against me that I'm failing to get what I desire or getting things I'm averse to that shows that I'm enslaved to my passions and emotions, you know. That's the problem we have, we have these desires and when they don't happen we get disturbed, right. And we're in a sense of conflict every single day. One of the original, the founder of stoicism you know explained it as the wise person is like a dog attached to a cart and is running alongside the cart that is smoothly keeping pace with it, things are nice. Whereas the foolish person is like the dog that is leashed the cart but is struggling against it but finds itself being dragged along with the cart anyway.
Speaker 1:So you can either struggle against things, alright. The fact is the dog is attached to the cart. You either and I don't want to be attached to the cart. Well, you either fight against the cart pulling you which can be horrendous or you accept that you're attached to the cart and you move along with it. That's the fact, know, that's another way of looking at things.
Speaker 1:Accepting facts, the reality of situations without morbidly wishing things could be different because we can't change the past. A lot of you are this weekend, Monday comes you go I wish I didn't do it on the weekend, foolish, it's happened, gone. I wish I didn't drink that much, wish I didn't, well you did and it's done, it's gone. Today what's the present moment you can do? Accept the fact you did do it, what's next?
Speaker 1:You know, we need to be, I'm saying this in voice mails quite a lot because we need to be reminded of a lot of these things a lot of the times. I need to be reminded even me saying it now is helpful for myself so hopefully it's helpful for you guys. And you know not attaching things to it. So Epictetus which one of these stoic teachers back in the day who started his life as a slave and then became a teacher, he said we should train ourselves to respond to our initial impressions or opinions and things. And like he said, if someone says your ship is lost, by just simply stating the facts your ship is lost without adding any value judgment or complaining.
Speaker 1:Again, a quite a slightly extreme example. He said, know, your ship is lost. You know, you might what do mean it's lost? Well, no. I wish it wasn't lost, and you could fight it.
Speaker 1:You could say, you accept the ship is lost. What next? You know? And how many times do we do this with our own lives? I ate of my macros, but I wish I didn't.
Speaker 1:Remove but I wish I didn't. I ate of macros. Full stop. You know? I did this.
Speaker 1:Full stop. This has happened. Full stop. Someone called me this name. Can we do this?
Speaker 1:And I think I want you all to practice it today. Can we do this? I didn't work out today. Not I didn't work out today. I'm a lazy git that doesn't deserve to do.
Speaker 1:No, I didn't work out today. I didn't do all the tasks I want you to do today full stop. We don't attach, oh because why am I such an idiot? None of that stuff. That's what we always do.
Speaker 1:We always attach more to facts and make the facts obscured by our own opinions and conditioning that this society's ways of looking at things that we then do that. So we think, know, I didn't get a promotion, I'm an absolute failure to society or didn't get that job, I'm an absolute failure. Or I'm not I don't have a high status job. Oh, that's you know, then we can and that's it, know, and we attach things to it. But actually, that's the problem in itself.
Speaker 1:You know, people who judge people on their job title, you know we have to stop doing ourselves first, know we look at someone who says I'm a writer, I'm a creative, I work at Amazon and this and that. We need to stop attaching anything to the end of it because that person is a human being can you see them as a human versus, if they're a writer that means they're probably not doing any work which means they're lazy or whatever. Like some people attach to some stuff like that, or someone says that they're creative, some people have a negative connotation of it. Actually if we can we need to stop doing it ourselves, you know, because that is the problem. Everything's always got an attachment to it.
Speaker 1:So we need to look at the here now, the present moment. Here are ways we can live in the here now one day at a time whatever we want to call it right. So the first thing we need to do is throughout the day we need to practice bringing your attention back to the present moment rather than allowing it to wander off into daydreams or the past or worrying about the future. So this is going to happen but we need to be aware of it in that awareness we can pull it back to the present moment. The second way we do this is if you have to think about something else that's okay right but try and keep your eye in the present moment at the same time so you're noticing your body and mind trying to be aware of each second that passes you know.
Speaker 1:So you got to think of something on the weekend, for example, an important, you know, thing that's happening and don't let that run away and take your day with, you know, go, okay, that's okay, what do I do now? What am I thinking now? What am I doing right in this instant as opposed to letting it take you away? Third way is if it helps imagine you're seeing the world for the first time or this is the last day of your life and concentrate your attention on how you actually think and act from moment to moment. When we do something new for the first time because it's a completely new experience, we're completely absorbed where we are open to all sorts, we see everything you know.
Speaker 1:When you see a film for the first time in a cinema, like for example when I want to see like the last Harry Potter films in there, the, Deathly Hallows and stuff like that the first time you see it or you look at it you're absorbed everything and you're in the now. And then you know you see it for the second time and you start thinking back and it's not the same thing. When you see a beautiful view where you go on top of a mountain for the first time, wow it takes you away. You see it all but then you go again and you might be someone else then, you know? And this is the fourth thing to do is to remind yourself that the past and future are indifferent to you and that the supreme good eudaimonia which a lot of Stoics call happiness, can only exist within you right now in this present moment.
Speaker 1:So you need to start by making the effort to spend more of your day being aware of the here and now, particularly your thoughts and actions, you know. Do we truly understand this? We only control our voluntary actions which we can only do in the present moment and the things that takes us away from living in the now with happiness and joy is thinking of the past and future. Now whilst we need to think sometimes of the past, of the future, you know, and experience in a sense to make decisions, we need to still ground ourselves back into the present moment. That's what we're saying right.
Speaker 1:And the here now is vital because one it helps us make hardships more bearable. Okay, it reduces it from a mountain to small thing little rocks and makes it easier to accept and move on with the next moment. A lot of you if you're feeling stressed about something coming up, know you've got a big job promotion coming or you've an exam, thinking of the exam in six weeks time can cause anxiety. But thinking what am I going to do right now? Let's focus on today.
Speaker 1:What do I need to do right now? Can do two pages right now? You know, that my voluntary action is I'm gonna do two pages right now. That actual action is the good, and that actual action is gonna help you when it comes to six weeks time. Time will pass, but thinking of the future six weeks doesn't do anything in the present moment.
Speaker 1:And this is gonna take away what you actually need to do in the present moment. Same with fat loss guys. You think, I wanna lose weight by x date. Well, you need to do you only got control of your present moment and your voluntary actions right now so whilst you might slip away sometimes ago I wish I was this way for this holiday and all that you need to bring it back to today and right now because that's the only power you have is to do the next thing right so what is the next thing for you today you might have aspirations and things and goals and all stuff in the future, but that future can only become reality by what you do in the present moment here now. So take this as a prompt, what do you need to do today in this present moment, right, that is the true good you can do, that's where happiness comes from, the joy you've been doing what we want to do right now and not being attached to these future desires and all this stuff and anxiety in the past and the future.
Speaker 1:Let's just focus on what we do now and look at facts and not add things to them. And let's take that day and let's do what we can today. Happy days. So guys, what are you gonna do today? What is your tasks?
Speaker 1:What are you gonna do? One big thing is very helpful in this regard. Get that done, write it out. But again, I'm gonna bring it back to fat loss stuff you know fat loss will happen over time, but it only can happen over time if we actually do the right thing today. So we always bring it back to the here now, the one day at a time philosophy.
Speaker 1:So I'm gonna remind you to live one day at a time once more, back to more of some studies, nutrition studies, training studies, but hopefully this is helpful a little bit of an overview on the stoic look at some of the here and now bits and if you want to know more about stoicism and I can share more bits about it it's a really good day to day operating system but guys enjoy your day yeah put a smile on your face put a smile on face right now you might look like a nutter you might have walked past someone thinking oh they fancy me no no they fancy I'm just smiling mate okay chill out I'm just smiling but enjoy your day guys the weather's about and I'll see you all soon
