Stoicism quotes to kick start your week
Good morning everybody, it is day one of week seven. So hopefully you've had an awesome six weeks, you had a good de load week, it's time now to start revving the engine again. You have done six weeks, you've done five weeks of building strength, week six of de load, so recovering, and you should be stronger than ever right now if you've been doing strength training. And now it's time to build up. Last four weeks still plenty of time to make a lot of progress mentally, physically, all our stuff.
Speaker 1:So don't think oh my god, there's only four weeks left, haven't done anything. Four weeks is plenty of time, guys. Things can change fast mentally, and the physical stuff will come over time. You know? And that's the important thing to realize.
Speaker 1:If you've kind of put your foot off the gas, if you feel the momentum's dropped a bit, whatever it is, it's time to forget it. Today is the day you have. What are you gonna do with the next decision? Is it gonna be a good decision or a bad decision? The good decision is not feeling sorry for yourself, not being a victim of, oh, the weekend went wrong, I can't believe it.
Speaker 1:I hate myself. It's gone guys. Weekend is gone. Today is the only day you have. So what are you gonna do with the actions today?
Speaker 1:That's the important thing to start thinking about. And because we're reading a book on stoicism, the last part of this challenge, I wanna share some quotes from one of the stoics, Seneca. And he he talks a lot about one day at a time and, you know, living in the now, anxiety and stuff like that. So I'm gonna read some quotes by him, see what you think. Some of them might resonate, some of them won't.
Speaker 1:And the ones that do, use them, store them away. And I think that's what it is about like living a philosophical life is that we have these ways of living and these kind of like, what's the word? It's kind of like a computer and you decide what program to run, to do with the task. So you can pick a wrong program and the task is a mess, or you can pick the right program and the task goes smoothly. That's why I see stoicism, it's like an operating system.
Speaker 1:It's like a really good operating system that doesn't let things just react, it always lets you respond in the right way and it breaks down the past and future, it brings it back to the present moment to what you can control, which is voluntary actions. And I love that and like that in the forefront of your mind all the time will massively help when it comes to, your day to day living because that's at the forefront of your mind, that's the operating system you go with. If you kind of haven't got a clue about what operating system you're using and you think your emotions are you and your thoughts are you, you are just a whirlwind. You are a hurricane going through this life and anyone that aggravates you, anything that says you don't like you just instantly react and you're a very reactive person, very destructive, not in control. Basically someone who thinks that is I'm just me, this is just how I am, you know stuff like that And that's very destructive.
Speaker 1:So that's why awareness to the days helps us. And in that awareness, we can make a different decision. But let me get on with stuff. Let me get on with these quotes, see what you think. Life is long if you know how to use it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Life is the longest thing you'll ever experience, guys. Life is short. It's the longest thing you'll ever experience. So what are gonna do with it?
Speaker 1:Life, living is the least important activity of the preoccupied man, yet there is nothing which is harder to learn. Yeah. I'd agree. It does not matter how much time we are given if there is nowhere for it to settle. It escapes through the cracks and the holes of the mind.
Speaker 1:So it is inevitable that life will not just be very short, but very miserable for those who acquire by great toil what they must keep by greater toil. Probably talking about rich people and things that keep, you know, we're thinking about this desire and stuff like if you think about it, what we desire is desire. You know, because once you achieve what you desire, you want something else. You know I'm saying? It keeps going.
Speaker 1:So what we really want, we just want to keep desire and desire, and we keep going and it's like it doesn't stop. That's a miserable life to lead. You have the new car, know, you're 18, you wanted to, you know, Audi and you get 25, you become an Audi, then you want to be a manager and you become a manager and you want to become a senior manager and you're a senior manager and you want to be like a executive and then you want to buy a house and you want a bigger house and you want two kids, want three kids, two door, you keep going, forever. Unless we know what it is, we know what's the mechanism of it is that desire is a product of thought in the mind and it will keep going and desiring because the more desire the more security thinks it gets from that. I don't think there's security in desire, there's actually the opposite.
Speaker 1:It actually pulls you away from now all the time, makes you think that the future is gonna be better. Anyway, let's go back to Seneca. Of all the people, only those are at leisure who make time for philosophy, only those are really alive. For they not only keep a good watch over their own lifetimes, but they annex every age to theirs. All the years that have passed before them are added to their own.
Speaker 1:Yes, I like it. But putting things off is the biggest waste of life. It snatches away each day as it comes and denies us the present by promising us the future. The greatest obstacle to live in is expectancy which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today. You are arranging what lies in fortunes control and abandoning what lies in yours.
Speaker 1:What are you looking at? To what goal are you straining? The whole future lies in uncertainty. Live immediately. Love it.
Speaker 1:Seneca, beautiful mate, beautiful. You will find no one willing to share out his money but to how does each of us divide up his life. People are frugal in guarding their personal property but as as it becomes, as soon as it comes to squandering time they are most wasteful of the only thing in which it is right to be stingy. Everyone hustles his life along and is troubled by a longing for the future and weariness of the present. But the man who spends all his time on his own needs, who organizes every day as though it was last neither longs nor fears the next day.
Speaker 1:It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we are we are wasteful of it. Life is long enough and a sufficient and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested. So it is, we are not given a short life but we make it short. We are not ill supplied but wasteful of it. You act like mortals in all that you fear unlike immortals in all that you desire.
Speaker 1:How late is it to begin really to live just when life must end? How stupid to forget our mortality and put off sensible plans to our fiftieth and sixtieth years aiming to begin life from a point at which few have arrived. But learning how to live takes a whole life and which may surprise you more it takes a whole life to learn how to die. You have been preoccupied while life hastens on. Meanwhile, death will arrive, and you have no choice in making yourself available for that.
Speaker 1:Basically, guys live immediately. And, when it comes to looking after our health, all we need to do, and some of you are like, oh, so much I needed to achieve this and achieve that. All you really need to do if you were to live, if you were to be able to rid yourself of all these like, what health looks like, what I have to look like, where I'm at, where I want to go. And you say what would a person do one day to live as healthy as possible? Well, first thing is, you want to hit the right macros for your target.
Speaker 1:So if it's fat loss, whatever, you want to hit the right macros, you're gonna hit your protein, you want to get carbs for energy, enough fats for hormonal processes and all this stuff. You want to drink enough water one to two liters a day, you want to get your steps in to make the mind active to go kind of a walking meditation, you want to burn some calories while walking, you want to make sure your appetite regulation systems working whilst walking, you might want to do a workout, get a sweat on, get the endorphins going, those feel good factors naturally go in. And you want to be aware of your day, of your kind of desires and all this stuff and not be pulled in from all these different poles and environmental poles. And be still, want to be still and calm with a cool head going through the day, eating only what's needed to be eaten, making sure you're eating nutritious meals, right, making sure you're in control and not like Don said the Doritos, you're in control, Right and not fighting yourself over food all the time. Food doesn't need to be fought.
Speaker 1:We're fighting it all the time, me versus food. Foods there just go in mate chill out. You're like, don't want you and you're like, hey, not saying you need me. You're like, no, I want you what you say and you want me there's complete carnage going on every time you see a piece of food. So when you stop the in fight and then actually have some stillness and awareness and that's it.
Speaker 1:And we've asked the day right and you know you've got work or whatever in there but just make sure you know understand that that's all it takes. That's all it takes if you do that daily life has changed right. And if you are struggling like what should I need to do this for the next four weeks, just bring it back to the day, the daily living in the present moment, want to one big thing, your 90% of your results will come from your macros, hitting your protein, carbs and fat, You want to drink the water, want get steps in and if you can get a workout done, get a workout done, enjoy the workout, you're improving yourself, push yourself, get sweaty, get the endorphins running, you will be doing end strength workouts if you go heavy enough. And that's it. The rest of the day falls into place when souls are achieved I believe, as opposed to you think the other way.
Speaker 1:I'll have a good work day and then I'll have a good eating day whatever. No, if we can focus on right the morning, we conquer the morning. We wake up, we go for a walk, we listen to this podcast or whatever you want to do, turtle radio, get your mind in a new place, you've got a workout in, you feel good, you get your steps in, you know you're hitting your macros with, you're not going be tricked by the mind, you're not to let crave and control you. Because craving is just desire in a different form. You understand that you'll always have a craving just need to cut it off, go for a walk, just don't buy into it, just be aware of it, walk away.
Speaker 1:You're going be in control, hit your macros, you're to feel productive, you're to feel in control, you're to feel good, you're gonna feel energetic because you've had the walks and the workouts, you're gonna feel like a human being. You're gonna feel energy, you're gonna feel full of energy. And that's it, your day will just fall into place. And especially when you adopt some stoicism as well, you can only control your voluntary actions. You know someone can come up to you and say you're a normal whatever and you can say well, I have to respond, I have to react.
Speaker 1:It's in my control how I respond and if I don't take that seriously then it can't harm me. You know, and you know, Marcus Aurelia says, you're gonna wake up and you're gonna meet annoying, angry, resentful, jealous, envious people every single day. When they do meet them, they'll be shocked that you've meet them or shocked that you're coming to your day, you're shocked that they're there in front of you to be like, yeah, I expected this and I'm not gonna let it disturb me. And that's it isn't it, stillness, living with stillness. That is, that's the goal.
Speaker 1:But we can live in stillness, it's up to us. And that's up to you today. So if you had a bad weekend, forget about it. Why you decide next is what matters. Track your macros, gay steps in.
Speaker 1:We've got big four week coming up, it doesn't matter. Today's what matters. Nail today, momentum builds. That's all you gotta do. And, I'll see you in the podcast tomorrow.
Speaker 1:Hope you enjoy Turtle Radio with Dino. I'll be back on Turtle Radio next week, but Ryan should be on Turtle Radio Tuesdays and Thursdays. So, yeah, that's the plan this week. We're back to full swing with the workouts as well. So happy days.
Speaker 1:Enjoy yourselves, push yourselves this week with the workout, see what you're capable of. You've had your deload week and you should be feeling strong and energetic. I'll speak to you all soon.
