Welcome to the Sports Motivation podcast.

This is your host, Nees Showbo.

This is Books and Bars where I break down bars, which are lyrics from my favorite rap songs,

and also excerpts from my favorite books.

I love to read, and I assume you love to read as well, or maybe you're just getting into the habit.

And so for that reason, I want to break down parts from books that I read, not only to

give you recommendations, but to give you my take on these different excerpts, because there's

definitely many, there's more than one way to interpret a text. All right. So today, I'm going from

Epictetus. He's an ancient Stoic philosopher. And I'm going to be reading from Enchiridian.

I'm pretty sure I said that right. Hopefully I did. But it is basically a very small book,

very small and just quick, sometimes one to two sentence just straight up Jewel's, just gems of wisdom that are really, really

powerful and pack a lot of punch.

So let me read one that's very, very basic, but it's at the heart of Stoic philosophy,

and I feel the need to really dive in.

He says this, men are disturbed, not by the things which happen, but by the opinions about the

things.

For example, death is nothing terrible, for if it were, it would have seemed so to Socrates.

For the opinion about death, that it is terrible, is the terrible thing.

When then we are impeded or disturbed or grieved, let us never

blame others but ourselves. That is our opinions. It is the act of an ill-instructed man to blame

others for his own bad condition. It is the act of one who has begun to be instructed

to lay the blame on himself and of one

...