This Is What They Do | Give Thanks
The Daily Stoic
Daily Stoic | Backyard Ventures
4.5 • 5.3K Ratings
🗓️ 29 December 2023
⏱️ 9 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The latter was something that the late Paul Woodruff tried to remind himself, having picked up the insight from Marcus Aurelius. The squirrels were not trying to give Paul a hard time, they did not mean any harm when they stole the birdseed he was putting out. As Paul explained in his wonderful episode on the Daily Stoic podcast before he died, he came to understand that the squirrels were simply doing what they do. They were doing what their nature demanded.
Some people are thieves. Some people are exaggerators. Some people are moody. Some people are exasperatingly friendly. Kids are loud. Mosquitos bite. This is their nature. They are doing what is demanded of them, what’s been ordained for them.
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And with today's meditation on the day's Daily Journal excerpt, Ryan reminds us that gratitude is something we gift ourselves by actively practicing. For the last five years, we have been doing what we call the Daily Stoic New Year New You Challenge—a set of 21 actionable challenges, presented one per day, built around the best, most timeless wisdom in Stoic philosophy. 21 challenges designed to set you up to be able to say, whatever happens in 2024 and beyond, this is precisely what I trained for.. Demand more of yourself in 2024. Prepare for whatever is ahead. Head over todailystoic.com/challengeand sign up NOW!
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast. On Friday we do double duty not just reading our daily meditation |
| 0:09.6 | but also reading a passage from The Daily Stoic, my book, 366 meditations on wisdom, |
| 0:16.0 | perseverance in the art of living, which I wrote with my wonderful collaborator, |
| 0:20.5 | translator, and literary agent, Stephen Hanselman. |
| 0:24.4 | So today, we'll give you a quick meditation |
| 0:26.4 | from the Stoics with some analysis from me, |
| 0:29.5 | and then we'll send you out into the world |
| 0:31.4 | to turn these words in to works. This is what they do. |
| 0:44.7 | People are people, kids are kids, mosquitoes are mosquitoes, |
| 0:48.7 | squirrels are squirrels. |
| 0:50.1 | The latter was something that the late Paul Woodruff tried to remind himself of, having picked up this insight from Mark Surilius. |
| 0:57.0 | The squirrels were not trying to give Paul a hard time. |
| 1:00.0 | They did not mean any harm when they stole the bird seed he was putting out. |
| 1:04.5 | As Paul explained in his wonderful episode of the Daily Stoic podcast before he died, |
| 1:08.9 | he came to understand that the squirrels were simply doing what they do. They were doing what their nature demanded. |
| 1:15.8 | Some people are thieves, some people are exaggerators, some people are moody, some people are |
| 1:20.9 | exasperatingly friendly. |
| 1:22.8 | Kids are loud, mosquitoes bite, this is their nature. |
| 1:25.8 | They are doing what is demanded of them. |
| 1:28.3 | What's been ordained for them. |
| 1:30.3 | Why get angry? Why resent it? |
| 1:32.1 | Why expect anything different? It doesn't change them, but it does change you. |
... |
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