We're sunsetting PodQuest on 2025-07-28. Thank you for your support!
Export Podcast Subscriptions
cover of episode This Is The Time For A Fresh Start | The Beauty of Choice

This Is The Time For A Fresh Start | The Beauty of Choice

2025/3/17
logo of podcast The Daily Stoic

The Daily Stoic

AI Deep Dive AI Chapters Transcript
People
播音员
主持著名true crime播客《Crime Junkie》的播音员和创始人。
Topics
播音员: 春天是新开始的季节,它促使我们直面在漫长冬季中积累的不良习惯、低效行为以及堆积如山的杂乱。我们可以选择继续做过去的自己,也可以选择改变。这是斯多葛学派眼中人生的关键抉择。诗人菲利普·拉金曾说,春天的绿色和生长是大自然提醒我们重新开始的方式。 我们推出的每日斯多葛春季挑战赛,旨在帮助人们系统地去除生活中无益的部分,并建立新的积极因素。通过为期十天的斯多葛式挑战,与全球数千名斯多葛学派追随者一起,每天进步一点点。 每日清晨,我们都有机会摆脱沉重负担,选择更好的道路。这个挑战赛将帮助我们审视生活的方方面面,包括习惯、人际关系和选择,从而清理杂乱,重回正轨。让我们一起让这个春天成为我们期待已久的新起点。 真正的美丽并非源于外在形象,而是源于我们做出的选择。如果我们的选择是美丽的,那么我们本身也会是美丽的。这与电影《搏击俱乐部》中的一句台词异曲同工:你不是你的工作,你不是你银行账户里的钱,你不是你开的车,你不是你钱包里的东西。 古代罗马也存在着消费主义,它总是存在的。我们很容易将自己呈现给世界的形象与真实的自我混淆,尤其是在媒体信息故意模糊这种界限的情况下。你今天可能看起来很漂亮,但如果这是早上对着镜子虚荣地沉迷的结果,斯多葛学派会问,你真的那么漂亮吗?通过辛勤工作而塑造的身体是令人钦佩的,而为了给健身爱好者留下印象而塑造的身体则不然。 斯多葛学派敦促我们思考的不是事物的外表,而是它们背后的努力、行动和选择。我喜欢爱比克泰德的一句名言:如果你想变得美丽,那就做出美丽的抉择。当然,美丽也存在于表面的意义上,但我们常常发现,这种美丽背后隐藏着丑陋,例如自私、贪婪、虚荣、肤浅或对琐事的关注,甚至更糟的是,美丽之下可能是丑陋的选择、丑陋的习惯和丑陋的基础。 无论我们谈论的是整容手术、不道德的选择,还是对无关紧要之事的优先考虑,你都可以很漂亮,可以看起来很富有,但如果你为了达到目的而做出了丑陋的选择,你就不是漂亮的;如果你缺乏真正重要的事物,你就不是富有的。我认为这最终归结于爱比克泰德经常谈论的内容:重要的事情是我们能够控制的事情。如果我们无法控制它,那它真的重要吗? 别人认为你是什么样子是你无法控制的,但你可以控制你对自己的看法。你可以控制你对你能掌控之事的关注。因此,当我们思考将要做的选择时,不妨少考虑结果或外部因素,或他人如何看待它们,而多考虑投入其中的是什么。想想它的来源,想想你在做什么,想想你为什么要这样做,并专注于此。专注于做美好的事情,做工作,坚持标准,专注于你能控制的事情,专注于取决于你的事情。因为那就是美丽的所在。 我们无法控制我们的基因,也无法控制我们是否高大或矮小,也无法控制人们如今用来判断美丽或丑陋的许多特征。但我们可以控制其背后的东西。人们会说,那个人很漂亮,但性格不好;或者说,那个人很丑,但性格很好。你可以控制性格,你不能让自己变得更漂亮多少,但你可以改变你是什么样的人。你可以调整你的性格,你可以努力做到这一点,你可以让自己在这个意义上变得美丽。这就是我们今天讨论的内容。我敦促你度过一天,这一天是由好的选择定义的。我正在努力做到这一点,我并不擅长,我肯定今天已经做了一些不好的选择,但我将在今天剩下的时间里努力做出更漂亮的选择,我希望你也能做到。

Deep Dive

Chapters
This chapter discusses the concept of using spring as a time for renewal and self-improvement, drawing parallels between the season's natural changes and opportunities for personal growth. It introduces the Daily Stoic Spring Forward Challenge as a tool for positive change.
  • Spring as a time for confronting bad habits and inefficiencies
  • The Stoic perspective on personal change and choice
  • Introduction of the Daily Stoic Spring Forward Challenge

Shownotes Transcript

Translations:
中文

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to The Daily Stoic early and ad-free right now. Just join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.

If you're looking for fast, affordable, and convenient ways to access healthcare, well, today's sponsor, Amazon One Medical Pay-Per-Visit, might be the perfect solution for you. Amazon One Medical Pay-Per-Visit offers transparent, upfront, affordable healthcare to treat common concerns like ED or hair loss and prescription solutions for beauty and skincare. It's 100% online. Customers can connect with a provider within minutes, 24-7, no need to schedule a visit. And then you get fast, reliable delivery through Amazon Pharmacy. And

And Amazon One Medical Pay-Per-Visit offers customers a one-time flat fee per visit, no insurance necessary. Get care and meds for less with Amazon. Head to amazon.com slash stoicom. That's amazon.com slash stoicom to learn more. A provider determines eligibility. Prices may vary.

Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a Stoic-inspired meditation designed to help you find strength and insight and wisdom into everyday life. Each one of these episodes is based on the 2,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women to help you learn from them.

to follow in their example, and to start your day off with a little dose of courage and discipline and justice and wisdom. For more, visit dailystoic.com. This is the time for a fresh start. As winter's grip loosens, some uncomfortable truths begin to emerge in the newfound spring sunlight.

The bad habits we accumulated to get through the dark months, those inefficiencies and practices that claim too much of our time, those messes we've allowed to pile up in our houses and our minds. It's all there, but we have the courage to face it. Or will we, as Marx really said of those animals at the games, bloodied and wounded, struggle on to fight again the same way?

We can keep being the person we've always been, or we can change. That's the choice of life, the Stoics believed. The poet Philip Larkin said that the green and growth of spring was nature's way of reminding us to begin afresh, afresh, afresh. Will we? That's what spring offers us, a chance to spring forward, to clean ourselves up literally and figuratively.

And it's what we've built the Daily Stoic Spring Forward Challenge around each year too. Starting this Thursday, March 20th, the first day of spring, you will have the opportunity to systematically eliminate what doesn't serve you and build on what does. Day by day, step by step with 10 days of Stoic inspired challenges alongside thousands of other Stoics all over the world. We are going to be getting after it and we would love you to join us.

Each morning is going to bring a chance to shed what weighs you down and choose a better path. And the Daily Stoic Spring Forward Challenge is your chance to examine all aspects of your life, your habits, your relationships, your choices, and clean them up and get yourself back on track. Let's have this spring be the fresh start you have been waiting for.

Hey, just to thank you for being an awesome listener of the Daily Stoic Podcast, which I very much appreciate. We are offering a discount.

To anyone who wants to sign up for the Daily Stoic Spring Forward Challenge, we're going to kick spring of 2025 off with 10 days of Stoic-inspired challenges. And if you go to dailystoic.com slash spring right now and enter code DSPOD20, you'll get 20% off the Spring Forward Challenge. It's going to be awesome. It starts on March 20th, so don't wait. I'll see you in there. Dailystoic.com slash spring with code DSPOD20.

for the 2025 Daily Stoic Spring Forward Challenge. Let's start off spring with a bang. I'll see you in there. The beauty of choice. This is the entry from March 17th in the Daily Stoic. Grab a leather edition at store.dailystoic.com. You are not your body and hairstyle, but your capacity for choosing well. If your choices are beautiful, so too will you be.

It's that line in the movie Fight Club. You are not your job. You are not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You are not the contents of your wallet. Obviously, our friend Epictetus never saw that movie or read the book. It's quite good. You should enjoy it. I know some people think it's a little weird or overrated, but we sell it on the painted portraits. It's a classic for a reason, I think, and not maybe exactly what you think it is. Anyways,

But the consumerism of the 1990s existed in ancient Rome, too. It's always existed.

And it's easy to confuse the image we present to the world for who we actually are, especially when media messaging deliberately blurs that distinction. You might look beautiful today, but if that was the result of vain obsession in the mirror this morning, the Stokes would ask, are you actually that beautiful? A body built from hard work is admirable.

A body built to impress gym rats is not. And that's what the Stoics urge us to consider. Not how things appear, but what effort, activity, and choices they are a result of. I don't know. This is just one of my favorite quotes from Epictetus. Every time we put it on Instagram, it does really well because it is so simple. If you want to be beautiful, make beautiful choices, right? That beauty...

of course, also exists in the superficial sense. But how often we find that

behind that beauty is real ugliness, right? Selfishness or greed or vanity or vapidity or a focus on trivialities, right? Or worse, that perhaps beneath the beauty is really ugly choices, ugly habits and an ugly foundation, right? Whether we're talking, I don't know, about plastic surgery or unethical choices or, you know, a prioritization of the things that don't matter.

So you can be pretty, you can look rich, but you're not pretty if you made ugly choices to get there. And you're not rich if you have a poverty of the things that really matter. And so I like this because to me, I think it boils back down to what Epictetus talks about so much, that the things that matter are the things that we control. And that if we don't control it, does it really matter?

So what other people think you look like is something that you don't control. But you control how you look to yourself. You control your focus on the things that you have sway over.

So today, when we think about the choices that we're going to make, think maybe a little bit less about the results or the externals or how they're going to be perceived by others and think instead about what's going into them. Think about where it's coming from. Think about what you're doing. Think about why you're doing it and focus on that, right? Focus on doing the beautiful thing, doing the work, holding the standards,

what you control, what's up to you. Because that's where beauty lies. And look, we don't control our genes. We don't control whether we're tall or short.

We don't control, you know, so many of the features that people use to determine beauty or ugly these days. But we do control what's underneath that, right? You know, they go, oh, that person's beautiful, but they have a bad personality or they're ugly, but they have a great personality. You control the personality, right? Like you can't necessarily make yourself that much prettier, right?

but you can change who you are. You can adjust your character. You can work on that. You can make yourself beautiful in that sense. And that's what we're talking about today. And I just urge you to go out and have a day defined by good choices. That's what I'm working on. Not perfect at it. I'm sure I already made some ugly choices today, but I'm going to work on the rest of the day then on making prettier choices. And I hope you do as well.

Hey, it's Ryan. Thank you for listening to the Daily Stoic Podcast. I just wanted to say we so appreciate it. We love serving you. It's amazing to us that over 30 million people have downloaded these episodes in the couple of years we've been doing it. It's an honor. Please spread the word, tell people about it. And this isn't to sell anything. I just wanted to say thank you.

If you like The Daily Stoic and thanks for listening, you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. And before you go, would you tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey on wondery.com slash survey. Every big moment starts with a big dream. But what happens when that big dream turns out to be a big flop?

From Wondery and At Will Media, I'm Misha Brown, and this is The Big Flop. Every week, comedians join me to chronicle the biggest flubs, fails, and blunders of all time, like Quibi. It's kind of like when you give yourself your own nickname and you try to, like, get other people to do it. And the 2019 movie adaptation of...

Like, if I'm watching the dancing and I'm noticing the feet aren't touching the ground, there's something wrong with the movie. Find out what happens when massive hype turns into major fiasco. Enjoy The Big Flop on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to The Big Flop early and ad-free on Wondery+. Get started with your free trial at wondery.com slash plus.