Many of us view success, especially success measured by financial gain, as the only measure of a good life…Is our idea of success dangerous and does it contribute to unhappiness? Danny and Randy explore our notion of success and whether it is harmful in this episode.
The Existential Stoic Podcast – Episode 159 – Is Our Idea of Success Dangerous – Available wherever you get your podcasts!
Do you have a hard time getting things done? Do you wait till the last minute to start projects? In episode 154, Danny and Randy discuss tips for how to stop procrastinating.
The Existential Stoic Quick Fix 154 – How to Master Money – Available wherever you get your podcasts!
Do you feel stressed, overwhelmed, anxious? Does the world sometimes seem crazy…
In episode 151 of The Existential Stoic Podcast, Danny and Randy explore how to find peace in a crazy world. Listen now and start living a more balanced, peaceful life.
In this episode, Danny and Randy discuss the Daodejing by Laozi. Discover why Daodejing is a book you should read and find out some of the important lessons contained within it.
Many of us avoid thinking about death – we refuse to face the reality of our own mortality.
Facing and accepting the reality of death can help us live a good, meaningful life. In episode 145, Danny and Randy discuss life, death, and what to do before you die.
We all want to be happy. In this Quick Fix, Danny and Randy discuss tips for how to be happy. Listen now and start looking at your own life differently.
Quick Fix 144 – How to be Happy – Available wherever you get your podcasts!
Should you ever go back to school? Danny and Randy have recently started a new learning journey, and they are forced to return to the question of education.
Listen now to find out more and answer the question – Should you go back to school?
Do you feel like you always work, like there isn’t enough time to do everything you need to do? Discover tips for how to work less in the latest Quick Fix from The Existential Stoic Podcast.
The Existential Stoic Quick Fix 140 – How to Work Less – Available wherever you get your podcasts!
Developing good habits can have a huge impact on our quality of life and happiness. Discover tips for how to build habits and cultivate positive character traits in the latest Quick Fix from The Existential Stoic Podcast.
The Existential Stoic – How to Build Habits – Quick Fix 138 – Available wherever you get your podcasts!
The stories we tell ourselves determine how we interpret the world.
In the episode 137 of The Existential Stoic Podcast, Danny and Randy discuss the importance of personal narratives and explore how to create a new, healthy narrative.
Do you find it difficult to be your best self, to realize your full potential? Discover tips for how to awaken the giant within in the latest Quick Fix from The Existential Stoic Podcast.
The Existential Stoic Quick Fix 136 – How to Awaken the Giant Within – Available wherever you get your podcasts!
How we talk to ourselves can have huge implications for our mental health and happiness. Discover tips for how to talk to yourself in the latest Quick Fix from The Existential Stoic Podcast.
The Existential Stoic Quick Fix 135 – How to Talk to Yourself – Available wherever you get your podcasts!
Should we avoid suffering or seek it out? Is all suffering equal? How should we respond to suffering, stress, and other difficulties in life?
We all experience suffering, stress, and other challenges in life. How bad our experience is, however, depends on us, on how we respond to the bad and negative in life. Danny and Randy explore whether we should reevaluate suffering and stress on Episode 131 of The Existential Stoic.
When we don’t have limits or clear boundaries, we can easily find ourselves overwhelmed and stressed. A friend, for example, once confessed she felt overwhelmed and taken advantage of at work. During regular work hours, her days were filled with back-to-back meetings, meetings she was required or encouraged to attend.
The consequence was that she had little or no time to actually do her job during regular work hours, and instead found herself doing work at night and on weekends just to complete basic tasks. Without a clear separation between work and life, work started to consume all her time. It was unhealthy, unfair, and she needed to make a change.
A Boundary is something that indicates or fixes a limit or extent.
In the parlance of self-help, my friend needed to establish boundaries. She needed to clearly define when she would work and what was appropriate. Without clearly defined boundaries, she had no life, she was stressed and overwhelmed, and, unsurprisingly, her health suffered.
My friend resolved to set boundaries. She quickly found, however, that setting such boundaries is not always as easy as self-help books and gurus like to make it out to be. As soon as she started defining when she’d work and what was appropriate for her, she discovered new obstacles and pressures. Colleagues, bosses, and others found her need for limits confusing, because they had been unaware of the extent of her problems. In the end, it took months, but she was able to work out a better work/life balance and take back control of her life.
The self-help world is full of praise for boundaries. To be sure, boundaries can be a wonderful thing and a powerful means by which we can take control of our lives. Self-help gurus often tout the benefits of setting boundaries in life to deal with a broad range of problems. I find that for all their talk, however, there is a tendency to gloss over the challenges that an individual will undoubtedly face whenever attempting to set boundaries in their life.
The talk of setting boundaries that you might find in self-help books can be misleading in the sense that it can make it seem as if the process is simple. You identify where in your life such limits are needed, you set them, and your life is better. This, unfortunately, is a gross oversimplification of the process, one that fails to take into account the challenges, difficulties, and pressures one will no doubt experience as soon as boundaries are set.
Boundaries are a wonderful tool to be used in our pursuit of a good life, of the life we want. I often think of setting boundaries as simply making an effort to live intentionally, to exercise self-control, and to manage our lives in a way that is right for us. Boundaries are, in short, an important tool in an authentic life.
Consider, for a moment, why you might be motivated to set boundaries. In my own life, for instance, I came to realize that I needed boundaries to manage toxic relationships. In these cases, what I was struggling with was, on the one hand, a toxic relationship that was negatively impacting my life, and, on the other, certain obligations and ideas I had about what such relationships entailed. To effectively set boundaries meant facing the full weight of the obligations and ideas I had head-on, it meant dealing with my ideas and conceptions of such relationships and redefining them in ways that were healthy.
Simply setting boundaries, setting limits, isn’t enough. Any boundaries we set will always be challenged, because boundaries entail changes in our lives and interactions with others. To effectively set boundaries, we need to carefully consider why we need such boundaries and which of our ideas, beliefs, and obligations are causing us difficulties and stress—are causing a need for new boundaries.
We should consider boundaries. Such limits in our lives are an important way to exercise self-control and live intentionally. We should also reflect to determine how our thinking contributes to our own stress and lack of boundaries. We need to adjust our thinking for our boundaries to work.
In the end, all change and growth take work and will involve overcoming obstacles and challenges. Setting boundaries, like any changes in our lives, will take time, effort, and perseverance. Once you start taking control of your life and clearly establishing limits, you will notice the benefits and be empowered to design a life that is right for you.
We all want a shortcut, an easy path to a good life – Danny and Randy discuss the most important lifehacks, lessons, and routines they have learned in Episode 121 of The Existential Stoic.
Focus is crucial if you want to make the most of your time. Danny and Randy offer tips for how to focus on the latest Quick Fix from The Existential Stoic Podcast.
The Existential Stoic Quick Fix 120 – How to Focus – Available wherever you get your podcasts!
Have you ever tried to cultivate a certain habit only to give up after a few days or few attempts? For instance, have you ever purchased a gym membership with the intent of going on a regular basis only to find that you lose momentum after a week or just a few days?
When was the last time you failed to do something that you wanted to do because you found it too difficult or too time consuming? We all have experiences like these, and it is friction that prevents us from living the life we want and being who we want to be.
The basic concept of friction is simple enough. Friction refers to “surface resistance to relative motion” (dictionary.com). Friction therefore makes it harder for an object to move across a surface—to move in the world. When it is applied in the domain of human behavior, friction refers to the resistance we meet that makes the completion of some activity difficult. If we reduce friction that otherwise makes doing something more difficult, we make the activity easier to accomplish and increase the likelihood that we will habituate certain (positive) behaviors.
You can think of friction as, for instance, the relative steps, obstacles, difficulties, and stressors that exist making it more difficult to do what you want to do. When we reduce friction, we make doing something easier; whereas when we increase friction, we make doing something harder.
Imagine, for instance, that you want to start journaling every night before bed. In such a case, you can reduce friction by leaving your journal and a good pen on your bedside table. You reduce friction by reducing the number of relative steps (going to get your journal, finding your pen…etc.) required to complete the activity.
We just started the new year, and many people are thinking about personal development and growth. Exercise is a common New Year’s resolution, but it is one that many people struggle to stick with. Before you purchase a gym membership, ask yourself: “How can I make regular exercise easier?” Studies have shown, for example, that when we must travel more than 4 miles to go to the gym, our average attendance drops by 80%. Driving can be stressful, it takes time, and for many it is enough of an obstacle that it will inhibit them from adopting the practices they want in their life. If the gym is far from your home, it might be better to use the money you would spend on a membership on the purchase of equipment for a home gym. Doing so reduces friction by reducing the steps you have to complete to exercise.
Think in Terms of Friction
To think in terms of friction is to think in terms of relative ease—it means thinking about how to make certain activities and behaviors easier and therefore increase the likelihood that we will do them. Instead of saying to yourself—“I can’t do this.”—Ask yourself—“How can I make this easier?” We tend to do what is easiest, whatever has the least resistance and obstacles in the way.
You can also make an activity easier by combining it with activities that you enjoy. For example, if you find it difficult to exercise, you might commit to watching your favorite show only when you exercise or you might listen to your favorite music or podcast only when you go for a run. You combine something you enjoy (watching a certain show, listening to a good podcast…) with an activity you find difficult to reduce friction and make it easier. By thinking creatively about our activities and what might motivate us, we make cultivating good behaviors easier. We reduce mental friction by making something we don’t enjoy more enjoyable by combining it with an activity we enjoy. Doing so, we are more likely to find the motivation and will to accomplish and stick to the behaviors we want to adopt.
Practice is also a fundamental tool for reducing mental friction. Oftentimes, it is our imagination that blocks us from doing what we want to do. Through practice, we can prove to ourselves that certain actions are possible and develop a better understanding of what’s involved. When you practice something, you make it easier to do it without letting your imagination run wild.
I walk every morning. Doing so is not always easy, nor is the weather always agreeable. To reduce friction and make the walk easier, I started cultivating the habit when it was warm out and I was more likely to do it. I do the same walk and have a clear sense of how long it will take. I walk every day and know that I can do it. Practicing and starting when I was most likely to stick to it, I cultivated a habit of walking every day and now don’t think about it—I just walk.
We all want to live our best life and cultivate healthy habits. Start thinking in terms of friction—ask yourself how you can make certain behaviors easier so that you are more likely to do them. When we face a lot of friction, it is hard to get moving and completing our activity requires a lot of effort. When we face limited or no friction, it is easy to do what we need to and the path before us is clear.
When we face limited or no friction, it is easy to do what we need to and the path before us is clear.
We are all trying to make things intelligible, to make sense of our experiences, ourselves, and our world. The fact that we still disagree concerning the best or right or correct interpretation, the fact that there are so many perspectives, suggests that perhaps meaning is nothing more than a construct.
Most of us adopt values and beliefs simply because they are familiar, because they are those that dominate in our community, our country, our…The real reason we have adopted certain values, that we see the world the way we do, is convenience, happenstance. We, in short, believe what most people believe…we conform.
“Madness is rare in the individual – but with groups, parties, peoples, and ages it is the rule.”
Nietzsche
When Nietzsche points out that when it comes to groups, peoples, parties…madness is the rule, he means that there is a tendency to conform and protect the dominant perspective even when faced with evidence to the contrary. We lose our ability to think for ourselves when we conform, but the fundamental problem of meaning is (at least in a certain sense) solved. We know what’s true because we participate in a shared construct, in a shared worldview.
Sartre famously claimed that for humans “existence precedes essence.” He meant that we must make ourselves into something, that we only define ourselves after we exist, and that in truth there is no such thing as human nature which would otherwise determine who we are (and who we could become). The only thing we know with certainty is that we will die. We are beings aware of their own existence and their own mortality—a fact that has a far greater influence on us than most of us would probably like to admit.
We face a reality that is opaque. Try as we might, the world around us gives up only small secrets, and on all important matters remains utterly silent. We exist, to be sure, and we know we will die. We want answers, we want to know why and what for. We want to know what the meaning of life is, the purpose of our existence—but, as Camus points out, the universe is indifferent to our appeals and wants.
Humans are meaning makers—we create meaning and we have a drive to do so. We organize our world; we form a picture that allows us to operate day-to-day without fear. When we believe we can explain our experience, our interactions, when we think we understand our place and role in the world, we gain confidence and feel secure. We want to make our life intelligible because by doing so we remove unknowns, irregularities, we assign a value and place to everything.
Our desire to make sense of things, to make everything intelligible, drives our attempts to leave nothing unexplained. We quickly try to find a place for the new, the abnormal, the irregular, because everything that is not accounted for by our beliefs and values is a direct threat to the integrity of our worldview, our perspective. We think we understand things when the room looks clean, when everything is in its box, in its place, and we feel secure knowing there is nothing that we might trip over.
There is some part of us, a part that is perhaps deep within, one that rarely comes to the surface, but that nonetheless exercises great power—our fear of death, of threat, of danger. We know we will die, and experience tells us that the universe, existence, is indifferent to the individual entities that enjoy life for a short time. Death is the great unknown—it is an unknown in the sense that it comes unannounced, it is unknown in the sense that there are conflicting accounts of what it is (a transition, an absolute end, a new beginning…), it is final, and death is not bound by our sense of right and wrong or good and bad.
Making the world intelligible, making sense of things, makes us feel secure and comfortable because we are not surprised by irregular, unknown, or new experiences, which in turn assuages the fear and anxiety caused by awareness that we will die. Humans are self-aware, conscious entities, who are mortal and thus aware of their own mortality, of their temporality. But we are also meaning makers, and through meaning we create a familiar, knowable, and therefore less harsh and indifferent world, one in which our fears and anxieties need not be so intense, so overwhelming.
What many fail to recognize is that all the various perspectives people have are just so many ways of constructing a meaningful experience and world, but by no means are any representative of what is true, what is objectively the case. A world without meaning, without purpose, is simply a world in which we must each make meaning and create purpose.
The fact is, we thrive when we have reasons for acting, for living, for doing. Better that these reasons are our own, are ones that we have accepted and arrived at because they work for us. We should resist merely adopting values and beliefs because others have, we should resist conforming, because when we do the meanings that define our world and through which we make our experience intelligible are not our own. All we can do is live our own life, be our own person.
Coach John Wooden believed we should all make 9 promises to ourselves to be happy.
Danny and Randy explore coach Wooden’s 9 steps to happiness and why they matter. Discover Wooden’s 9 steps and why you should apply them in your own life now!
Most of us worry about things we cannot control. Danny and Randy discuss tips for how to stop worrying. Discover how to worry less and start focusing on what matters.
The Existential Stoic Quick Fix 116 – How to Stop Worrying – Available wherever you get your podcasts!
We explore The Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle in the latest episode in ESP’s Books You Should Read series.
Discover one of the most important works in philosophy. Danny and Randy discuss virtue, the good life, wisdom, and more in Episode 115 – The Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle.
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