When Your Passion Is Master of Your Reason… | We Are a Product of Our Habits

courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world.

When passion is the master of your research, they lied to you, they cheated you, they hurt you, they hurt someone, they hurt someone you love, of course you're hurt, of course you're angry, of course it's consuming your attention, beware. In fact, we only need to beware because as the Stoic say, this is where trouble comes from

“a passions. In your rippities media, we have a copy of the paid reports, lovely play that I think”

everyone should read. He has media on the verge of fill aside, surprisingly aware of the temporary insanity her anger has created. I am well aware of how terrible a crime I am about to commit, she says,

but my passion is master of my reason, passion that causes the greatest suffering in the world.

To the Stoic's passions were diametrically opposed to reason, and the two were battling for supremacy in each of us, when passion wins we are in trouble, causes suffering for us and for others we, we say things we regret, we jump into things we wouldn't. We make complicated things worse, we do things that can't be undone. This is why Athena Doris famously told the Emperor Augustus to count the letters of the alphabet before he did anything out of anger. He was telling him to

pause and reflect, as our challenge coin says, pause and reflect. Think about it. Let reason be your master, not the passion of the moment. Don't hurt others and yourself, don't jump in just yet. Think about how you'll think about this after, spare yourself and others. Suffering, pause and reflect that. Let your passions pass. A pause can change everything. I reach into my pocket these days, and I grab the

daily Stoic, pause and reflect medallion. Delay is the best remedy Seneca says. If the Dean of Doris advised the Emperor Augustus to count all the letters of the alphabet before he reacts, then the front of the coin there is a mirror. The idea is to really think about what you look like

“when you react in this moment. You can grab that at dailystoic.com/pause and I think it's a great”

everyday carry or reminder to have with you in your house and check it out. So this is like the best time of year in Texas, you know, the weather is getting great. You want to spend time outside or patio furniture is just like falling apart. So we're going to upgrade our little patio outside the house or back deck at the ranch. And the first place we went to find some new chairs, a new rug. Going to get a porch swing was way fair. It's been wonderful. Get out there and

enjoy the spring before it gets too hot, too crazy. Delivery was super easy. Wayfarer also has installation and assembly stuff, so I could spend my time writing instead of getting angry at some frustrating instructions, ordering online is easy. It's all delivered right to your door.

Wayfarer products have over 20 million verified five star reviews to help you make the right call.

“And I recommend shopping with Wayfarer verified your shortcut to the good stuff. There are”

team of product specialists that everything by hand is in a 10 point quality inspection. So you know you're getting a great piece no matter your budget. Get prep for patio season for way less head over to wayfarer.com right now to shop all things home. W-a-y-f-a-i-r.com Wayfarer, every style, every home. Wayfarer, every style, every home. I just heard this stat that shocked me, given that I hear from the sale staff and my publisher quite a bit. The stat is sales team spend about 50%

of their time on admin work instead of selling, relationship building, closing deals. Which means they're not selling right? And that's where today's sponsor comes in pipe drive. It's a simple intelligent CRM tool for small and medium businesses. pipe drive was built from the ground up to strip away that manual work that stuff that's waste in your time taking your sales team away from doing things you pay them to do, which is sell stuff. They've got smart automations to handle

repetitive tasks and you can even customize these automations to fit your unique sales process. Plus they've got AI features that will analyze your pipeline flag, stalled deals, surface what needs attention and tell your team what to do next without them having to go look for it. Switch to a CRM built by sales people for sales people enjoying over the 100,000 companies already using pipe drive. And right now when you use our link, you'll get a 30 day free trial, no credit card

or payment needed. Just head over to pipedrive.com/doek to get started. That's pipedrive.com/doek to be up

stoic journal 366 days of riding and reflection on the art of living. Journaling of course is a critical

exercise to the stoics. It's really hard to separate journaling from stoicism. Meditations is Marcus Aurelius journaling and talking to himself. And so today's entry comes from the prompt and the sort of meditative part of the daily stoic journal for this week. And it's all about habits. The Roman stoics put a heavy emphasis on dealing with habitual behavior in order to make progress in the art of living. The great Roman stoic educator, Musonius Rufus, is Epictetus's teacher,

held that all the theories in the world couldn't trump good habits. And it couldn't overcome bad habits either. Epictetus followed Musonius in this focus on habit with an eye on not reinforcing bad habits such as anger and finding a way to replace them with better ones. We all recognize bad habits when they see them and others, but it's harder to see them in ourselves. So this week meditate on the habits and recurring behaviors that are holding you back and even ask others

around you for their view. And the first quote comes to us from Epictetus. He says, "Every habit

and capability is confirmed and grows in its corresponding actions, walking by walking and running

“by running." Therefore, if you want to do something, make a habit of it. If you don't want to do that,”

don't, but make a habit of something else instead. The same principle is at work in our state of mind. When you get angry, you have not only experienced an evil, but you've also reinforced about habit adding fuel to the fire. Epictetus's discourse is 218. Then he also says, "If you don't wish to be a hothead, don't feed your habit. Try as a first step to remain calm and count the days you haven't been angry. I used to be angry every day and now every other day,

then every third and fourth. And if you make it as far as 30 days, thank God.

For a habit is first weekend and then obliterate it. When you can say, "I didn't lose my temper today or the next day or for three or four months, but it kept my cool under provocation, then you are in better health." That's again, Epictetus's discourse is 218. And then this is the funny one. He says, "What assistance can we find in the fight against habit? Try the opposite." The point is, the still looks thought a lot about habits. They had to, right? It's not just enough

to think philosophical thoughts to sort of have high principles or standards, but how do you make them real in your life? How do you turn them into muscle memory, right? And athlete can watch videos can be coached, can review painstakingly, they're swaying or they're shot or they're throw. And then they're going to get tweaks and thoughts, but then that has to become habit.

“That has to become part of the routine. That's why they sit in a gym and take a thousand”

free throws or a thousand jump shots. That's why they practice doing this or that, so that under immense amounts of pressure under the stresses of life in the game, they can revert back to that training. They can do what they need to do. And I love this little expression from Seneca about how bad habits, the old way of doing it. First, we weaken it, then we obliterate it. You don't just magically do the new thing. You weaken it. And he's saying one way to weaken it is to try the opposite.

You know, it's like you have a piece of paper with a crease in it or a bend in it. You can fold it the opposite way and it kind of flattens it out. I just think that's an interesting way of thinking about it. But look, habits make the man, right? The habits that you do, the things you habitually do day in and day out, that's who you are. Who you say you are, who you want to be,

“who cares, right? The habits you you habitually do, the choices you regularly make, that's what”

make you who you are. That's what make you beautiful. As we also talk about from Epictetus, we are a product of our choices. Our routines are habits. As a writer, how does it work? You create a routine. You create a structure. You follow it every day. Work comes out the other side of that. It's not about fits of inspiration. It's not about genius. And I think this is true for for all crafts that one seeks out to master. It's about habit. But I've also found even as a parent.

If you want to do good, if you want to manage this or that, you create habits. You create routines. You create structures. And then you stick to it. That's the key habits. We'll make you happier. They will give you a better life. I'm not saying they're easy. They're very difficult. But habit is everything. It's also the hardest thing. But let's keep working on our habits.