In this episode, Dramos combines lyrics from Kanye West with a quote from Marcus Aurelius to encourage us to stop listening to our haters, and instead focus on ourselves and what makes us happy.
Yes, Yes, I am Dramas And this is the Street Stoic Podcast, bring you your daily dose of timeless stoic philosophy remix for the hip hop generation. Now, with that in mind, let's get things started with your daily shot of inspiration. Now today we are talking all about the idea of diminishing your ego, letting things go. And it's kind of ironic that the person delivering the first sort of quote here on this topic of diminishing your ego is Kanye, who is notorious for having a fairly large ego.
But old Kanye had some bars.
And this is actually a track off of the College Dropout that was never released right he recorded during that album process and it was left off of the album. It's called Gossip Files. The part of the record that I pulled here, Kanye says, I want to be a baller. The dream spoilers will fool you hating on you to them, Man's on the corners, old folks said, he never make it off the corner.
They are the virus that corrupts the soul.
They are the cubic zarconia inside the tank carrot gold. They get green on you when you get green on them. You got to wash your hands of them, get clean on them. Somebody told me success is the best revenge, so they're going to be fucked up when you do your thing on them. And first of all, this is just like a genius line even as I read it, like, I love parts of this where he's like, they are the virus that corrupts the soul. Now we're talking about the people who are hating on you or are doing negative things to you. They might literally be trying to stand in the way of you and your success, you and your greatness. Right, the people that are sadly trying to take you down and are not allowing you to live your best life just because of their own limiting beliefs or because they dislike themselves so much they don't want to see somebody else succeed.
Right.
And this also led me to finding a quote from Nathan Panwar, and I thought this was also kind of a great follow up to it, where he says the best revenge is to show them that your life is getting better after they're gone. And I love this because I think it's easy to see somebody who particularly might actually go out and do something to harm you or to disrupt your progression. Right, they might go out and talk smack on you to certain people and sort of try and destroy your character to others. Right, And this is obviously frustrating, we've all been there before. But I love this idea of rather than trying to get even with them and inevitably inviting chaos into your life, allowing yourself to just focus in on showing them that your life is actually getting better after they're gone. And this leads us to a quote from Marcus Aurrelius born of Stokes, point blank period saying the best revenge is to not be like your enemy. And there's another you know, hip hop quot that goes against all that we're talking about today, like revenge is like the sweetest joy next to getting women, we'll say, for the term of not having to get crazy on here.
Right now, that's a Tupac lyric.
Right, But even you think about somebody like Tupac, right, let's sort of think about about his sort of philosophy there, he's the one saying that quote. Think about the amount of chaos that he invited into his life by having this feud, by being a part of this East Coast West Coast feud, right, And I think that's sort of the point of it all. And when we think back on it, when you look on those two men's legacy, Biggie and Tupac, this feud wasn't worth either one of them losing their lives over right, It wasn't based on anything really that deep. And then as just fans of theirs and music in general, the rest of us all being deprived of the greatness that could have come from seeing those two men grow in their craft and as human beings. Right, And I think that again is all ego. I have to respond to this person. I have to hold my own I can't look weak in front of this person.
Right.
If they're coming at me strong, I have to come at them ten times stronger. That's all ego. And again, you're inviting chaos into your life. And you know, I'm not saying that this is easy by any means, right.
I've had this come up for me recently.
You know. Somebody that I was very close to started coming for me, like personally but also in sort of a bigger way in my career, right and saying some really denigrating things that weren't true about me. And I had to make a choice about how I was going to handle it. I knew that if I played fire with fire, it's just going to continue on this sort of nonsense until it escalates beyond the point of return. Right, and again, that's that chaos that I would be inviting in by responding to this person by acting the way that they have decided to act, right, instead putting my ego aside and saying, I'm not going to respond to this right, it's not worth my energy. I'm going to keep doing what I do. And anybody that knows me, anybody that follows me, that is a fan of mine, that supports what I do, or is partnered with me in some sort of way, they know the type of person I am and they're going to make their judgment based upon that. It's not worth your time or your energy, and it's not going to really change anything for you. You have to put your ego aside and think about what's best for you. Now, with that said, we have heard from Kanye, you have heard from Nathan Panwar, We've heard from Marcus Aurelius. I squeezed in a random tupac lyric in there, giving you some insight into my own personal dealings with this idea of letting go and not letting your ego force you into thinking you have to respond to everything. Now, let's talk about how you can make it your mantra or today. Well, first to take a quick break and then we'll be right back. All right, soday, we're talking all about diminishing your ego, but more specifically just letting things go. We've heard from Kanye, We've heard from one of the Stokes, Marcus really is I give you some insight into my own life. Now let's talk about how you can make it your mantra for today. And I really want to harp on.
This idea of chaos thanks to yourself.
What unnecessary chaos am I allowing into my life? Because life is chaotic as is right, Life is always gonna be throwing some nonsense at you. There's always going to be some stupid thing that you have to deal with that is incredibly annoying that you don't want to deal with, that you shouldn't have to deal with, and you invitement more of that chaos into your life. It just sounds crazy, Like it really sounds crazy when you think about it, Like with no emotions whatsoever, like, my.
Life is already difficult. I have a lot of things I navigate.
Why the hell what I want to add more obstacles?
Right?
Why would I want to add more hoops to jump through just to make it through my day? And that's what you're doing when you allow yourself to move from a place of ego feeling like you have to respond to every single naysayer, every single person talking bad on you, everybody who has decided to do something negative to you. When you feel like you have to respond or one up them or hold them accountable, you are literally inviting more chaos into your life and more obstacles that you then have to duck and dodge.
That's what's happening.
And maybe you're gonna get some small satisfaction in the moment, right, your ego is going to be very happy with the fact that you owned this person, or you put them in their place, or whatever it might be. But I promise you it, generally speaking, never ends there. Those moments of satisfaction, they don't last for very long. Generally speaking, they invite more nonsense into your life. And talking about what Kanye is saying on here, right, I love the idea of retraining your brain right and looking at these people as a virus, a virus that corrupts your soul. If you allow them to write you responding, you, giving your energy towards negativity is inviting that virus into your soul. And instead of actively putting any energy towards them, just go.
Harder at what it is that you do.
Trust me, that will put them in their place far more than any comeback you have or any sort of response you could ever give them. It's like Marcus really says, the best revenge is to not be like your enemy. Reminding yourself that in this moment, you despise that person, right, you have angst towards that person, that person rubs you the wrong way.
Why the hell would you want to be anything like them?
When you allow your ego to take hold and you feel like you have to respond, you have to get them back, you have to retaliate, you've inevitably become just like the very person that you hate. And again the idea of chaos that I want to drive home for me, I've personally been dealing with a situation like this, But what I can say is I'd rather just take that energy and move it towards advancing my life and career.
I know they're watching right because.
They're commentating that they're making negative, disparaging remarks about me to other people. So why not give them more things to watch, more things to get upset about, rather than responding and giving them more ammunition to come after me.
That's how you have to look at this stuff, right.
It's again, what are you inviting in by being a part of this Remember, in these moments, you have a choice of whether or not to invite more chaos and more obstacles into your life. Do not allow your ego to get you down a road where your energy is being drained and you're being taken further and further away from the life that you add actually want to live. Now, with that said, thank you so much for checking out the Street Stoke Podcast. Your best to apply these concepts that we discuss into everyday life, and I will catch you next time. The Street Stoke Podcast is a production of Iheart's Mika podcast Network.