Dramos combines lyrics from Lauryn Hill with a quote from Marcus Aurelius to encourage us to embrace change, no matter how hard it may be.
Yes, Yes, I am Dramas And this is the Street Stoic Podcast, bringing your daily dose of timeless stoic philosophy remix for the hip hop generation. And with that in mind, let's get things started with your daily shot of inspiration. Now. Today we're going to be focusing all around the stoic idea of practicing resilience when faced with obstacles, failure or tragedy. And once again we are going back to Miss Lauren Hill. And I don't know why this record has just been speaking to me so much lately. Obviously I've listened to a bunch growing up like anybody else, but she is just was beyond her time, Miss Lauren Hill. Sadly we did not get more music from her, just the talent that she is, but Man, Miseducation of Lauren Hill's just an incredible work of art. And this song right here, Everything is Everything, an amazing, amazing record. And you know these lines that I pulled from her from that record, she says, everything is everything, what is meant to be will be after winter must come spring, Change it comes eventually. And I love this sort of distinction and this sort of acceptance of change because I think that's sort of one of the biggest problems many of us have as human beings. And it's hard, right, because we develop routines, we develop feelings around a particular situation or person, and even in relationships that are long term, lasting relationships, the dynamic of your relationship is constantly changing. The person that you first met whatever seven years ago is not going to be the same person today, and the challenge comes in being able to grow together, and that is incredibly challenging. But I think we also fail to recognize the beauty in change and the beauty in something ending, because it allows for something new to grow. Right. I love sort of this idea of like after winter must come spring, right, and building off of that when you talk about just crops and things like that, right, a crop must die right in the winter before then it can grow again in the spring. And this leads perfectly to a quote from one of the stokes markets Aurelius, where he says, everything's destiny is to change, to be transformed, to perish so that new things can be born. A lot of times this is easier said than done. When you are heartbroken by somebody, it's really difficult to see how it's a good thing. You lose somebody in your life, it's really difficult to see how this is a good thing. You lose your job, whatever, your friend gets fired, whatever it might be. It's obviously incredibly difficult at times in the moment to embrace this sort of change. But I think we often look at change through a lens of bad of it not being a good thing, of it being scary, And I think to a degree it is scary because it's the unknown, but we often don't talk about how something new could be incredibly beautiful, could be better than the previous version of whatever it is that we're talking about. And I had actually posted something recently on my Instagram, but it was a post where I was taking an insert of my book that I had written, Just Be Just Bet to NYC if you want to pick that up. But I had taken a little excerpt from it where I talked about how I kind of changed my life pretty drastically, where I was cutting certain people out of my life, where I was really taking inventory of the type of relationships that I had around me right, and I was sort of separating myself from the sort of superficial friendships that I had and really holding anybody else in my life or anybody potentially coming into my life to a higher standard of really providing me with a fulfilling friendship or relationship in general. And a part of that was changing my life to a degree, right, changing who had access to me being okay with certain acquaintances who maybe I had a lot of fun with, being okay with sort of those relationships kind of flying by the wayside, right with those sort of dissolving and no longer being a thing being okay with my lifestyle changing a bit right where I wasn't going out all the time, where maybe I wasn't being as social, or I was challenging myself to do things a bit differently, right to not just say, oh, it's a Friday night, so I guess we're going to the bar, to say, hey, why don't I challenge myself to go experience something new, And all of that was a bit of me killing off a previous version of myself, allowing a previous version of myself to sort of die off so that I could have this rebirth and become the version of myself that now fulfills me at thirty five years old. But again, it was being okay with much of my normal, everyday life changing in a pretty drastic way, but understanding that there was going to be more of what I needed and more of what I wanted on the other side of that discomfort. Now we have heard from Lauren Hill, we have heard from Marcus Aurelius, You've heard from myself, all around this idea of practicing resilience when faced with failure, obstacles, and or tragedy. Now let's talk about how you can make it your mantra for today. But first le's take a quick break and then we'll be right back. All right, So today we are focusing all around the Stoic idea of practicing resilience when faced with obstacles, failure, or tragedy. You've heard the words of the great miss Lauren Hill. We have heard quote from one of the Stoics, Marcus Aurelius. I'll give you some insight into how I've applied the idea of embracing change and maybe even unplanned change, how I've embraced that in my life. Now let's talk about how you can make it your mantra for today. And I think the simplest sort of way to really kind of break down. All that we're talking about today is trying to challenge yourself to change your relationship with the idea of change, instead of fearing change, instead of it being sort of the scary monster that lives under our bed, right that we're afraid of that we don't want to face, embracing it with the idea that something new, something better is on the other side of it. And that's not always easy, as we've talked about, right, some circumstances are more difficult than others. But it's just allowing yourself to change the relationship with change, to be ok with change, to recognize it as a necessary part of our human existence, just like breathing is, just like eating is, just like sleeping is, right, all of that is sort of inevitable things that we will have to do as human beings, and change is an inevitable experience that we're all going to have as human beings. We can't fight it, we can't push back against it, we can't avoid it. It's going to happen whether we want to or not. And with that said, recognizing that there's so much beauty in said change as well. Right again, I think it's just our mindset, the way that we view how things happen, and a recap all we've been talking about to kind of really piggyback on this idea, Lauren Hill, you know, really talking about change. It comes eventually, it always happens. Winter must come after spring, and think about looking outside all of the change that happens. And I live here on the East Coast in the New York area, and winters are pretty brutal. The change that happens is pretty damn brutal when you're out there freezing your us off walking your dog in the middle of the night. But there's also so much beauty that happens right in the changing of the seasons. When there's snow on the ground and you don't have to shovel, it's beautiful. Look at when the fall happens, The changing of the leaves is beautiful, getting to wear those different outfits beautiful. Then when it changes back to spring and it starts getting you know, darker later and later, and you're able to enjoy being outside more, there's a happiness that comes over you. Right there's just beauty when you allow yourself to see it in all of that change. And it's also an incredibly necessary part of life, right, And just like Marcus Aurelius says, everything's destiny is to change, to be transformed, to perish so that new things can be born. That is the destiny that all of us face, and the destiny that every single thing in our life faces. And there's beauty in that because that is how we get new things right And even for me, you know, thinking about change that happened in my social life, in my way of life, some of it happening outside of my control, people falling off, you know, friendships, relationships, whatever that might be. But also recognizing that if I wanted to dig deeper into my own fulfillment, I had to make personal changes, right. I had to become a better version of myself. I had to be better at setting boundaries. I had to be more proactive in sort of taking control of the people that I had around me in these situations that I found myself in, right, changing my lifestyle completely to then birth this new version of myself that I'm incredibly happy and fulfilled, getting to live as right and accepting the fact that at some point I'm gonna have to do this all over again. For the next chapter of my life now. With that said, thank you so much for checking out the Street Stoke Podcast. Do your best to apply these concepts that we discussed into everyday life, and I'll catch you next time. The Street Stoke Podcast is a production of Iheart's Michael Dura Cast Networks