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Healthy Boundaries, Happy Life (Episode 97)
724 Plays1 year ago
Caleb and Michael discuss the Stoics strategy for setting boundaries.
Learn about the issues many Stoic practitioners face with boundaries and how Epictetus counsels us to live better.
(02:59) What Are Boundaries?
(06:13) The Challenge for Stoics
(19:58) Defining and Enforcing Boundaries
(30:46) Everything Is A Scam
(38:33) Enforce Boundaries For The Right Reason
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Transcript
Stoic Approach to Caring and Insults
00:00:00
Speaker
The stoic is the kind of person who will both not care or care very much, right? They will, they will not make a big deal out of him or they will make a very strong deal out of it. I think that's, that's really the approach. That's really the, the overall lesson here is like, there's another line with Epictetus where he's like, you know, somebody insults him and he's like, well, I must have not known all my other flaws or he would have said those too. You know? Yeah.
00:00:24
Speaker
And so it's like, in some cases, there's, I don't care. Uh, I'm going to be very light, very easy going on the things I don't care about. Very strong, very secure on the things I do care about. And that requires that kind of self-knowledge. And I think that's a pretty healthy picture,
Introduction to Hosts and Topic
00:00:40
Speaker
right? Welcome to Stoa Conversations. My name is Cale Bontavaros. And I'm Michael Fromeley.
00:00:46
Speaker
And today we're going to be talking about the issue of boundaries, setting healthy boundaries. What does that look like? What kind of advice or strategies did the Stoics give us for managing this feature that comes up really in every human relationship? Yeah. A couple of reasons why I wanted to talk about this one. Um, one, it was a, it's a.
00:01:11
Speaker
listener requests and always appreciate when we get those. So something that people are, if you're ever interested in hearing us chat about something, let us know and we're happy to dig into it.
Importance and Misinterpretation of Boundaries
00:01:23
Speaker
But the other, another reason is that, as you said, boundary setting, I think it's an important part of any sort of healthy relationship, as you said, whether that's with somebody you're closer with or even just in passing, it's just an important way of interacting with other people.
00:01:44
Speaker
really kind of putting a, putting a, I guess a barrier up of clarity of saying like, you can't do that, or I will not do that, a kind of a line in the sand and enforcing that line.
Stoicism's Influence on Boundary Setting
00:01:56
Speaker
The other reason, so one, I think that's a good thing to know how to do well, but I think that stoics struggle with this, or I think that at least there can be a reason to think that stoicism actually gives bad advice in this area, or that when you're,
00:02:05
Speaker
What I mean by boundaries is,
00:02:13
Speaker
practicing stoicism, you can actually get worse at setting good boundaries. So I think boundary setting is important to be healthy. I think stoicism has good things to say about it, but I think stoicism misunderstood or even understood pretty well, but not perfectly, can lead you to actually becoming worse at this important skill.
Defining and Practicing Boundary Setting
00:02:34
Speaker
So I wanted to go over three things first. Why does boundary setting matter? Why do people think Stoicism or Stoics might struggle with this? Or why might Stoics struggle with this? And then three, what is the actual Stoic position? So what actual advice would the Stoics have for this? Anything to add, Caleb, before we jump into it? No, that sounds great. That sounds great. Let's do it.
00:02:58
Speaker
Cool. So this is one of those, I is one of those applied skills. So we'll be, we'll be, I'll be referencing back to the Stoics, but you know, this is part of the nitty gritty of how to live. So what is boundary setting and why does it matter? Um, I'm going to define it as when we decide to confront someone else around how they're treating externals, especially when it relates to ourselves.
00:03:20
Speaker
So it's when we, yeah, we guess we have a confrontation. So we push for a different position than someone else has, but concerning externals.
Examples of Boundary Setting in Daily Life
00:03:31
Speaker
So the Stoics thought of, they thought your virtue, your character is what matters. And then that was the internal state. Everything outside of that is the external from your body to your property.
00:03:46
Speaker
to your reputation, to your job. This is all externals. And so I consider boundary setting when you get to a point where you're saying, you know, someone
00:04:00
Speaker
You take the simplest example with a kid, right? Somebody's playing with a ball and they steal your ball and you say, no, like you're not taking that ball, I'm keeping that ball, right? Someone's playing on their phone in a movie theater and you're like, no, you're gonna turn that phone off. I'm setting a boundary here. Or you're being loud, annoying in this library, I'm gonna ask you to stop doing that.
00:04:24
Speaker
Or to, those are kind of simple
Acceptance vs. Confrontation in Stoicism
00:04:26
Speaker
things, those are transient examples, but things with your friends, close relationships. You know, maybe somebody talks to you in a way that you don't appreciate. Maybe somebody, maybe one of your friends doesn't get back to often or is often late for things, right? And that's an external, because there's one thing to say, the stoic could always take this position of, well,
00:04:46
Speaker
That doesn't have anything to do with my character. That's just a matter of the world outside of me. I should accept my fate, so to speak. But we obviously don't want to be totally passive like that. We want to stake a claim. So boundary setting is this art of where do you stake those claims? Where do you have those confrontations? And how do you do that well?
00:05:11
Speaker
And I think, as I said, a boundary requires you to take a stance. So they require you to stand up for yourself and to push back against the interest of someone else if these go against your own interests. And I think that's what can be hard for people. I know it's really hard for me. So I think some people it's not hard for at all. I have some friends, they have no problem advocating for themselves. I have a lot of trouble advocating for myself or something that I've worked on, which is to say, I'm quick to downplay
00:05:40
Speaker
If the only thing being harmed is myself, I'm quick to downplay that situation. And it's hard for me to stand up or to set that boundary if it's only in my own interest. I know I'm pretty good at that if somebody's insulting a friend of mine or if somebody's kind of stepping, doing something that harms somebody else that I care about, but I'm usually pretty quick to diminish myself in these situations, or at least they have been in the past.
Changing Attitudes vs. Worldly Changes
00:06:06
Speaker
So that's what boundary setting is, as I'll define it for this conversation. Anything that you want to clarify there? Yeah, just to add some more teeth to why I think some Stoics might struggle with this. I think if you get better at practicing Stoicism, you might recognize, well, if something initially appears to
00:06:30
Speaker
be a problem, I can either solve that problem or solve my view about that problem. You know, I can change the world, I can change my attitude. And as people improve, at SoSism, they get better at changing their attitudes. So they might think in certain situations at work, you know, yes, this is an annoying request that I get pretty often, so I'm just going to do it and change my view about the request.
00:06:55
Speaker
And in some cases, of course, that's a perfectly excellent thing to do. In other cases, you might find yourself looking back, you know, I think probably at least personally, most often how it happened is saying, oh, I probably should have gone off the train there or something like that. You know, that request was the sort of thing that I should have pushed back on, right? It wasn't.
00:07:17
Speaker
was an ideal in the longer term for what I wanted to be doing, even though in the moment, yeah, sure, I can change my view about it. So just some more detail on I think why many Stoics, many people who might not even recognize themselves as Stoics, but have this ability to focus more on changing their attitude than changing the world might run into this more often than others.
00:07:41
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's exactly right. So when you hit that kind of, when you're in that kind of intermediate level or you start learning socialism or taking it seriously, there's this incredible empowerment that comes to recognize, oh, to become happy, I don't just have to shift and move around the outside world. I can shift and move around my inside world. And it almost becomes like a cheat code, right?
00:08:01
Speaker
I can always reframe the way I'm looking at this. I can always pick it up by the other handle. I can always, you know, uh, a more fatty my way through any sort of situation.
The Challenge of Boundary Setting in Stoicism
00:08:10
Speaker
And so when you end up in this, when you end up in a confrontation, well, you can move or they can move. And the stoic is, um, not only inclined or good at moving themselves, which is to say, changing their perspective is what I mean by that. But they're also, they also have more arguments for why they should change themselves arguments about how
00:08:30
Speaker
external results matter less than you might think, confrontation, and if those external results matter less, then confrontation has less of a necessity. You're not really being forced to fight for your life, so to speak, or forced to be fighting over your happiness because your happiness doesn't depend on really setting that boundary, I would say.
00:08:51
Speaker
Um, so that's something I might call. So that was the second part I wanted to go into is why does still struggle from this? Well, you said killed, but I think I would call like the problem of passivity in general.
00:09:02
Speaker
this view that people have around indifference in general, which is this view of, well, if all that matters is the internal and getting that right, changing my perspective or having a good character, then I have no real reason to really stake a claim in the external world, or especially not difficult ones, right? Maybe I can go and go for a walk and enjoy nature and things like this, but getting in a fight with my coworker, well, that seems like a lot of work.
00:09:28
Speaker
And I probably should only do that if I have a good reason. And stoicism tells me I don't have a good reason to have a fight with a coworker.
Passivity and Avoiding Confrontation
00:09:34
Speaker
I should change my perspective, forgive them for their faults, view them as another obstacle to overcome, to reveal to me an opportunity to practice my patience so I won't have that fight, right? And that you end up with a very kind of passive approach to problems in your life. So that's, I would say, reason number one.
00:09:55
Speaker
Um, the other reason these are all kind of interrelated, but another reason why the stoic might have problem setting boundaries, uh, is this view that externals can't harm you. So if the stoic thinks that they're dependent upon a good character for happiness, then. Well, then nobody else can harm you. Only your perspectives can harm you, or only the way that you view situations or react to them can harm you. So if you take this view, I would say too literally, or if you take it.
00:10:24
Speaker
out of context, you end up with this position, well, I don't need to stand up to that bully. They can't really harm me. I don't need to, as I said, have that fight with that coworker or that difficult conversation with a family member. These people can't harm me. So another thing is that if you take that view, another reason, so there's the passivity, there's this idea you can't be harmed, which I guess encourages passivity.
Confrontation and Happiness in Stoicism
00:10:50
Speaker
Another thing that encourages passivity is this idea that
00:10:54
Speaker
The way I framed the boundary was you have to actually push back against somebody else's interests. So boundary requires confrontation and conflict. And a conflict requires making somebody else unhappy.
00:11:08
Speaker
And so if you have the stoic view and you think, well, I have all I need to be happy, then you might think you need a very good reason to go and make somebody else unhappy, to have a conflict that ends up with somebody else crying, angry at you, upset. That can be very hard. And I relate to this all from experience. I think if you're kind of a passive, more of a gentler person, it can be difficult to have a confrontation, not just because you have to stand up for yourself, but because you know it's going to make the other person upset.
00:11:37
Speaker
And if you're a stoic, you might think, well, I don't have a good reason for justifying that because I can, again, change my perspective. I can do the work on my side without having to put them out or upset. Interesting that there's sort of an opposite problem that I think some people might have, which is that they realize that
00:11:58
Speaker
not only can they not be harmed by others in the sense that others are an obstacle to their happiness, but they also think, when I do these things, it's the other person who's in charge of how they react to what I do. And it's funny, that's a common criticism of stoicism. And then also, probably some set of people might
00:12:20
Speaker
have sort of the opposite issue where they expect others to handle their own business and how they respond, that's up to them. It's nothing, no concern of mine. So it's just funny that there's an opposite problem, if you will. And it may be somewhat insightful if I think you're the kind of person who thinks, oh, my happiness is up to me, how I respond, I'll handle it, I don't want to make the other person unhappy. There is that reminder there that
00:12:48
Speaker
You can wrong the other person, you ought to treat the other person well, but there is also a sense in which you cannot render them unhappy if you take the Stoic picture seriously.
Using Stoicism to Justify Dispositions
00:13:02
Speaker
Yeah, I think there's two points. That's a great point, Caleb. One is it makes me think when you're at this, I keep calling it intermediate level, but there must be a better term for this. When you're at the kind of way where you're viewing Stoicism as a set of tools, then
00:13:17
Speaker
you really apply those tools to your disposition. So if I'm a kind of person who tends to be less confrontational, I go, wow, Stoicism has given me a way to be less confrontational more effectively. It's given me a framework to think about my lack of confrontation as, well, it's all up to me. It's in my control to change my perspective. And then if you are a confrontational, Stoicism, I guess, gives you a set of tools to
00:13:42
Speaker
As you said, say, well, it's your problem. You know, like that's your, that's just how you're thinking about it, you know, change your perspective. Uh, and then I won't seem so bad. And so it's like, it's like almost like, you know, I think people have different dispositions. I guess for clarity sake, where do you think you fall on that spectrum? Are you the kind of person who tends to, um, make space for other people or are you the kind of person who tends to like, uh, advocate for yourself?
00:14:09
Speaker
Um, I would say that it's pretty, it's, I would say that a bit of a mix. I think I'm generally somewhat disagreeable by temperament, which I don't know if you would agree with that or not. Um, but also fairly relaxed. And I think in certain relationships or context, then I might lean less on the confrontational side. Um, but I don't disagreeable, but can't be bothered is what you're saying.
00:14:38
Speaker
Maybe so, maybe so. I'm not sure if I have a general disposition on this sort of extreme thing that while reading over this, I was sort of thinking about that. You know, do I, because I do find it useful to think about, do I have, you know, what side of the problem do I have when it comes to bravery? Am I reckless or cowardly to tepid? And in this, it's not actually that clear to me if I have a general disposition.
00:15:06
Speaker
So Caleb, you just read this over and you're like, I'm perfectly in the middle. I don't have anything. I just observe the other people as they struggle on either side of this. I float through unscathed. Must be nice. No, I'm trying to say I'm all over the place. That's what I'm trying to say. You fluctuate wildly.
00:15:27
Speaker
Um, yeah, that was a good point. I mean, with my bias, I was entirely just taking this question from the like, passivity point, but there is that point that you can, there is just this, also this aggressive point and we want to kind of have, we're overbearing, I guess, not aggressive. And, uh, we like anything else. We want that healthy
Perception of Enforcing Boundaries
00:15:43
Speaker
middle. We want that Aristotelian meme here. Um, not too passive, not too overbearing.
00:15:51
Speaker
I think another reason that someone studying or learning about stoicism might be poorly passive, might be over passive, is that they might start to look at other people that set up boundaries or are really good at enforcing their boundaries and might start to see the vice in that or the mistake in that.
00:16:14
Speaker
So they see these people who are, you know, the person who's strongly motivated by honor or reputation and they feel they need to get revenge, you know, if somebody, if a friend scorns them or a relationship, somebody in a relationship treats them wrong, then you can start to see this kind of action as well. That person is not actually really standing up for themselves. They're actually just having a kind of passion, right? They're pursuing anger. They're pursuing vengeance. And that's not really setting the boundary. That's just, uh,
00:16:42
Speaker
That's just suffering from a passion. And it frames a lot of that in a different light, which I guess would say, there's two issues here of being too confrontational, too passive. And then there's the kinds of confrontations, which are just bad confrontations to have, ones that you shouldn't be having. And I think when you start studying socialism, you start to see that a lot more. And you start to say, I don't really want to be like that.
00:17:09
Speaker
Um, so as we've said, the, the, the right stoic exists in the middle, not the punching bag, but not quick to anger, not quick to justify revenge and passions as
Complexity in Boundary Communication
00:17:21
Speaker
well. I'm just standing up for myself or I'm just setting a boundary here. Well, it's, it's sort of interesting how it seems like this gets complicated very quickly. Cause you're thinking about first, now how do I set my boundaries?
00:17:36
Speaker
four different relationships, different kinds of relationships. And then once they're set, how do I communicate them? What do I do to communicate or enforce a boundary well? And I think that is especially something that connects with your last point where we see people set what might be reasonable boundaries, but then not enforce them well, whether that's by how they communicate their boundary or how they might lash out.
00:18:05
Speaker
once it's been violated. So it is interesting that you have these different aspects around, you know, setting, communicating, enforcing them well, and then thinking about, okay, like, how do you how do you do each of these parts? Well, and it's probably going to be pretty contingent on different relationships.
Proportionate Enforcement of Boundaries
00:18:23
Speaker
Yeah, that's a really great point. Like, if you're like, like, I don't know how to do this without picking a silly example. So bear with me.
00:18:30
Speaker
But, you know, if you're like, Hey, don't call me, don't call me a silly name that hurts my feelings, please don't do it. And then somebody does it. And then you then beat them up, you know, beat them into a bloody pulp. So, wow, that was a good boundary. That was probably a healthy boundary to ask for, but your enforcing is all wrong there, right? Something like this, like probably a good thing to ask for good line in the sand to draw, but you've really gone overboard when that line has been crossed.
00:18:58
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like John Wick style. You don't need to do that for every time a boundary's been crossed.
00:19:06
Speaker
family, I'm going to find your children. Find your associates. Yeah, exactly. John Wick wouldn't go for the children.
Stoic Solution to Boundary Issues
00:19:13
Speaker
He's a lawful good man, but somebody else might. Yeah. So there's this idea of, and I guess you, I guess that, um, just the philosophical and meander here for a bit, there is almost that kind of lawful evil in movies you see, not John Wick, but there's something of like, you know,
00:19:32
Speaker
uh you cross the line right like you're i don't know you're in the mafia and it's like we met we had a deal and you broke the deal and now i'm gonna come for you and i'm gonna you know harm you in some way that's incredibly disproportionate to the harm that i felt and in some way that feels like there's some sort of honor to that some sort of justice to that because the person maybe deserves to be punished but the disproportionality is like very uh very severe right right
00:19:59
Speaker
Great, well let's try to untangle this mess a little bit. So I try to take a run at what I think the stoic answer to this would be.
00:20:08
Speaker
And I would say that the stoic response I suspect would be to say, first of all, recognize that this is a matter of indifference. So having a boundary actually be enforced is, strictly speaking, indifferent. We've used enforce to kind of mean actions, but having it be respected, I would say, is indifferent. So if I say, look, don't insult me. I'm not friends with people who insult me.
Self-Defined Boundaries Over Societal Norms
00:20:32
Speaker
and somebody insults you, that actually being insulted is still indifferent. You haven't been harmed in a robust way. You can still flourish even if that person insults you. As indifference, how we navigate them is not indifferent. It matters the use we make of them. It matters how we act in response to them. So our character is dependent upon the choices we make around these things.
00:20:54
Speaker
So the harm argument stands true, but this idea that just because I'm not harmed doesn't mean I should have to put up with somebody else's verbal abuse, that does not stand true. So in terms of, and I'm realizing now a lot of these are coming from that kind of passive angle, so feel free, maybe we can chat a bit at the end about that more, kind of what do you do if you're
00:21:17
Speaker
overbearing or you're kind of too strong and you're enforcing to reel that back in. But the stoic, I think the first way a stoic could think about good boundaries is to decide your role. So to decide what you're willing to fight over and stick to it. So it would be to have a boundary, to have that line in the sand.
00:21:37
Speaker
and then not change that line. So we talked about this idea of like, well, my coworker is confronting me and I'll change my perspective. The issue with that kind of play is that if you've drawn a line in the sand, you've asked for something, and then you then re-neg it once it's been established, well, then you're not actually taking the stoke position at all. You're just avoiding confrontation, right? You have to then follow through with the consequences
00:22:04
Speaker
of somebody violating that boundary, which is going to look probably like confrontation, which could be an awkward conversation with a coworker, or it could be getting tortured in Epictetus' time. It could look like a range of things. But first, you're thoughtful about the line you're drawing. You're thoughtful about the consequences of what that line will be. And then once you draw it, you stick to it.
00:22:30
Speaker
So I have a line from Epictetus here, passage from Epictetus. Helvidius Priscus saw this too, and having seen it, acted upon it. And that's him saying he saw this idea about fulfilling your roles and the importance of it. When Vespasian sent word to him to tell him not to attend a meeting of the Senate, he replied, it lies in your power not to allow me to be a senator, but as long as I remain one, I have to attend its meetings.
00:23:00
Speaker
Well, if you do attend, hold your tongue. If you don't ask of my opinion, I'll hold my tongue. But I'm bound to ask you. And I for my part must reply as I think fit. But if you do, I'll have you executed.
00:23:14
Speaker
Well, when have I ever claimed to you that I'm a mortal? You fulfill your role and I'll fulfill mine. It is yours to have me killed and mine to die without a tremor. It is yours to send me into exile and mine to depart without a qualm. And, Helvidius is, that's an example of a stoic holding, holding a boundary, right? Helvidius has, has decided, well, look, I'm going to take this role of a senator.
00:23:38
Speaker
I'm going to understand that this role requires me to say no when somebody asks me to remain silent or to lie. And I'm aware of the fact that that's going to lead to confrontation. And I'm going to accept that confrontation. And so what I'm not going to do, I'm not going to be malleable about changing my perspective about that line I drew.
00:24:02
Speaker
about the role of a senator. That's not malleability in any sort of moral way. That's just kind of, I don't know, ignorance. That's kind of removing, absconding yourself of responsibility. I'm going to be malleable about the way that I think about the consequences of holding that boundary, which is I'm not going to say, oh, I'm so terrified of being punished for telling the truth as a senator. I'm going to confront that with bravery. So there's still that freedom of perspective.
00:24:25
Speaker
But I'm using the freedom of perspective to reframe the way I think about the confrontation. I'm not using the freedom of perspective to renege or to change my perspective on the actual boundary I enforce that corresponds to my role as a senator. So I think that's a simple example, but a pretty profound one. What do you think?
00:24:46
Speaker
I think that general principle is key and a good one to have front and center. This idea of deciding what your role is and what that looks like. It almost really comes before this issue of determining what your boundaries are.
00:25:02
Speaker
Juan Salvadius Priscus has taken on the role of becoming a senator. The next question is, what does being an excellent senator look like? And then he just decides to act in accordance with that. In a way, it really is just that simple. And I think that
00:25:27
Speaker
It probably is one of the key, I suppose, stoic strategies for this kind of issue is figuring out what is that role? What does it look like to be excellent in that role almost before you get to these issues of setting boundaries or also thinking about when there is that conflicts? To what extent have you been playing your role well? What would that look like? How would that change the landscape too?
00:25:53
Speaker
And so, yeah, I think that's dead on. And then if we go back, there's different kinds of roles. We talked about role ethics before, but like, and if we go back to somebody insulting you, I mean, I think you have to think a lot about what it means to be a person, you know? So maybe if it's a relationship, if it's a friendship, you think, well,
00:26:11
Speaker
Part of what it means to be a friend is to not insult each other. So if this person is insulting me, I'm going to not be their friend. You might think this has been a violation of a rule. And it's my job to honestly tell them that and warn them that. And if they continue to do that, to not be friends with them, it's about defining that. And that also, I'm realizing now, it gives you this way to navigate different circumstances. Because maybe you don't think it's the role of a human being to never be insulted.
00:26:41
Speaker
So you're walking down the street and some random person yells at you. You don't think, well, it's my role to stand up for myself and my honor. But so you don't have a, you don't have a means to, or you don't have a stoic grounds to get offended in that point, but you do have a stoic grounds if it's a friendship, if it's a relationship, if it's a coworker, because you're like, well, now we're violating, um, we're violating the norms of this relationship, this particular context. And that's what I'm going to be sticking up for.
00:27:11
Speaker
I think that's something that I struggled with a lot when I was getting to socialism. Well, it's like, well, well, if words don't matter, then they never matter. But it's this idea of, well, they might not matter to your, you know, your equanimity as a human being, but they do matter to your friendship. They do matter to your relationship. And it's okay to kind of to have, again, have a confrontation or have a boundary along those lines. Right.
00:27:41
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I was just leafing through meditations chapter one before this, just to see meditation chapter one is when Marcus Aurelius notes all the people he's learned from and it's almost like gratitude exercise of people who have influenced him. And I was curious, did he praise anyone for how they set
00:28:00
Speaker
good boundaries. So I might add a few others here. But one example is there is one person named Catalyst, or maybe it's Severus. Well, it's either Severus or Catalyst, but he praises for communicating his preferences clearly, and such that his friends were never in confusion about what he
00:28:26
Speaker
did like or not, which is interesting because I think if you remember from role ethics, you have your roles as a human, your role as a particular person with certain capabilities, and then your social roles, you're born into a family, you have friendships, and it's the very last one that has to do with
00:28:44
Speaker
preferences and even their Marcus Aurelius noting that it's important to communicate those well, even if they might seem trivial in some sense. But there's something admirable in not being hidden or expecting others to try to figure that out, what you want in such situations.
00:29:06
Speaker
Yeah, this idea that being clear about who you are and what your values are and what you stand for can be a real virtue in friendship. The meekness is not necessarily the ultimate virtue of a stoic. Being pleasant to be around, being the kind of person who acquiesces to challenges is not necessarily the kind of thing you want out of a friend. It's not necessarily a virtue. It's very context-specific.
00:29:35
Speaker
Yeah, I have it here as his brother Severus. Yeah, exactly. Great. And I think about that in terms of the role of friendship a lot, which is that friendship is something between two equals. And you have to bring yourself into that as an equal. And so really advocate for yourself and where you stand and things like this.
00:30:03
Speaker
So that's the first one. So that's the first thing I still could say is like, look, so say, look, decide your role. Your role is going to come with a set of boundaries.
00:30:12
Speaker
particular to the situation or the dynamic, and then figure out what those are and stick to those. Face the consequences that come with those of sticking to those. Don't move those, but rather reconsexualize the way you look at the consequences as not being things you can control, but it's just that's outside of your control. Whoever said I was immortal, as Priscus says here.
00:30:36
Speaker
If I end up with somebody who's going to tell me to lie, then I'm going to end up dying because I'm not going to lie. That's number one. The other idea also from Epictetus, I phrase this as, once you've decided what those boundaries are, be strong about them, stick to them. But I think another point that Epictetus makes is to be skeptical.
00:30:59
Speaker
about what society or culture tells you matters. And I have the quote here, I use this one all the time, this is one of my favorites, but it's Epictetus' passage about holding the chamber pot.
00:31:15
Speaker
And I can paraphrase it, but essentially someone asks him, you know, the chamber pot is where people go to the bathroom and the slave has been asked to hold it and says, look, I don't want to face the consequences of not holding it, but I don't want to hold it because it's shameful. And everything at this point is like, basically like, yeah, I can't tell you what to do here, or at least the way I read the passage. You've got to make that up for yourself. You've got to decide, you know, how much do you value, uh, that kind of.
00:31:39
Speaker
social honor or that kind of that shame of doing the job versus how much do you value not getting beaten. And that's like, that's, that's your own discretion to make. And that's your own decision to make. Um, it's again, a very serious, a very intense example because this is the Roman times. Um, but I, I think this is the point here as I take it is that, um,
00:32:02
Speaker
We all have different preferences and different opinions about these things, so some will gladly do the dirty work, but others will gladly accept the consequences of not doing it for the privilege of not having to do it. This is a personal decision. It's done by knowing yourself and then standing by it. But I think the other point here is that Epictetus is calling it a question, which I think is the slave's initial reaction, which is like, how could anyone ever ask me to do this? It's obviously impossible for a human being to do this because it's so shameful.
00:32:31
Speaker
And I have to use this point, I think, is that you don't need to honor this boundary set by society. You can think for yourself about what your boundaries are and for yourself what your values are in this situation. You don't need to defend your honor in this kind of case or if someone insults you. That's not a boundary you have to set. That's a choice you make.
00:32:54
Speaker
And so deciding for yourself, you know, what are the boundaries that you need? That's a, that's a personal question. And one, I guess that society often does a very poor job of providing us. And I, I guess to take a step back into phrase that's framed this differently, the stomach says, look, once you pick your boundaries, you know, stand by them literally to the death in some cases.
00:33:16
Speaker
Um, but then the second part of the stoic is that these boundaries should be self-generated. They shouldn't be casually committed to because society tells you. So the stoic is going to shake their head at, you know, there's this very masculine picture of somebody, you know, somebody bumps into them and like, whoa, what's, what's your problem, bro? Like what's going on and you want to fight
Pragmatic vs. Ego-Driven Boundary Enforcement
00:33:37
Speaker
about it. And in one sense, that's kind of, that's a boundary setting. It's like you bumped into me and you need to apologize, but the stoic is going to kind of scoff at this situation because
00:33:45
Speaker
That's a, I would say kind of a societally generated, uh, it's a, it's a fight around something that, that doesn't really matter honor in a way that doesn't really correspond to what honor really means and all of these kinds of things. Um, so stick to your boundaries, but be very careful about the ones you pick and pick them consciously because, you know, even something, even something as shameful or seemingly shameful or embarrassing as these really kind of dirty work.
00:34:11
Speaker
is going to say, I don't know. You decide if that's right for you or not. Don't be embarrassed by it just because it's something that you've been taught is embarrassing. That's my reading of it. What do you think? Yeah, no, I think that's a great point. There's a point of the fact that we might have
00:34:32
Speaker
Because we have different roles, we're going to need to think through what our boundaries are and those are going to be different from person to person, circumstance to circumstance. And then there's also the other point that many of what we take these roles to be the common view about them is to some extent corrupted or at least were misled by others' default opinions about them. I think both of those are well taken.
00:35:01
Speaker
I think to put another example, I think, to move into the contemporary era that a lot of people probably think about in terms of where I think you can see some amount of flexibility is with how much time do people invest in work? Are you the kind of person who will...
00:35:19
Speaker
Be messaging people well into the night. You're always online. You'll sacrifice any personal relationships for your career because maybe you've chosen that this is something that's exceptionally important to my life to do something great to contribute through my career, whatever it happens to be. And of course, there are particular questions about when that judgment is correct. I think there are some times where there's someone who people are completely dedicated to their career that are obsessed with it in a sense that's admirable.
00:35:50
Speaker
And then others might notice that push to be more online than they want, to invest more time than they want to, and see that cuts up against my personal relationships, my family. And I don't want to do that. And it's reasonable for them to draw the line in the sand there.
00:36:09
Speaker
And I think that the person you don't want to be is the person who sort of slides into one of those scenarios, not out of their own intentional thinking, but just because that's sort of the social default or something of that sort. Yeah, I think that's a great example. I was also thinking along the similar lines about the example of like a relationship, let's say, like, you know,
00:36:30
Speaker
Well, your partner shouldn't talk to an ex or they shouldn't have guy friends or friends that are girls or something like this. And it's like you can think of this idea of like, well, if that's something you're really committed to.
00:36:45
Speaker
understand that, know that about yourself, enforce that openly from the get-go. Not enforce it, but lay that line from the get-go. But don't just believe that. Don't just make that a thing because somebody else has told you that. Have your own opinion about it. As you said, don't slide into these strong opinions or these strong perspectives either way about what that role might look like just non-reflectively.
00:37:16
Speaker
Right, right. Yeah. And I think as the Epiketus example shows you, especially when you avoid the case where you care about something like that, you care about, you know, who, how many friends with opposite sex your partner has, but you don't do anything about it. And then you just sort of stew or something like that. So you certainly don't want to find yourself in that situation as well. And I think probably relationship norms is a very good example of a case where
00:37:46
Speaker
There are so many messages, many of them conflicting, and one does need to think through and work with others in determining what that's actually going to be. I suppose that's a sort of bit of a vague sentiment, but there are just so many misleading messages.
00:38:08
Speaker
And perhaps, I think maybe if there's any upshot from that instead, I want you to have some amount of flexibility with what excellence looks like in personal relationships or romantic relationships. Yeah. Like reflect, be reflective about what that means, what excellence in a relationship means to you. Then try to be like Severus. That's what I'll do now. Everyone will know. Everyone will know what I think about it.
00:38:33
Speaker
A third point, last point I wanted to hear was this idea of, I think because we're dealing with indifference, we want to enforce boundaries for pragmatic reasons, but not for ego reasons. This is a really good, those were kind of high level principles. I think those are both true, but in terms of like what I do for myself when I'm doing this is I often just say, look, is this a,
00:39:00
Speaker
Is there a pragmatic benefit to having this line in the sand. Like is this does this reflect what I do I want to live with the consequences of having this line in the sand, or am I just doing this, because I you know I don't want to get my ego hurt or it's about some way that I can conceptualize myself, or some sort of.
00:39:19
Speaker
really kind of shallow reason for it. And I think of this example my dad who runs a martial arts school, he was a bouncer for a long period of time, he used to give this like seat at the bar example all the time when I would talk about like when I was younger as a kid and talking about like having conflicts or fighting with other kids. And the seat at the bar I go to the example is it's this story basically where
00:39:44
Speaker
If you're traveling and you go to some bar and you're in some city you've never been in before, and you're in some bar you've never been in before, and you sit down at the bar and some big, mean, tough-looking guy taps you on the shoulder and goes like, hey, that's my seat. Get out of my seat. Punk kind of thing. How do you respond to that? Well, the masculine ideal at the time or in action movies might be, you know, yeah.
00:40:07
Speaker
You knock him out for questioning your honor, but the argument for this is like when you say, oh, sorry, I didn't realize. And you get up and you leave and you give them your seat, right?
00:40:18
Speaker
But if you're at your bar in your town that you're a regular at sitting at your seat and somebody comes up and taps you on the shoulder and says, Hey, that's my seat, like get out of it. Well, then you, then you fight. Um, and you know, you might lose that fight, but you fight. Uh, and the point there is it's, it's, uh, the point there is, is I it's, it's this pragmatic thing of.
Contextual Boundary Setting
00:40:44
Speaker
You know, the, the idea, the boundary can't be, well, I'm the kind of person that doesn't let that happen to me. I'm the kind of person that nobody says those kinds of things to me. Nobody treats me that way because then that becomes, uh, I think it becomes an ego argument. It becomes a kind of, because every context is going to be different. Right. But if it becomes instead, well, look.
00:41:07
Speaker
In this particular context, I have really good reasons for holding this boundary, and I'm going to do it, even if I'm a senator and they're going to kill me, even if they're going to throw me in jail. This is my bar. This is my life. This is the thing that I've decided to care about, and I'm going to face the consequences of it. But if it's not my bar, I'm just going to leave the seat.
00:41:32
Speaker
And so you can do that in anything else, but that's the same thing. It kind of alludes to that example I was getting earlier. You're walking down the street and somebody insults you. Say, well, sure, whatever. It doesn't matter to me, right? Somebody flips you off in traffic. Doesn't matter.
Epictetus' Perspective on Boundaries
00:41:47
Speaker
But a friend does something. Well, now we need to have a conflict. Now we need to have a discussion about that, because this is my bar, so to speak. I always thought that was a good story. And it's something that I think about in this kind of setting.
00:42:02
Speaker
I think there's also a good heuristic there, which is...
00:42:07
Speaker
Just checking in, is that initial conflict driven by my principles about what I think is needed, the stuff that really matters to me, that's meaningful to me in the story of my life? Or is it just this immediate ego reaction? Someone's asking me to move in a foreign bar and I need to stick up for something. Or is it a different picture of, no, this is how I am in my community. This is in fact where I usually sit. That's my quick reaction to that story.
00:42:38
Speaker
It also reminds me of the fact that in Epictetus you see some of his examples. You see someone stealing a lamp from him and he's pretty nonchalant. He doesn't care. He doesn't care about that lost lamp at all. But then he'll give another example. He gives an example of someone threatening to cut off his beard and he says, no way. I'm not going to let you cut off my beard.
00:43:05
Speaker
You might think, well, at Epictetus, you wouldn't let someone cut off your beard even if he was threatening to do so by force. And for Epictetus, the backstory is that that beard is sort of his badge as a philosopher and someone asking him to do that.
00:43:22
Speaker
would sort of be like I don't know if you were just walked up to a fireman and asked him to change his suit or something like this and so it's not this doesn't have the same symbolism that it does for us today but there's that difference where Epictetus the lamp that's so foreign to him that's just a material object whereas
00:43:46
Speaker
him playing this role as a philosopher, that's something worth defending and it's worth also defending how he expresses that to other people. Yeah, I think if I had to summarize the, you know, that seat at the bar story with what you just said, the stoic is the kind of person who will both not care or care very much, right? They will, they will not make a big deal out of it.
00:44:11
Speaker
Or they will make a very strong deal out of it. I think that's, that's really the approach. That's really the, the overall lesson here is like, there's another line with Epictetus where he's like, you know, somebody insults him and he's like, well, I must've not known my. Must've not known all my other flaws or he would have said those too, you know? And so it's like, in some cases there's, I don't care. I'm going to be very, I guess very flowy, very light, very easy going on the things I don't care about.
00:44:37
Speaker
very strong, very secure on the things I do care about. And that requires that kind of self-knowledge.
Stoic Principles in Boundary Setting
00:44:44
Speaker
And I think that's a pretty healthy picture, right? It's a much healthier picture than the picture of passivity we gave before, or the picture of kind of running people over, because it's their job to deal with their feelings. I'm not causing their feelings. They're responsible for their feelings.
00:45:02
Speaker
And so I like that picture. So I guess if we had to summarize those principles it's like, know yourself, know your roles and what matters to you. Pick a small set of boundaries that are associated with those and enforce those and accept enforcing those comes with consequences.
00:45:21
Speaker
Uh, but don't try to live a life.
Identifying Unhealthy Boundaries
00:45:24
Speaker
If you try to live a life where you don't enforce your boundaries because you're afraid of the consequences, it's not going to be one that's true to yourself. It's not going to be one, I think that embodies any sort of sense of courage or respect for humans of which you are one, right? Who has opinions and interests and, uh, you know,
00:45:42
Speaker
like that. But likewise, if those boundaries, if those things that are important to you are grounded in poor reasons, or things that aren't stoic reasons like ego, the need to kind of control or manipulate others, then we scratch all those. Those don't count, and those count as being kind of, that's not enforcing a boundary that is, or it is in a sense, but it's a poor boundary and one that you should look to reevaluate.
00:46:12
Speaker
So I wanted to end with some ideas of like, what unhealthy boundaries look like or so position is not to have unhealthy boundaries. So I have, I have here ego driven confrontations, those are ones ones that are rely on preserving your reputation.
00:46:29
Speaker
in a kind of, in a way where you feel like your reputation really matters. And that's, you know, you've placed too much importance on it. Confrontations in general that assume you're vulnerable.
00:46:43
Speaker
So this idea like people are often will lash out if they think they're really at risk. So that kind of lashing out because you think, well, I'm really vulnerable here. That's not very stoic because stoic wants to have that strength in these situations, even if they hold those boundaries. Boundary society tells you matter, but don't matter to you personally. That's what we've talked about.
00:47:07
Speaker
with the relationship in the work examples. And then finally, I think we hit on that at the end is things that seem like boundary setting but are actually manipulative, dominating, or cruel. We can go back to the relationship example. It's like, well, my boundary is that you
00:47:23
Speaker
You have none, you get to do none of these things, you have no friends, you don't go outside and it's like, wow, that doesn't really seem like a, there's almost a limit when we're using the word of boundary, it's almost a limit as compared to like a want or a need.
00:47:39
Speaker
Uh, and boundaries are almost defensive. And if these things start becoming proactive, you're kind of co-opting this language for things that are proactively dominating, manipulative, and that that's not obviously not the same thing that we're talking about here. Right, right. Yeah, those are, those are good heuristics for less than ideal, less than ideal, uh, boundaries, uh, for sure.
Handling and Forgiving Boundary Violations
00:48:08
Speaker
Any final thoughts or summary ideas from you? We've given some heuristics, some rules of thumb for knowing
00:48:24
Speaker
which boundaries are less than ideal, how you should set boundaries in line with who you are, what your role is, and so on. But then there's also the question of, okay, what do you do when a boundary is violated?
00:48:40
Speaker
We know that the stoic view is, if it's something you thought through clearly, something that matters to you and you're confident that it has in fact been violated, then the stoic view is you ought to assert yourself, of course. And then the next question is, well, how do you do that? And maybe there's two sort of stoic examples we can point to. One is Marcus Aurelius. He faces a coup from a general of his.
00:49:07
Speaker
videos Cassius and he does two things one is he prepares for war with this General this other generals commanding another army things could get violence very quickly the other things he does is he sends a
00:49:24
Speaker
note that to Avidius Cassius that if he stands down he no charges will be pursued against him and he does the exact same thing he sends the exact same note to the Senate so he has a dual approach of
00:49:40
Speaker
preparing for war, but also to the extent that he can, being forgiving and making room for peace. So perhaps that's something you can think of when you're in that conflict. So moving to, okay, a boundary's been violated, what do I do next? And I think the other sort of stoic approach to this I wanted to mention is that Seneca has a line that you ought to trust your friends
00:50:06
Speaker
fully and then when that trust is violated, he almost has like a strike policy where if it's violated once, to some extent you should expect that. But if you notice that those repetitions then depending on what kind of relationship it is, you might want to take that whatever option of exit is available to you. So those are two quick thoughts on that next step issue.
00:50:35
Speaker
Yeah, I think those are, in many ways, those are different pieces of advice because you'd feel like a coup is a pretty high, you know, that maybe gets you to strike three pretty quickly. But I guess this idea is like you enforce the boundary with strength, but you're quick to forgive or not hold grudges, not be resentful.
00:50:55
Speaker
expect that even if you hold that boundary someone might still cross it and now it doesn't become well vengeance I need vengeance on you because I told you not to do that you did it anyway it becomes well I did my job making that line clear and I you know responded I responded to that but now I don't need to go out and
00:51:14
Speaker
I don't know maybe kill you and Marcus really is an example but you know get payback in a modern example so there's that there's that idea of being quick to forgive doing what's doing what's in your control but not trying to control the other person right and then I guess Seneca is always just really good with that common sense something to be said for just
00:51:36
Speaker
Look, even if you are the kind of person who's like really strong with your boundaries, it's like people kind of screw up sometimes and people kind of step on cross lines sometimes. And, um, as long as this isn't a pattern and as long as there's like a conversation afterwards, it doesn't have to be a one strike and you're out kind of thing, but there should be a recognition if this is becoming a pattern in a way that's unhealthy. Right. Right.
00:52:01
Speaker
I think that's, I think that's a really, uh, some much, much gentler line to end on that, uh, you know, a fight to the death if they know about your, about your, your line in the sand. Yeah, that's right.
Conclusion and Reflection on Stoic Boundaries
00:52:15
Speaker
It's, uh, always been going back to these examples. It's going to be high stakes. Great. Awesome. Well, thanks. Thanks for putting this together. Yeah. Thanks.
00:52:24
Speaker
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00:52:54
Speaker
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00:53:21
Speaker
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