From Rational Ignorance to Practical Wisdom: Reflections on 100 Episodes

In this special one hundredth episode of Live Well and Flourish, I use seven maxims to talk about what I've learned from producing one hundred episodes of this podcast. These maxims aren't just little sayings. They're concise bits of wisdom that have helped guide me to living a flourishing life. I end the episode with a challenge to you, dear listener, one that can help guide you towards a more flourishing life. Welcome to Live Well and Flourish, where I help you understand what it means to live a flourishing life. I'm your host, craig Van Slyke. If you're ready to think beyond material and external success, if you're ready to take control of who you are and the kind of life you live, if you're ready to flourish, this is the podcast for you. Welcome to episode one hundred of Live Well and Flourish. Well kind of episode one hundred.

Live Well and Flourish started life as the Rational Ignorance Podcast. The first nineteen episodes were released under that name. Live Well and Flourish became the name, in January, of twenty twenty-two. Originally, former co-host Andrea Christel and I started the podcast because we enjoyed our wide-ranging conversations and thought others might as well. Initially, our focus was on talking about interesting things that we thought were important, sometimes with each other and sometimes with a guest. There really wasn't a clear focus, but we talked about some interesting things, including social media, noise, fake news and alternative social media. In the summer of twenty twenty-one, we decided to do a season on human flourishing, and that's been the focus ever since. In late twenty twenty-one, andrea decided to step away from the podcast due to other commitments, although she still joins me from time to time. In fact, we're currently planning a short series of co-hosted episodes, so I shifted to a solo podcast and changed the name to better reflect the focus on flourishing.

Over time, the podcast morphed to emphasize the use of practical wisdom to live a flourishing life. Since then, I've written close to a hundred and fifty thousand words on topics ranging from macrasia and weakness of will to wabi-sabi, and that's one of my favorites. You can find it at livewellandflourishcom, slash fifty-eight. All right, enough with the history lesson. What I really want to talk to you about today is what I've learned along the way. I think you'll be able to benefit from the insights I've gained over the last few years. Regular listeners know that I love a good maxim, so I'm going to organize my reflections around a set of maxims that have guided my personal journey to flourishing and this podcast the first is probably my favorite. See your possibilities, not your limitations. This maxim is at the core of my life in many ways. We always face limitations sometimes lots of them but there are always limitless possibilities as well. I talked about this maxim in episode forty-five and you know the drill. You can check it out at livewellandflourishcom slash forty-five.

When Andrea decided to lead the show, I had to focus on what I could do as a solo podcaster. Yeah, I could no longer have the interesting conversations she and I had and I lacked the talent to carry out an engaging hour-long monologue. Just ask my students if you don't believe me. Also, the podcast lost Andrea's considerable knowledge about practical philosophy. But I have some understanding of the practical aspects of philosophy and of psychology and I do seem to have some talent for getting to the core of complex topics. So, as the cool kids say, it was time to pivot. Do they still say that I shifted to shorter, more focused episodes on topics that apply to blend of philosophy and psychology to generate practical wisdom that can be applied to everyday challenges? That was a really long sentence, got me out of breath. Some paths were closed off but other paths presented themselves, which brings me to my next maxim On all sides lay many short and simple paths to purpose.

This maxim is derived from one of my favorite quotes. It's from Seneca, but I think he was quoting Epicurus. It is wrong to live under constraint, but no one is constrained to live under constraint. On all sides lie many short and simple paths to freedom. My twist on these wise words is to replace freedom with purpose.

As I discussed way back in Episode 23 and many times since then, one of the most important aspects of flourishing is to understand your purpose. Once you grasp your purpose, you can always and I mean always find ways to pursue that purpose. When one path is blocked, you find another. This mindset allows you to flourish regardless of circumstances. If you have the ability to listen to this podcast, you have the ability to live according to your purpose. You just need to find an open path. This is a wonderfully liberating way of thinking. It puts you not others and not external events in control of your purpose.

Speaking of control, here's another maxim that's critical to flourishing Control what you can and let the rest go what may be. The most famous quote in Stoicism is Epictetus's Some Things Are In Our Control and Others Are Not. Most things in life are not under your control, at least not completely under your control. That's certainly true of podcasting. I can't control whether you listen or not. I can't control what competing podcasts do. I can't control what episodes the algorithm serve up on your podcast app. I can't control who sees my social media posts. I can't control whether listeners like what I put out, but I can control the quality of the content I produce and the topics I discuss. So that's where I direct my efforts. Sure, I promote the podcast and even buy advertising from time to time, but I really can't control the download numbers. So I try, try to avoid worrying about those and just concentrate on putting out what I think is high quality, useful content. The listeners will come or they won't. Either way, I'm satisfied, knowing that I'm doing what I can. I also remind myself that the great personal benefit of Live Well and Flourish isn't the number of downloads. It's the journey which brings us to the next maxim. The journey is the reward. This one's from Steve Jobs, I think the downloads might be the important metric in podcasting circles, but for me, the reward isn't the number of downloads or the number of listeners. It's what I learned from the process of creating each episode.

There are a couple of important points here. First, gaining wisdom requires work, as does flourishing For me, struggling with the ideas in each episode helps me better understand myself and my place in the world. Frankly, most people don't think about these things enough. The podcast gives me a reason to ponder important but often neglected aspects of my life. The discipline of putting out episodes on a strict schedule means that I take the time to reflect on flourishing regularly. The second point is more subtle. As is the case with many things, each episode brings up more questions than it answers. This helps me keep moving deeper and deeper into my own journey of flourishing. To my great benefit, it means that I keep learning new things and connecting existing bits of knowledge to create new insights. For someone like me, this is tremendously rewarding. I really enjoy thinking about all of this crazy stuff.

The other aspect of the reward is that producing the podcast helps me live according to my purpose. As I mentioned earlier, living according to a purpose is critical to flourishing. So even if I reach just one person, I've been faithful to my purpose. So the journey of developing and sharing wisdom is my reward. That leads nicely into the next maxim I don't make my podcast for money. I make my podcast for me. Or, put a little bit differently, for the love of wisdom, not the lure of wealth. Jimmy Buffett, may he rest in peace, has a song called Makein' Music for Money. One of the lines in that song says I won't make my music for money. No, I'm going to make my music for me. I have no desire to make money from this podcast, and it's really not that easy to make money in podcasting.

The motivation for putting in the time and effort required to deliver Live Well and Flourish is entirely internal. Although I sincerely want to reach a lot of people and help a lot of people, ultimately I make this podcast for me. Like I just said, the process of creating each episode is fueled by my love of wisdom and my never-ending quest to understand how to live an excellent life. Even my desire to reach others is really driven by the feeling I get from pursuing my purpose. So, in an odd way, putting out Live Well and Flourish is kind of selfish. It feeds some of my deepest desires. Hopefully others benefit as well. That's why I don't just keep a private journal with these thoughts. I want to put them out in a form that maybe helps some others. I try to uncover bits of wisdom that help me and, I hope, help you as well.

Wisdom is the focus of the next maxim. Wisdom without action is dead. Acquiring practical wisdom is only part of the battle. It's not enough to just acquire wisdom. To truly live an excellent life, you have to apply the wisdom. You can read, listen and ponder to acquire wisdom, but eventually true practical wisdom is acquired through your experiences and putting the wisdom into action. I don't have a lot more to say about this. You can listen to this podcast all day long. I'd love it if you did. You can read the great texts, you can sit at the feet of the wise gurus of the world, but if you don't put your wisdom into action, it really doesn't matter all that much.

So to flourish, you need to seek wisdom that you can apply to make the world better, which brings me to my final maxim. If you want the world to be a better place, be a better person. Really, the entire point of producing Live Well and Flourish is to make the world better, one person at a time, starting with me. If I can reach just a few of you and help you flourish, you'll make the world around you better. Along the way, you'll help others flourish as well. These little ripples of flourishing can go on and on, making the world a better place for all of us.

Here's my challenge for you Take some time to think about the maxims we've discussed here and how you can use them to guide your own journey to flourishing. Really think about them and how you can use the ideas they express to make your life and the lives around you better. If I counted right, there are seven maxims, conveniently one for each day of the week. So pick one each day and think about how you can apply the wisdom of that maxim to help you live a truly excellent life. I guarantee that if you do, you'll reap fast rewards. But don't keep the wisdom to yourself. Find ways to share what you discover with others so that they can benefit as well.

If you've gleaned some wisdom from this podcast, please share it with others. Just send them to livewellandflourishcom. I'd appreciate it. Here's the bottom line on a hundred episodes of Live Well and Flourish I'm a better person and I live a better life because of this podcast. I hope you can say the same. I sincerely thank you for joining me on my journey towards flourishing. I appreciate that you've taken the time to listen to my thoughts. Alright time to get to work on the next hundred episodes. Thank you, my friends. I produce Live Well and Flourish because of my dedication to helping others live excellent lives. I don't accept sponsorships and I don't want your money. The only thing I want is to help you and others flourish. If you've received some value from this episode, please share it with someone that might also benefit from listening. The best way to do that is to direct them to livewellandflourishcom. Until next time.