I just moved into a share house and it’s terrible, even finding it was a nightmare.
I was going through all these websites; they’re full of ads like “room for rent in Dandenong, must like hydroponic gardening and keeping secrets.”
Finding this house was quite a lot like dating.
I was meeting all these people.
You get to know them.
You get to talk to them and then eventually you’ll meet someone, you’re like “not going to do better than this.
It is time to settle” and you’re moving in.
You’re like “maybe I can change them” so that’s what I did. 9 00:00:47,0 --> 00:00:53:20 Now I’m living in this terrible, terrible share house but I’m coping because I’m going into stoic philosophy.
It’s a kind of philosophy that helps you deal with hardships and ordeals and torture.
It was invented by this guy called Zeno of Citium, who must have lived in a share house, but stoicism has three big ideas.
First idea is that whatever happens isn’t good or bad, it just depends on how you think about it.
Think about when someone kicks a goal in a footy game, half the crowd is like “yeah!” but then the other half of the crowd is like “uh” unless Colingwood’s playing then half the crowd is like “duh!”
That’s not me being mean, that’s philosophy.
The point is, you change your perception changes your reality.
This is what I do in my share house.
Instead of standing around going “oh man, this place is full of rats.”
I’m like “wow! I got a lot of unexpected pets!”
They’re not vermin if you give them names.
The other idea, stoic philosophers also say that nothing lasts forever, everything’s ephemeral.
Enjoy things but don’t enjoy them so much that if you lost them, you’d be sad.
My flat mate was making the same point when he stole my TV.
I came back to the house and the TV is gone.
He was like “yes, possessions are fleeting.”
I’m like “yeah, because you keep selling them for drugs!”
That’s how that works.
The third big idea the stoics had is that you should practice misfortune.
You should put yourself in tough, difficult situations because once you’ve lived through them you’ll realized “hey there’s nothing to be afraid of.”
For example now, because I’ve lived in this share house, not afraid to go to jail.
The way I watch prison films I’m like “ah, one toilet to eight people, luxury!”
They get their own gym, everything.
When I first moved in, I was very worried about germs.
I walk in the house; it’d be like dishes up in the ceiling.
I’d be like “okay it’s $80 a week, Michael.
Just focus on how cheap the rent is, $80 a week" and then I walk into the bathroom, someone’s used my toothbrush.
I’d be like “its $80 a week, $80 a week, $80 a week.”
Then one time I came back to the house the police were there and they said “your flat mate smoked a lot of meth, he went crazy and tried to kill everyone else in the house”
and I was just like “its $80 a week, $80 a week.”
The point is I practiced misfortune; I lived through that meth-fueled rage... and now... not worried about germs.
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