The Daily Stoic

Arete.That’s a powerful word. To the Greeks, it meant excellence. It was the ultimate expression of human greatness—moral, physical, spiritual. It’s what the Stoics were chasing. It’s what you’re chasing today. But how do we get there?Ryan discusses how we can achieve arete through the power of habits, and introduces the Daily Stoics's newest online course: Habits for Success, Habits for Happiness. It's six weeks of emails designed to completely rework your relationship with your habits—and make them the best they can be.Purchase it here: dailystoic.com/habits***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: DailyStoic.com/signupFollow @DailyStoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/ryanholidayInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanholiday/Facebook: http://facebook.com/ryanholidayYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

"Things are rough out there, it’s hard to argue with that. The stock market. Quarantines. Hospitals filled to capacity, and beyond. Travel plans cut short. Families cut off from loved ones. What is happening?! you might find yourself asking. This is terrifying, are things breaking down? Maybe. But it’s helpful to recall in times like these that, as the broadcaster Paul Harvey once explained, there have always been times like these."Every day, Ryan Holiday reads the Daily Stoic meditation for the day. To receive these via email, sign up at https://dailystoic.com/email/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In today’s episode, Ryan talks to the University of Alabama football team and discusses how to use the concepts of Stoicism to take on any challenge.When you keep one of the Daily Stoic’s medallions by your side, it helps to cement into place the messages espoused by Stoicism. Use the Obstacle is the Way medallion to remember that any obstacle you encounter contains an opportunity as well. And our Ego is the Enemy medallion is a great token of the idea that you need to get your ego out of the way in order to succeed against whatever challenges you face.https://prints.dailystoic.com/products/the-obstacle-is-the-way-medallionhttps://prints.dailystoic.com/products/ego-is-the-enemy-medallion***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: DailyStoic.com/signupFollow Ryan:Twitter: https://twitter.com/ryanholidayInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanholiday/Facebook: http://facebook.com/ryanholidayYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode, Ryan speaks with John Brownstein about the COVID-19 pandemic and what we all should do to stay safe and fight back against it. John Brownstein is a professor at the Harvard School of Medicine and Chief Innovation Officer at Boston Children’s Hospital. He’s spent his whole career learning about pandemics: how to track them using cutting-edge technology, and how to fight against them.This episode is brought to you by Four Sigmatic. Four Sigmatic is a maker of mushroom coffee, lattes, elixirs, and more. Their drinks all taste amazing and they've full of all sorts of all-natural compounds and immunity boosters to help you think clearly and live well. Visit foursigmatic.com/stoic to get 15% off your order.This episode is also brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs. LinkedIn Jobs is the best platform for finding the right candidate to join your business. It’s the largest marketplace for job seekers in the world, and it has great search features so that you can find candidates with any hard or soft skills that you need. Visit linkedin.com/stoic to get fifty dollars off your first job post.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: DailyStoic.com/signupFollow Ryan:Twitter: https://twitter.com/ryanholidayInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanholiday/Facebook: http://facebook.com/ryanholidayYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Right now, we’re looking at this all up close. It’s in our face. Being stuck at home. Watching business—and money—evaporate. Our plans are cancelled. Opportunities that we so looked forward to are gone, never to return again. How long will this last? Another month? Another year? How long will we be in the hurt? No one can say. A couple weeks ago, we interviewed Chris Guillibeau for Ask Daily Stoic, our Saturday podcast, while he was feeling the fresh sting of having to cancel a 40-city tour for his new book, The Money Tree. But instead of feeling sorry for himself, Chris said he was trying to focus on that old idea from Epictetus: go to what you control. Look for the positive. See what you can do with what’s in front of you. “Everyone is going to remember this,” he said. “We’re all going to have very sharp memories of this time.” The question, he said, is will you be proud of how you used it? How will you feel about who you were in this moment?Flashing forward like that is a great way to hold your current self accountable. It can be easy to let yourself drift when suddenly the structure and routine of your life is torn away. It’s easy to feel sorry for yourself when your plans are wrecked (imagine being Chris—all the work and preparation and expense lost). But a Stoic has to be stronger than that. A Stoic knows they can’t afford to waste the present—because they know tomorrow isn’t guaranteed.No, we must seize this moment. We must turn this down time, this dead time, into “alive time” (here’s our challenge to you about that). We can’t get lost in the chaos or the despair or the unpleasantness. We have to get back to work. We have to make the most of what we have. We don’t control what has happened, but we do control how we respond. And so we will respond well. We will keep going. We will be proud of what we did, and who we were, in this moment. We will make it so we can look back at ourselves—and this experience—fondly. We can start to earn that pride and positive memory...today.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

There is a story about King Philip, the father of Alexander the Great. He was leading a massive army campaign, and had picked an ideal spot to stop to break camp. As he began to give out orders, an aide rushed up to inform him that the location lacked enough pasture for the army’s pack animals and that they would have to move. “O Hercules,” Philip cursed in frustration, “what a life I lead if I am obliged to live for the benefit of my asses!” Philip may have been powerful, but not more powerful than the reality of logistics. His unstoppable, all-powerful army was—for all its victories—at the mercy of its weakest link. It has always been and always will be thus. As Marcus Aurelius would write in Meditations about Philip’s son, Alexander—for all his victories too—was buried in the same ground as his mule driver. Reality has a way of cutting us down to size like that. But the real message of that story is how easily even the most powerful people can become a slave to their stuff. Every soldier Philip pressed into service meant more supplies, which meant more pack animals to carry them, which required larger and larger amounts of fodder. Every ounce of treasure that Philip acquired in victory meant the same. Everything he accomplished or did was actually slowing—weighing—him down.And so it goes for us. Which is why we should remember Seneca’s advice today: “Get used to dining out without the crowds, to being a slave to fewer slaves, to getting clothes only for their real purpose, and to living in more modest quarters.”See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Something happened. You got pissed. Now two bad things have happened. That’s just a fact. Because getting angry rarely makes things better—even if it helps you get what you thought you wanted. It taxes your heart. It causes you to be mean to other people. To “win” you had to lose your self-control. This is not to say you should merely accept everything in life. The Stoics were not passive weaklings. It’s that they preferred persuasion, patience, and persistence to yelling. They focused on addressing root causes, not catharsis. How much worse getting mad is than the things that caused it, Seneca said. “Anger always outlasts hurt,” he advised. “Best to take the opposite course. Would anyone think it normal to return a kick to a mule or a bite to a dog?”So if you want to win—at life, at philosophy, at accomplishing what you have set out to accomplish—you’ll need to rein in your temper. You’ll need to figure out the opposite course, develop more than one kind of response to things you don’t like. It’s easy to get angry, but it’s more effective to remain calm and come up with solutions. Tame your temper. Don’t make problems worse by getting angry. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

One of the trickiest parts of holding yourself to a high standard in life is that it’s only natural to start to expect others to do the same. You’re not taking the easy road, why should they be able to? You’re putting in the work, why aren’t they? You don’t lie, cheat, or steal, is it so crazy to assume others shouldn’t either? Look at your results—where are theirs?Marcus Aurelius must have struggled with this too. He hadn’t wanted to be emperor, but he was pressed into duty. Still, with all this power, he was trying to be good and do good. What was everyone else’s excuse? It’s something that lots of brilliant leaders and talented people have wrestled with through the centuries, whether it’s Kobe Bryant trying to figure out why his teammates aren’t as dedicated as he is, or an A student wondering why the other people in their group aren’t striving for the grade they areWhat we know is that Marcus Aurelius found a way through. We’re told of it by the historian Cassius Dio, and it’s a worthy example for us to think about today:“So long as a person did anything good, he would praise him and use him for the service in which he excelled, but to his other conduct he paid no attention; for he declared that it is impossible for one to create such men as one desires to have, and so it is fitting to employ those who are already in existence for whatever service each of them may be able to render to the State.”We only control our behavior. We can only fully uphold our standards for ourselves. As leaders, we have to work to meet everyone else where they are—get as much as we can from them and of them—but we can’t make ourselves miserable expecting them to be like us. Because they aren’t. What they do is in their control. What we do is in ours. Remember what Seneca learned with Nero: You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make them drink. Never forget that. Get the best you can from yourself and hope—but don’t expect—for the best from everyone else. That’s all you can do.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It’s one of the most surprising scenes in literature and film. In Fight Club, Tyler Durden walks into a 24-hour convenience store and puts a gun to the head of the cashier. It’s an act of disturbing violence and cruelty. “Give me your wallet,” Tyler says as he presses the barrel against the man’s temple. Then he reads off his name and address: Raymond K. Hessel, 1329 SE Benning, Apartment A. “What did you want to be, Raymond K. Hessel?” Tyler asks, seeing the expired student ID card in the wallet. Then he cocks the pistol. “The question, Raymond, was what did you want to be?”You start to squirm in your seat as you witness this. Please don’t kill him, please don’t kill him. Because up to this point, Tyler Durden has been clever and cool. He has not been a murderer. Is that going to change? Finally, to our relief, Hessel, panicking, manages to stammer out an answer. A vet, he wanted to be a veterinarian, he says, but gave up because it was too hard, too much school. And now here he is, working behind a counter. Tyler, still holding the gun to his head, makes this promise: If Hessel isn’t back in school by the time he returns in a year, he’s going to kill him. It’s a dark scene, for sure. But it’s also beautiful. “Tyler is practicing a form of tough love,” Fight Club’s author Chuck Palahniuk writes in his new book, Consider This. “Tyler reminds the man of his mortality.” He is doing what the Stoics tried to do to themselves constantly: To remember that there is a gun pointed at our heads always—that we do not have time to waste or fritter away. “You could leave life right now,” Marcus Aurelius wrote, “Let that determine what you do and say and think.” Do everything as if it was the last thing you were doing in your life, he said. Seneca even tells us a story of an emperor who did have the power to kill, as Tyler Durden did in fiction, and said to a weeping prisoner, Is the life you’re living really all that different than being dead?Well, that’s the question and command today: Do not be Raymond K. Hessel. Do not give up on your dreams or live a kind of living death. You have to seize this moment. You have to let your awareness of your mortality give you urgency and purpose. You have to show up. You have to live each second as if it was the last thing you were doing in your life. Because Tyler Durden or not, it just might be. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On today’s episode, Ryan talks about the importance of courage in the face of great peril—and the distinction between being scared and being afraid. It's especially relevant in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.Read the original article here: https://ryanholiday.net/the-important-thing-is-to-not-be-afraid/We’ve made a Four Virtues medallion commemorating courage along with the other Four Stoic Virtues. Get yours at https://geni.us/FourVirtuesThis episode is brought to you by Thrive Market, an online marketplace where you can get over 6000 products, whether it's pantry staples, food, wine, and other groceries, or cleaning products, vitamins, or even bath and body products. They have products for any diet or value system, whether it's vegan, non-GMO, paleo, keto, kosher, halal, non-FODMAP, and more. Visit https://thrivemarket.com/stoic to get 25% off your order today. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ryan speaks with Tim Ferriss, the author, podcaster, and investor. Tim has written five New York Times best selling books, including The 4-Hour Workweek, The 4-Hour Body, Tools of Titans and Tribe of Mentors. His podcast, The Tim Ferriss Show, has over 400 million downloads on iTunes. He has been an early investor in over 50 companies, including Uber, Facebook, Shopify, and Alibaba. Tim writes a hugely popular blog and has spoken in front of millions of people, whether on TV or to organizations like Google, MIT, Microsoft, and Palantir.(4:57) - How Stoicism has helped them deal with COVID-19(21:30) - How do you process anger about the response?(32:08) - Fear - how do you defend against it? what do you tell someone who is overwhelmed by it?(41:23) - “Turning alive time into dead time”(51:16) - What can people do to help?This episode is brought to you by Athletic Greens. Athletic Greens is a custom formulation of 75 vitamins, minerals, and other whole-food sourced ingredients that make it easier for you to maintain nutrition in just a single scoop. It tastes great and gets you the nutrients you need, whether you're working on the go, fueling an active lifestyle, or just maintaining your good health. Visit athleticgreens.com/stoic and receive 20 free travel packs with your first purchase.This episode is also brought to you by Leesa, the online mattress company. Each of their mattresses is made to order and shipped for free right to your door. All mattresses come with a 100-night trial and a 10-year warranty, so you can feel confident in your investment in a good night’s sleep. And Leesa's hybrid mattress has been rated the best overall mattress by sites like Business Insider, Wirecutter, and Mattress Advisor.Daily Stoic listeners get 15% off their entire order with the code STOIC. Just visit Leesa.com and get your mattress today. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It’s the strongest and the most helpful among us that often have the most trouble asking for help. The frontline responders know that their duty is to rush toward the bang, while others run away. A parent knows that they put their own interests and needs behind those of their children. The person who others rely on to be cheerful and fun can feel like they have no one to express their sorrow and pain to. Yes, a Stoic is strong. Yes, a Stoic is brave. Yes, a Stoic does their duty—without complaint, without hesitation. A Stoic carries the load, and willingly carries the load for others when necessary. But they also have to be able to ask for help. Because sometimes that’s the strongest and bravest thing to do. “Don’t be ashamed to need help,” Marcus Aurelius wrote. “Like a soldier storming a wall, you have a mission to accomplish. And if you’ve been wounded and you need a comrade to pull you up? So what?”Exactly. So what? You’re not looking for a handout. You’re looking for advice. You’re not looking to be exempted. You’re getting your wounds treated so you can get back into the fight. You’re not looking to get an unfair advantage over anyone else. You’re taking advantage of the opportunities that were designed for precisely the situation you’re in. If you need a minute, ask. If you need a helping hand, ask. If you need reassurance, ask. If you need a favor, ask. If you need therapy, go. If you need to start over, go for it. If you need to lean on someone or something, do it. We’re in this mission together. We’re comrades. It’s okay to ask for help. If it makes you better, it’s the right thing to do. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Look: none of us are truly self-sufficient. The success of a salesman depends on whether they’ve been given a good product and solid leads. The project manager is only as good as the projects her bosses give her to manage and the employees she decides to hire to work on them. The movie needs a marketing budget if it is to have a chance to build an audience. An athlete’s performance is shaped by their coaching, the teammates the GM gives them, and the resources the organization provides for winning. How a general fares on the battlefield depends on the support of the nation behind them and the courage of their troops. It does not take much to say that history is replete with examples of these critical ingredients not being provided. All sorts of sales teams and armies and athletes being given only a fraction of what they need. The draftee—in sports or in the service—reports to find that morale is crap and the facilities are falling apart. The executive lacks the budget or the direction they need. And? And what should they do? Quit? Whine? Get comfortable with defeat? No. They must say to themselves and their team, as MacArthur did in World War II, looking at the woefully deficient resources provided to him in the Pacific, “In any event, I shall do my best. I shall keep the soldier’s faith.” He said it and then he got to work. He fought island by island, until in the end and despite the odds, victory was his. It was a victory for free people everywhere. The Stoics knew a thing or two about lost causes. They knew about low probabilities. They never let that stop them. Cato gave everything he had, despite what many saw as the inevitable rise of Caesar, to preserve the Roman Republic...and very nearly pulled it off. Washington sat in Valley Forge at the lowest point of the American Revolution, poorly supplied by Congress, undermined by his generals, and put on a play about Cato to inspire him and his men to keep going. Stockdale resisted his captors for nearly a decade, doing his best under incredible circumstances, keeping the soldier’s faith in his country, his soldiers, and himself. You can’t do the same? You think you’re entitled to give less than your all because someone else has let you down? Because things are not to your liking? C’mon. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

As we’ve discussed, one could look out at the world right now and see a lot of negative. Or you could grab the other handle, as Epictetus says, and see the positive. It’s an open question: Is this a great time to be alive or a terrible one? Are we blessed to have spent twenty years without any major wars, without any truly global crises, with sustained periods of economic prosperity and incredible technological advances? Or has it been twenty years with three major recessions, with the terror of terrorism, disruptive or disappointing tech, and now with a global pandemic?Here’s the Stoic’s answer: It doesn’t matter. Because you don’t control when you live. What history will think of this period compared to other periods is meaningless. The only thing that counts is that you’re alive right now. We don’t choose when we live, we choose how we live. That’s it. You didn’t ask for this moment. Maybe you’d prefer things to be different. Well...they aren’t. And you’re going to have to make do. Understand this and you will be wise. Adhere to it and you will be successful. How can we make the most of right now? That’s the question. How can we live well within—or in spite—of what’s happening? That’s our job. You think Marcus wanted to live through the plague or Epictetus in a time where slavery existed or Seneca during Nero’s rule? Nope. But they figured it out. They made it work. And so can you. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When Seneca was exiled, he wanted to give up, but he didn’t. He wrote. He prepared for the opportunity that would eventually come. When Musonius Rufus was exiled, he did the same. He kept himself busy not just with writing, but by discovering a natural spring on the island he was trapped on, one that provided for inhabitants who had long been without fresh water. When Epictetus was born into slavery, he endured it for thirty years until his freedom finally came. When the plague fell upon Rome during Marcus’s reign, he found a way to create and keep a new normal, for all fifteen years of it. In each case, these Stoics were in a kind of hell. But you know what they did? They did what you’re supposed to do when you find yourself going through hell: They kept going. Which is what we have to do today, through this pandemic and all that life throws at us. We have to keep going. We have to find a new normal. We have to find things to focus on. We have to find ways to do good for others. We have to keep busy. We can also follow this help list of rules from Austin Kleon (who has a wonderful book by the same title): Every day is Groundhog Day. Build a bliss station. Forget the noun, do the verb. Make gifts. The ordinary + extra attention = the extraordinary Slay the art monsters. You’re allowed to change your mind. When in doubt, tidy up. Demons hate fresh air. Plant your garden.Most of all, we have to follow Churchill’s advice to KBO: Keep buggering on. Just keep going. You’ll get through this. ***Today's sponsor is Thrive Market, an online members-only marketplace filled with over 6000 ethical products. Sign up at thrivemarket.com/stoic and receiver an extra 25% off your first order. You'll receive your first 30 days of membership for free as well, and if you spend $49 or more you get free shipping. Join Thrive Market today! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It was a decade or so ago, in the depth of the global financial crisis, that the musician and writer Henry Rollins offered a prescription that once again feels relevant. Indeed, it feels relevant because his advice was timeless, and applies in ordinary and extraordinary times alike. It’s advice worth following in times of triumph and great trials. “People are getting a little desperate,” he wrote as unemployment spiked and markets crashed. “People might not show their best elements to you. You must never lower yourself to being a person you don’t like. There is no better time than now to have a moral and civic backbone. To have a moral and civic true north. This is a tremendous opportunity for you, a young person, to be heroic.”Well, here we are in rough and uncertain times again. People are not showing their best selves. People are scared. For several years in a row now, people have had their true north obscured and disoriented by daily examples of bad leadership—of ego and selfishness and downright incompetence. But, in a way, that doesn’t matter. As Marcus Aurelius said, what other people say or do is not our concern. What matters is what we do. We can choose to see this as a tremendous opportunity. This is a moment to be heroic. To think about others. To serve. To prepare. To keep calm. To reassure. To protect. This is a time to reevaluate our priorities. To ask ourselves what’s important and what we’re working towards. Courage is calling you. Self-discipline is essential. We need your moral and civic backbone. And man, do we need wisdom right now more than ever. We need you to embody those things. We need them right now. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On today's episode, Ryan discusses the Four Stoic Virtues: Courage, Justice, Moderation, and Wisdom. Listen to find out why the Four Virtues are so important in today's world. And check out the new Daily Stoic Four Virtues medallion at https://geni.us/FourVirtuesThis episode is brought to you by Thrive Market, an online marketplace where you can get over 6000 products, whether it's pantry staples, food, wine, and other groceries, or cleaning products, vitamins, or even bath and body products. They have products for any diet or value system, whether it's vegan, non-GMO, paleo, keto, kosher, halal, non-FODMAP, and more. Visit thrivemarket.com/stoic to get 25% off your order today. ***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: DailyStoic.com/signupFollow Ryan:Twitter: https://twitter.com/ryanholidayInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanholiday/Facebook: http://facebook.com/ryanholidayYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this super-sized edition of Ask Daily Stoic, Ryan talks about his visit to a mastermind event in Nashville, where he shared ideas and inspiration with other successful authors. Ryan also chats with Chris Guillebeau, author of The Art of Non-Conformity, The $100 Startup, and the upcoming book The Money Tree: A Story About Finding the Fortune in Your Own Backyard.This episode is brought to you by Go Macro. Go Macro is a family-owned maker of some of the finest protein bars around. They're vegan, non-GMO, and they come in a bunch of delicious flavors. Visit http://gomacro.com and use promo code STOIC for 30% off your order plus free shipping.This episode is also brought to you by Four Sigmatic. Four Sigmatic is a maker of mushroom coffee, lattes, elixirs, and more. Their drinks all taste amazing and they've full of all sorts of all-natural compounds and immunity boosters to help you think clearly and live well. Visit http://foursigmatic.com/stoic to get 15% off your order.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: DailyStoic.com/signupFollow Ryan:Twitter: https://twitter.com/ryanholidayInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanholiday/Facebook: http://facebook.com/ryanholidayYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Do you remember the first time you heard about the Stoics? Maybe you read about them in another book. Maybe someone you know recommended them to you. Remember that feeling though? When those words first started going through your brain and you felt them in your soul for the first time? It was an incredible experience right? One of the most important and transformative moments in your life. Here’s the crazy thing though. Before the Vietnam war, James Stockdale had almost that exact experience when he was given a copy of Epictetus at Stanford. You could roll back the tape of history almost 200 years and find the exact moment that George Washington had his experience when, at 16, a neighbor passed along a copy of the works of the Stoics. Nearly 2,000 years ago almost the exact same thing happened, only instead of America it was in Rome, and a man named Junius Rusticus was loaning Marcus Aurelius a copy of Epictetus. A generation before that, someone was introducing Epictetus himself, then no more than a slave, to the works of Musonius Rufus. You could go back further still and sit in a book store and watch Zeno, washed up from a shipwreck, being introduced to philosophy by way of a reading of the works of Socrates. It shouldn’t take away from the beauty of your experience to learn that it wasn’t singular. In fact, it enhances it. It ties directly into the most moving passages of Marcus Aurelius, where he points out how long human beings have been doing the same thing, how we’ve been falling in love and fighting over money, improving ourselves and falling short, and yes, having our minds blown by great books, since as long as there have been books. We are part of a long tradition and it’s a long tradition that will continue after we’re gone. We’re not special. We’re a strong, but ordinary link in a timeless chain… that includes some of the greatest men and women to ever walk the earth. We don’t own these ideas. We are, as they say about Patek Philippe watches, just guarding them for the next generation. We are caretakers. And that’s important. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We should always be looking for mantras and epigrams. Ideas that are true and applicable in every situation, to every generation, across all time. The Stoics had more than a few they liked:“Character is fate,” which came to them from Heraclitus. “Life is only perception,” which Marcus got from Democritus. “You become what you give your attention to,” which Epictetus wrote. Even memento mori and amor fati are short little reminders of concepts we should never forget. Lincoln was fond of the expression, “And this too shall pass,” which undoubtedly helped him through the depths of all the crises he faced. Here are three others worth keeping at hand: The obstacle is the way—there is nothing so bad that we can’t make some good out of it. We can treat every problem as an opportunity to practice virtue.Ego is the enemy—no problem is ever solved by introducing ego. Pride makes us complacent and intolerable and ignorant; for we cannot learn that which we think we already know.Stillness is the key—you can speed up by slowing down. People can only focus, be happy, and see clearly when they get rid of franticness and passions and get to that state of ataraxia that the Stoics talked about. What’s in the way is the way. Improve yourself by thinking of yourself less. Slow down to speed up. Remember, this philosophy is about taking ideas and applying them to our lives until they turn into muscle memory. Repeating it enough times to yourself that it becomes part of who you are. That’s what a mantra is—something to come back to, something to lean on in times of trouble and stress. It’s a tool for focus. A way of living. The Obstacle Is The Way, Ego is the Enemy, and Stillness is the Key (all bestsellers that have reached millions of people around the world) are now available in a box set from Portfolio. You can check it out at Amazon right now. “Ryan’s trilogy of The Obstacle Is the Way, Ego Is the Enemy, and Stillness Is the Key are for sure must reads.”—Manu Ginobili, NBA Champion and Olympic Gold MedalistSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Let’s imagine a scenario in which almost all our modern scholarship was lost. Imagine if some great fire at the Library of Alexandria wiped away the last few hundred years of breakthroughs in psychology and biology. Suddenly, countless research papers and books and discoveries were turned to ash. The cost would be immense, no question.And yet, somehow, we’d be fine. Even if all that remained were just the writings of Marcus Aurelius and Seneca and Epictetus. Because as much as our species craves new-ness, the truth is that most truths are very old. In fact, it’s these timeless truths that teach us more about the future and about our current times than most of our contemporary thinking. As Douglas MacArthur wrote in the early 20th century, speculating about the future of warfare, the best lessons about what’s coming next come not from the recent but from the distant past. “Were the accounts of all battles, save only those of Genghis Khan,” he said, “effaced from the pages of history, and were all the facts of his campaigns preserved in descriptive detail, the soldier would still possess a mine of untold wealth from which to extract nuggets of knowledge useful in molding an army for future use. “Of course, one should always avail themselves of the latest research and the newest books. The problem is that for far too many people this comes at the expense of availing themselves of wisdom from the wisest minds who ever lived. “I don’t have time to read books,” says the person who reads dozens of breaking news articles each week. “I don’t have time to read,” they say as they refresh their Twitter feed for the latest inane update. “I don’t have time to read fiction—that’s entertainment,” they say as they watch another panel of arguing talking heads on CNN, as if that’s actually giving them real information they will use. Being informed is important. It is the duty of every citizen. But we go about it the wrong way. We are distracted by breaking news when really we should be drinking deeply from the great texts of history. We need to follow Marcus Aurelius’s advice to carve out “some leisure time to learn something good, and stop bouncing around.”It is from this learning, from the learning of the distant past, from the wisest minds who ever lived, that we can know how to prepare for the future. Everything else is noise. Everything else should be ignored. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Perhaps you know the story of the 300 Spartans. It was first immortalized by Herodotus, and then has been passed down through the ages (there’s a wonderful Steven Pressfield novel about it). If you don’t know the story, here’s what happens: Facing an invading army of some 300,000 Persian soldiers that threatened to annihilate Greece, King Leonidas led just 300 Spartan warriors into battle in a desperate attempt to buy his neighboring countries a chance to coordinate and defend themselves. For three days, the soldiers fought at what’s known today as the Hot Gates, against so many Persian archers and soldiers that it was said their arrows blocked out the sun. Eventually, inevitably, the Spartans fell, but not before they had slowed Xerxes and his invaders down enough to save the free world. In their honor, the poet Simonides provides this epitaph:Stranger passing by, tell the LacedaemoniansHere we lie, having obeyed their orders. You sit here reading this email, in part, because of their brave sacrifice. Just as you sit here because of the soldiers who landed at Normandy, and, if you’re in a democracy, because of the sacrifices of Cato (who attempted to save the Roman Republic) and George Washington (who, inspired by Cato, founded America). These were missions that required immense selflessness, and all the Stoic virtues: Courage. Temperance. Justice. Wisdom. The few helped to save and serve the many. Have you seen the meme being passed around these days, in the time of COVID-19, the global pandemic ravaging countless nations? It shows a row of matches. The first several are burned out. One rests slightly below and all the matches to the right of it remain like new. “The one who stayed away,” it says, “saved all the rest.” (And think about the opposite: Patient 31 in South Korea, instead of staying away, potentially infected many people and may have ruined South Korea’s containment of the virus out of pure recklessness). If you want to know what you can do right now, how to help in this crisis, it doesn’t require a sacrifice like the heroes mentioned here. It’s much simpler. Stay at home. Listen to the pleadings and warnings—these are not for fun. Yes, you’re young. Yes, you’ll probably survive catching the Coronavirus, but a person you give it to, or the hospital bed you take from them? That’s a much more serious scenario. Help them by flattening the curve. Help buy them and the system some time. Rush to the Hot Gates… by staying home.This is not a drill. Don’t be selfish. We’ve talked for a long time about what a good person looks like, what a philosopher is. Well? Now is the time to be one. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Almost 50 years ago, the Beatles whispered to us some words of wisdom: Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be.One of the most relatable passages in Meditations is actually about just that. Marcus writes about sitting next to someone who smells or has bad breath. You can almost feel his frustration, as if he too has sat on an airplane center seat and had to jostle for the armrests that are clearly his. What is wrong with this person? Can’t they figure out how this works? Do they have to be so rude? And yet, he catches himself. If it’s such a problem, he says, then talk to them about it. Or you know what? Just let it go. As he writes, “You always own the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you can't control. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone.”It’s worth remembering today and every day. That we can just leave things as they are. We can let them be. We don’t have to get upset. We don’t have to have an opinion. We can listen to those words of wisdom…See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ryan discusses the merits of watching the news, and how to tune out distractions, with Steven Pressfield.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Here you are, stuck indoors, stuck somewhere you don’t want to be. Maybe also you’re stuck because you’re 17 going on 30. Maybe also you’re stuck because you’ve got another two years left on your enlistment or because you’re waiting for a position to open up at a new company. Or you’re stuck because there is a global pandemic and, like a good Stoic, you’re listening to the authorities, and staying home, and helping to flatten the curve. You can’t help that, the Stoics would say. But you can help what you do with this time. As we talked about recently, just because you’re stuck is not an excuse for killing time. More than two thousand years ago, Cato the Elder advised that in rainy weather, farmers must “try to find something to do indoors. Clean up, rather than be idle. Remember that even though work stops, expenses run on nonetheless.” Robert Greene says we always have a choice between alive time and dead time. What will it be? The answer determines the course of our life, whether what we face is an obstacle or an opportunity. Issac Newton did some of his best research when Cambridge closed due to the plague. Shakespeare wrote King Lear while he hid out from the plague as well. Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, wrote Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, while he was laid up in the hospital, expressly forbidden from working on something as tough as a novel. Malcolm X educated himself in prison and turned himself into the activist the world needed. So we get it, you’re stuck. That’s not your fault. But what you do while you’re stuck? That’s on you. That’s what the Stoics meant when they said you don’t control what has happened, but you control how you respond. That’s what Marcus was talking about when he said we can turn everything that happens into fuel, and that the impediment to action can actually advance actionSo that’s where we are right now. Faced with a choice. A choice to use this or not. Make something of it or not. It’s the only potential silver lining...and it’s totally up to you. Check out the Daily Stoic Alive Time Challenge! It starts Monday 3/30, and is the perfect way to turn your quarantine into productive "alive time."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ryan talks about the Edmund Morrison biography of Thomas Edison, reads a passage from The Obstacle is the Way (on sale for a few more days), and fields more questions from his readers and fans.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Most languages have some expression to the effect of “When it rains, it pours.” For instance, in Latin malis mala succedunt means troubles are followed by troubles. In Japanese, they say, “when crying, stung by bee.” The point of these expressions is to capture an unfortunate reality of life: that what can go wrong will… and often all at the same time. Obviously to the Stoics, the idea of premeditatio malorum is a kind of hedge against this. If you’re only prepared for a few, isolated and tiny things to go wrong, you’re going to be rudely surprised by how often difficulties come in pairs or triplets or entire litters. If you think life is going to be one lucky break after another, you’re going to be rudely surprised when, to quote Seneca, fortune decides to behave exactly as she pleases. The real lesson from the Stoics on adversity comes from Epictetus, however, who believed that while we don’t control whether it’s pouring, we do control how we respond. We control whether we can find something productive to do inside, while it’s raining. We control whether we put on a jacket. We control whether we’ve been smart enough to build a roof while the sun was shining. And Epictetus would have also liked the quip from the Canadian astronaut Chris Hadwick, who reminds us that in space, “there is no problem so bad you can’t make it worse.” So if you’ve been feeling some raindrops lately, first off, be prepared for things to really start coming down. Get ready for the bee sting on top of the stubbed toe. Get ready for your delayed flight to also have turbulence. But most importantly, don’t make it worse by overreacting, by taking it personally or doing something stupid. Whatever it is, know that perhaps the first step to making things better is just not making them worse. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is not another note about memento mori.It’s about a different immutable, inescapable law of human existence that comes to us from the Stoics through Heraclitus (one of Marcus Aurelius’ favorites): Character is fate. After death and taxes, this is a timeless adage that the Stoics believed will determine our destiny whether we like it or not. And just a quick glimpse around the world and across history confirms it: Liars and cheats eventually destroy themselves. The corrupt overreach. The ignorant make fatal, self-inflicted mistakes. The egotistical ignore the data that challenges them and the warnings that could save them. The selfish end up isolated and alone, even if they’re surrounded by fame and fortune. The "robbers, perverts, killers and tyrants" Marcus Aurelius wrote about always end up in a hell of their own making. It’s a law as true as gravity. Bad character might drive someone into a position of leadership—because of their ambition, their ruthlessness, their shamelessness—but eventually, inevitably, this supposed “strength” becomes an Achilles’ heel when it comes time to actually do the job. Who trusts them? Who actually wants to work with them? What kind of culture develops around them? How can they learn? How can they know where the landmines are?If you want to know why things are the way they are right now—on Wall Street, in politics, in Silicon Valley, on college campuses, everywhere—it’s because character is fate. And for too long we have ignored the predictive—no, prophetic—power of character. When you make excuses for liars and cheats and egomaniacs because they agree with you, or they might benefit your business or help your cause in the short term, not only do you do so at your own long term peril, but you are exhibiting bad character yourself. And that is what will come back to bite you. That is what is biting us right now, on every continent, in every corner of culture, at nearly every turn. Because character is fate. Always has been. Always will be. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Jeannie Gaffigan is a control freak. She takes charge. She cares about the little things and getting those things right. She always has. It’s hard to argue that this part of her personality hasn’t served her well. She and her husband, the comedian Jim Gaffigan, have created an enormously successful partnership that birthed not only multiple television shows and comedy specials but five healthy, well-adjusted children. You can imagine, you have to be a stickler for details to pull all that off. The problem was when three years ago, a routine doctor’s appointment revealed a pear-sized tumor on Jeannie’s brain. A 10-hour surgery successfully removed the tumor, but not without a series of life-threatening complications, a few more surgeries, and a long road to recovery. Life does that to us. It takes the balance we’ve created or the systems we take comfort in and it dashes them to pieces. In a recent interview on Marc Maron’s podcast, Jeannie explained how this obstacle required her to re-examine her life and her need for control. She really had no choice. “I am a person who naturally sweats small stuff,” she explained. “I didn't change my entire personality. I still sweat small stuff. I still get irritated by this and that. But I have a different level of awareness that it's small stuff. It doesn't have to ruin my day. I see the big picture.” It was at this point in the conversation that Marc Maron, the host, responded about how he has managed this side of his personality as well: “I understand that, you know, to take that pause… And the weird thing is, if you have that personality, you know you're going to do it. You're going to freak out. And it's really about trying to nip it in the bud a little bit. Like in the middle. or, it seems hard to do it before because sometimes maybe it's necessary. Maybe that's how you do it. But there's a point where you’re like, 'well I don't need this to be toxic. I don't need to ruin everyone's day. I don't need to make everybody crazy.'”It’s important to realize that the Stoics were not perfect. Nobody was. It’s exceedingly unlikely that Marcus Aurelius, the Emperor of Rome, didn’t have a desire to control things. That he didn’t worry. That he didn’t sweat the small stuff. That he didn’t have the impulse to get up in other people’s business or to expect things to go his way. We all have these inclinations. The key is that you don’t give yourself over to it entirely—that you pause and try to stop or slow it down before it spirals out of control. “Don’t let the force of an impression when it first hits you knock you off your feet,” Epictetus said. “Say to it, ‘Hold on a moment; let me see who you are and what you represent. Let me put you to the test.’” And as Marcus told himself, “You don’t have to turn this into something. It doesn’t have to upset you. Things can’t shape our decisions by themselves.”The Stoics don’t hold us responsible for our initial impulses or impressions—we can’t be too hard on ourselves from habits we picked up from our own parents or in responses to experiences or responsibilities in our life. But what matters is whether we give ourselves over to these drives and flaws, or whether we actively work to improve ourselves. We feel anxiety or a desire to control. Ok. But does that mean we accept it unthinkingly? No. We must put it up to the test. We pause. We put it in perspective. We try not to vomit it all over other people, or let it ruin anyone’s day. We can nip it in the bud. We can blunt its extremes. We can get awareness. We can get better. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is an email we weren’t expecting to send, but sometimes sudden events call for sudden responses. Right now you, and much of the world, are locked down, doing your part to fight the spread of COVID-19. Perhaps you’ve already been trapped inside for weeks. Perhaps you just got back the test results and now you are in complete isolation. Perhaps your job has furloughed you and you’ve got a lot of time on your hands. Things seem serious now, but the truth is, it’s only going to get more serious. All of us are looking at the potential for some serious lost time. Dead time, as Robert Greene calls it. But do we have to be? A Stoic knows that while we don’t control what happens, we do control how we respond. So that’s the real question: How can we use this time to get better? To grow? To be of service and use? To create “alive time” where we’re actively getting better.With that end in mind, we have been scrambling to put together what we’re calling the Daily Stoic Alive Time Challenge: Resilience, Productivity and Service in the Time of Coronavirus. It’s 14 days—the length of the suggested quarantine—of Stoicism-inspired challenges, practices and reading that will help you grow and help you help others. If you’ve done any of our other challenges over the last two years, you know we pack them full of great content, actionable advice, and strategies to make the habits stick. This one will be all that… and incredibly timely. We’re taking our best material and the best insights from the Stoics and organizing it to help you make the most of this time we have. Why shouldn’t you emerge from this process having at least wrested from it some real advantages? Why would you kill time when you could be seizing that time? Why not use it to create better habits and a better perspective?Since there is little time to lose, we are putting the challenge on sale right now and starting it this coming Monday (March 30th). The more of us doing it together, at the same time, the better (people who sign up late can still do it, but they’ll miss some of the fun). We’ll create a Slack channel for sharing and holding each other accountable. And we’ll do a wrap-up call at the end to discuss keeping these good practices going. More important, we’re giving $5 of every sale (20% of all proceeds) to Feeding America. By doing this challenge together we can create what Marcus Aurelius calls a double bonus—doing good for ourselves and the people on the front lines fighting to keep us safe. Sign up today. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This was all pretty sudden, wasn’t it? The economy was chugging along. Life was going well. We had travel plans. We had work plans. We had things we were doing. We had a sense for what we’d do next. And then… bam. Now, here we are. You know what that is? It’s a reminder. It’s a reminder that Seneca—a man who experienced exile, illness, financial setbacks, and all sorts of other adversity—wrote about more than 2,000 years ago. He told us “never to trust prosperity, and always take full note of fortune’s habit of behaving just as she pleases, treating her as if she were actually going to do everything it is in her power to do.” His point was that events can change quickly, and that we have to be vigilant, particularly in good times, because vigilance is the first step towards preparation. “Whatever you have been expecting,” he said, “comes as less of a shock.”The events of the last few weeks have been an expensive and merciless reminder of the truth of that advice. We ignored it at our peril, for too long, as humans often do. Fate is fickle. Reversals happen. Black Swans are real. Nothing is stable, change is the only constant. No one is so rich, so healthy, so strong or smart that they cannot be brought low. That is obvious to anyone looking around today. Yet we are likely, as things get better (which they inevitably will), to forget this fact if we’re not careful...and that is a waste of the pain we are experiencing right now.The world is always teaching us. The question is whether we’re open to listening. The question is whether we’re ready to hear. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In today's episode, Ryan reads his piece from March 12, "Remember: You Don’t Control What Happens, You Control How You Respond." He discusses how to stay safe amidst the COVID-19 pandemic—and how to think and act Stoically during this crisis.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this week's Saturday episode, Ryan discusses the coronavirus pandemic and how to deal with it like a Stoic.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We all have our way of doing things. We have what we were directly taught. We have the values that our culture gives us. We have the lessons we picked up by experience. It’s understandable then, when we see someone else doing things totally differently, that we might assume they’re doing it the wrong way. That’s not how that’s supposed to go, we think to ourselves.This, the Stoics would tell us, is a recipe for folly. “It’s impossible to begin to learn that which you think you already know,” Epictetus said. Cato the Elder, the great-grandfather of Cato the Younger, coined a maxim in his famous essay, On Agriculture, which explained best practices for farming in the Roman era. “Be careful,” he said about the management practices of your neighbors, “not to rashly refuse to learn from others.” This lesson was picked up on and rephrased by hundreds of writers since, including Ben Franklin in Poor Richard’s Almanack. Only an idiot turns up their nose at how other people do things. Sure, nine times out of ten, you’re right and they’re wrong. But that one time? That’s the game changer. It’s worth always remembering that other people have different perspectives, different experiences, and, in some cases, better schooling than you. What if they discovered a shortcut? What if they learned, painfully—through trial and error—something that could save you from suffering? A Stoic cannot allow their logic and their habits to become rigid or their mind to harden into condescension. We have to be open. We cannot be rash or dismissive. There is always something to learn—from everyone and in any situation. Even if it is only a reminder of why you do the things you do the way you do them. But hopefully you seek out disconfirmation even more than confirmation.Learn from others, always. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It’s possible, Marcus Aurelius said, to not have an opinion. You don’t have to turn this into something, he reminds himself. You don’t have to let this upset you. It’s not that the Stoics lived in a world where people didn’t do bad things or a world free from rudeness and cruelty. On the contrary—those things were far more prevalent in Rome than they are today. But what the Stoics worked on was not letting these things get to them, not letting it provoke them to anger. If someone insulted Cato, he pretended not to hear it. When someone attacked Marcus Aurelius’s character, he tried to think about the character of the person saying it. When someone said something offensive to Epictetus, he told himself that if he got upset, he was as much to blame as they were. He also joked that if they really knew him, they’d be even more critical. It wasn’t that the Stoics were apathetic or that they never tried to change the world. Clearly, they wouldn’t have been engaged in politics if all they cared about was the status quo. Why would Seneca have written those letters if he didn’t believe he could have an impact on people? It’s just that the Stoics saw only danger in getting angry. They refused to be provoked. They tamed their temper so they could do the work they believed they needed to do. And that’s what you must do also. You don’t have to have an opinion. You don’t have to turn things into bigger things. You can control your emotions. You can do what you need to do. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It began in the East. At least, that’s what the experts think. Maybe it came from animals. Maybe it was the Chinese. Maybe it was a curse from the gods. One thing is certain: it radiated out east, west, north, and south, crossing borders, then oceans, as it overwhelmed the world. The only thing that spread faster than the contagion was the fear and the rumors. People panicked. Doctors were baffled. Government officials dawdled and failed. Travel was delayed or rerouted or aborted altogether. Festivals, gatherings, sporting events—all cancelled. The economy plunged. Bodies piled up.The institutions of government proved very fragile indeed. We’re talking, of course, about the Antonine Plague of 165 CE, a global pandemic with a mortality rate of between 2-3%, which began with flu-like symptoms until it escalated and became gruesome and painfully fatal. Millions were infected. Between 10 and 18 million people eventually died. It shouldn’t surprise us that an ancient pestilence—one that spanned the entire reign of Marcus Aurelius—feels so, well, modern. As Marcus would write in his diary at some point during this horrible plague, history has a way of repeating itself. “To bear in mind constantly that all of this has happened before,” he said in Meditations. “And will happen again—the same plot from beginning to end, the identical staging. Produce them in your mind, as you know them from experience or from history: the court of Hadrian, of Antoninus. The courts of Philip, Alexander, Croesus. All just the same. Only the people different.”This pattern of disease is nauseatingly familiar. It’s a pattern that has repeated itself like a fractal across history. Indeed, we could be talking about the Bubonic Plague (aka the Black Death), the Spanish Flu of 1918, or the cholera pandemics of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, just as easily as we are talking about the Antonine Plague and thinking about the coronavirus pandemic that is spreading across the globe. As Marcus would say, all we’d have to do is change a few dates and names.It can be a very jarring mental exercise for some—thinking about the way the history of disease repeats itself—because we like to view the evolution of human civilization as moving inevitably in some new, unique direction. We like to see history as steady progress. Then when bad things happen, when catastrophe strikes, we feel like the world is coming apart. We suffocate ourselves with breathless shouting about the sky falling and give ourselves heart attacks over not being prepared for what is to come. It’s the same story, unfolded as if from an ancient script, written on the double helix of human DNA. We make the same mistakes. Succumb to the same fears. Endure the same grief and pain… then eventually exult in the same heroism, the same relief, and hopefully, the same kind of emergent leadership. And that, really, is the key to survival, to persevering for the better: Just because history repeats itself is not an excuse to throw up your hands and give yourself up to the whims of Fortune. The Stoics say over and over that it is inexcusable not to learn from the past. “For this is what makes us evil,” once wrote Seneca, who lived two generations before Marcus and watched Rome burn. “We reflect upon only that which we are about to do. And yet our plans for the future descend from our past.” Read the rest at https://dailystoic.com/marcus-aurelius-leadership-during-a-pandemic/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

One way to go through life is to turn away from the things that are hard. You can close your eyes and ears to what is unpleasant. You can take the easy way, forgoing difficulty whenever possible. The other way is the Stoic way—it entails not only not avoiding hardship, but actively seeking it out.In the novel Memoirs of Hadrian, Marguerite Yourcenar has Hadrian write to young Marcus Aurelius about his philosophy for learning and benefiting from all of life’s adversity and unpleasantness. “Whenever an object repelled me,” he says, “I made it a subject of study, ingeniously compelling myself to extract from it a motive for enjoyment. If faced with something unforeseen or near cause for despair, like an ambush or a storm at sea, after all measures for the safety of others had been taken, I strove to welcome this hazard, to rejoice in whatever it brought me of the new and unexpected, and thus without shock the ambush or the tempest was incorporated into my plans, or my thoughts. Even in the throes of my worst disaster, I have seen a moment when sheer exhaustion reduced some part of the horror of the experience, and when I made the defeat a thing of my own in being willing to accept it.” Of course, this is fiction so Hadrian never said such a thing. But clearly somebody taught Marcus a lesson along those lines, because Meditations is filled with similar passages. Marcus writes about how a fire turns everything that is thrown into it into flame. He says that obstacles are actually fuel. “The impediment to action advances action,” he writes, “what stands in the way becomes the way.”It’s a beautiful way to approach the world—and ultimately, the only one suited for our unpredictable and stressful times. To avoid difficulty would mean complete retreat from life. It would mean hiding in ignorance. Worse, this would make you dreadfully vulnerable to crisis if it did ever find you. Instead, we must strive—as Hadrian said—to welcome hazard. We can rejoice in the unexpected and even turn failure into something by deciding to own it. We can learn from unpleasantness and even soften our aversions. This will not be easy. But that’s fitting, isn’t it? We are not naturally attracted to obstacles...which is precisely why we must work on finding out how to like them. This is the way. Great news: The Obstacle is the Way, just went on sale for $1.99 as an ebook in the US and Canada (and £3.32 in the UK). Get your copy of this #1 bestseller, read and absorbed by everyone from politicians and generals to head coaches and athletes, today.And that's not all: to help you keep the book's message close at hand, we're offering a 20% discount on our Obstacle is the Way coin and pendant at the Daily Stoic store (use code OBSTACLEDISCOUNT). See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On the Roman calendar, March 15th was known as the Ides of March—once most notable as the year’s deadline for settling debts. That changed in 44 BC when Julius Caesar walked into the Theatre of Pompey for a routine meeting with the Roman Senate. Caesar was then at his apotheosis. He had made himself Dictator Perpetuo. He was about to embark on a three year expedition, which, if successful, would, as Plutarch wrote, “complete this circuit of his empire, which would then be bounded on all sides by the ocean." All of Rome hung on what would happen next. Would he name himself king? Would he destroy his remaining enemies? Would Rome destroy itself? Would it be content to be yoked under a tyrant?We don’t know, because it was yesterday 2,064 years ago that Brutus, Cato’s son-in-law, and his wife, Porcia, took matters into their own hands. Soon, Caesar was dead. What remained was a bloody Civil War in which the Roman Republic was nearly restored. It didn’t quite go the way that Brutus hoped. Cato himself was not quite successful in his attempt to rally the Roman people to stand up to their traditions. But the example remains in history as a partly inspiring, partly cautionary tale: Can an individual change the course of history? Can things blow up in our faces? Yes. The answer is yes to both. That’s basically the complicated arc of Conspiracy, which tells the story of Peter Thiel's quixotic, bold, desperate, deranged, inspiring (your pick) plot to take down Gawker Media, the gossip blog that had outed him, that he felt had become too powerful. The knock against the Stoics—one repeated by Thiel himself once or twice—is that they are too resigned, that they accept the status quo. This would have been surprising to Rome’s emperors, from Julius Caesar to Nero to Galba and Domitian, who were all convinced that the Stoics were plotting against them. It is almost ironic that Marcus Aurelius became the Stoic philosopher king, because nearly every single one of his predecessors believed that the Stoics were seeking to destroy the monarchy entirely. No one thought that Cato or Thrasea or Musonius Rufus were passive. They feared them. They believed they were radicals who sought to change things. With yesterday being the anniversary of the Ides of March, we challenge you to think about where that spirit has gone. We could use more boldness, and less passivity. We could use more vision, courage, creativity, a sense of justice, a willingness to try and fail, to risk and hope. We could use more people courageous enough to reject the status quo and fight for change they believe in. We could use more people trying. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ryan talks about how you can improve your reading skill and get more from the books you love.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ryan chats with Austin Kleon, author of great books like Steal Like An Artist.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Think of the pressure Marcus Aurelius must have been under. Not just of the temptations and the corruptions of power, but all the eyes that were on him. Forget the judgments of history, there was literally an “emperor cult” in Rome that worshipped the man on the throne as a god to be sacrificed to and prayed for. What we know is that Marcus took this pressure seriously. He strove to live up to the expectations and the dignity of his position, even if many of his predecessors had not. “Let people see someone living naturally,” he reminded himself in Meditations 10:15, “and understand what that means.” And in Meditations 10:16, that’s where he writes his famous line to stop talking about what a good person is like and just be one. But what’s interesting is that while Marcus more or less lived up to this pressure, he claimed to be doing it for himself, not for other people. Actually the second half of the line in 10:15 talks about how he’s fine being killed for what he believes in, if people don’t understand it. He’s doing right because it’s right, not because people are watching. It’s sort of like that Chris Rock line about being a role model: Don’t not beat your wife because you’re a role model for young people, don’t do it because it’s wrong!Remember what Marcus said about not expecting the “third thing”—that is, gratitude or acknowledgment. Be a good role model because you’re a good person, because you’ve trained yourself to like and enjoy being good. Be a good role model because that’s what this philosophy demands of you, because that’s what life is demanding of you. That it might help other people, that you are teaching your children or your audience at the same time? That’s extra. Don’t talk about being a good role model. Be one. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Austrian writer Stefan Zweig experienced both incredible good fortune and misfortune in his life. He was born into wealth; he met some of the great minds of his time, from Freud to Arthur Schnitzler; he traveled extensively and became Europe’s bestselling novelist. And in that span, he also experienced two terrible world wars and was driven from his home by Hitler’s antisemitism; first fleeing to England, then later going to the U.S, before finally starting his life over again in Brazil, where he spent the last two years of his life. One would think that someone who had experienced so many good times in his first fifty years, would be unprepared for difficulty in his final ten. Not so with Zweig. During his many years of delightful and luxurious travel, he liked to play an interesting game—one very similar to a practice that Seneca had. As soon as Zweig arrived in a new city—no matter how distant—he would pretend that he’d just moved there and desperately needed a job. He would go from store to store, checking to see if they were hiring. He’d read the help wanted ads in the newspaper. He would often go all the way through the hiring process until he got an offer. Offer in hand, he would then walk out and enjoy his trip, feeling the pride and comfort of knowing he could handle starting from scratch if he had to. Seneca’s version of this was to practice poverty once per month. He’d wear his worst clothes and eat the cheapest food. He’d sleep on the ground. The point was to get up close and personal with the thing most of us secretly and subconsciously fear: losing everything. Being poor. Having nothing. There is immense value in these practices. For fears that we have faced are less scary than those we can only speculate about. Uncertainties we have practiced are more confidently endured when they come to pass. The less unfamiliar misfortune is, the less power it will have over us. That’s what premeditatio malorum is about. That’s why we must, as Seneca said, keep all the terms of the human lot before our mind—exile, war, torture, grief, pain. Because they happen. They did happen to Zweig, who had his possessions and his livelihood stolen by the Nazis (and yet managed to do some of his best writing in exile). We must be ready. We must know the fear, so that we may not be afraid when the worst finally comes. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

There was time to kill in Rome, just as there is today. A dinner started late. A meeting got cancelled. Travel delays meant being stuck in this place or that place for a couple days. Something would break and someone would need to go into town for supplies. The impulse then, as now, when faced with these kinds of situations, was to just wait. Or complain. Or mess around. We all do it, writing stuff off as dead time, as we’ve talked about before. It’s a rather presumptuous thing to do, though, if you think about it. We kill time as time is literally killing us. Who says you’ll get more moments? Can you really afford to let any be wasted?Cato the Elder was built of that sturdy, original Roman stock. He didn’t put up with laziness or poor productivity. He didn’t tolerate it from his workers or his family or himself. As he wrote in On Agriculture, there is no excuse for just sitting around. =“In rainy weather,” Cato advised, “try to find something to do indoors. Clean up, rather than be idle. Remember that even though work stops, expenses run on nonetheless.” We can always find something to do, even when our original intention or plan is thwarted (that’s what the obstacle is the way means). We can read. We can think. We can clean up and prepare. We can squeeze in a few minutes of work while we sit in the waiting room. We can turn a rainy day into a family day. There is always something to do. You can’t afford for there not to be.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Marcus Aurelius talked a lot about fame. He called it a worthless clacking of tongues and liked to point out things like how few people remember the emperors who preceded him, or how the generations to come will be the same annoying people he knows now. It’s easy to picture him writing these things in times where he caught himself falling for the allure of fame, of power, of how history might remember him. Don’t we all fall for it? It is alluring. But if we’re honest with ourselves, it isn’t the fame we really want. it’s the validation that our lives are meaningful. Praise, recognition, millions of followers on Instagram, we think, are proof that we matter. And until we get those things, we’re not always so sure we do.Emily Esfahani Smith wrote an amazing piece in the New York Times, titled “You’ll Never Be Famous — And That’s O.K.”. Reminding us of Marcus in the way Emily too said that fame is a foolish pursuit and not where meaning lies, we reached out to her for an interview. We asked Emily for advice on finding meaning—and how Stoicism can help us get there. She shared the opinion of the 20th-century psychologist Erik Erikson, who said that a flourishing, meaningful life is one of “generativity”: “When we’re young, we’re supposed to figure out who we are and what our purpose is. As we get older, we’re supposed to shift the focus from ourselves to others and be ‘generative.’ That is, we’re supposed to give back, especially to younger generations, by doing things like raising children, mentoring colleagues, creating things of value for our community or society at large, volunteering, etc. We each have the power to be generative. Fame and glamour are about the self—aggrandizing yourself. But generativity is about connecting and contributing to something bigger, which is the very definition of leading a meaningful life.”It’s the Rick Warren line, “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.” There’s that silly thing that floats around the internet from time to time about how few people can name a gold medalist from the last Winter Olympics, but everyone can name that third grade teacher, that childhood neighbor, who changed your life. It’s the people we touch singularly. That’s the real test. That’s where you make your mark. Let that be today’s great and simple pursuit: positively impact one person’s day. That’s it. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

There are many different vices out there. It’s long been a debate amongst priests and philosophers if some are worse than others, or if they are all created equal. Even amongst the Stoics there was some debate—were all sins the same? Was being or doing wrong a matter of degree, or was it black and white?It’s one of those things that vexes philosophers but is obvious to normal people. Of course some vices are worse than others. Of course there is a grey area! Welcome to life, genius. Seneca eventually concurred. As he writes in Of Anger, anger must rank fairly high on the list of vices because it has so few redeeming qualities. “It’s a worse sin than luxury,” he says, “since that is enjoyed by personal pleasure, whereas anger takes joy in another’s pain.” Malice and envy are similar, he said, because they are about wanting other people to be unhappy, not just yourself. Anger and envy are about inflicting harm on others, not just on oneself. Point being: It’s better to be a little bit Epicurean (that is, to enjoy some pleasure) than it is to be an asshole. If you’re going to sin or give in to vice, make sure it only ruins your life. Make sure it’s something internal, not something like anger—which inevitably makes itself felt by the people around you. To sin, to fall short, is one thing. To punish innocent people? Well, that’s even worse.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ryan describes how a Stoic can deal with bad news—and not just move past it, but use it to fuel their success.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ryan talks about the new Daily Stoic offices, reads a selection from The Obstacle is the Way, and answers your questions.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Courage. Temperance. Justice. These are the critical virtues of life. But what situations call for courage? What is the right amount? What is the right thing? This is where the final and essential virtue comes in: Wisdom. The knowing. The learning. The experience required to navigate the world. Wisdom has always been prized by the Stoics. Zeno said that we were given two ears and one mouth for a reason: to listen more than we talk. And since we have two eyes, we are obligated to read and observe more than we talk as well. It is key today, as it was in the ancient world, to be able to distinguish between the vast aggregations of information that lay out there at your disposal—and the actual wisdom that you need to live a good life. It’s key that we study, that we keep our minds open always. You cannot learn that which you think you already know, Epictetus said. It’s true. Which is why we need to not only be humble students but also seek out great teachers. It’s why we should always be reading. It’s why we cannot stop training. It’s why we have to be diligent in filtering out the signal from the noise. Our goal is not just to acquire information, but the right kind of information. It’s the lessons found in Meditations, in everything from the actual Epictetus to James Stockdale entering the world of Epictetus. It’s the key facts, standing out from the background noise, that you need to absorb.Thousands of years of blazing insight are available to the world. It is likely that you have the power to learn anything you want at your fingertips. So today, honor the Stoic virtue of wisdom by slowing down, being deliberate, and finding the wisdom you need.Two eyes, two ears, one mouth. Remain a student. Act accordingly—and wisely. —Keep the four Stoic virtues in mind—courage, temperance, justice, and wisdom. The fact is, they are all important, and you can’t neglect any one of them in trying to live virtuously. Study how best to embody each one as is called for, and you’ll be making good progress. When you find yourself wondering what the right course of action is, pick the options that are most in accordance with the virtuous path they mark. It’s how you live successfully and happily.P.S. The Daily Stoic has released our Four Virtues Medallion—on the front, a seal depicting each of the Four Virtues; on the back, a reminder to always rely on them. Check it out here.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Being brave. Finding the right balance. These are core Stoic virtues, but in their seriousness, they pale in comparison to what the Stoics worshipped most highly: Doing the right thing. There is no Stoic virtue more important than justice, because it influences all the others. Marcus Aurelius himself said that justice is “the source of all the other virtues.” Stoics throughout history have pushed and advocated for justice, oftentimes at great personal risk and with great courage, in order to do great things and defend the people and ideas that they loved. Cato gave his life trying to restore the Roman Republic.And Thrasea and Agrippinus gave theirs resisting the tyranny of Nero.George Washington and Thomas Jefferson formed a new nation—one which would seek, however imperfectly, to fight for democracy and justice—largely inspired by the philosophy of Cato and those other Stoics.Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a translator of Epictetus, led a black regiment of troops in the US Civil War.Beatrice Webb, who helped to found the London School of Economics and who first conceptualized the idea of collective bargaining, regularly re-read Marcus Aurelius.Countless other activists and politicians have turned to Stoicism to gird them against the difficulty of fighting for ideals that mattered, to guide them towards what was right in a world of so much wrong. A Stoic must deeply believe that an individual can make a difference. Successful activism and political maneuvering require understanding and strategy, as well as realism… and hope. It requires wisdom, acceptance and also a refusal to accept the statue quo. It was James Baldwin who most brilliantly captured this tension in Notes of a Native Son:It began to seem that one would have to hold in mind forever two ideas which seemed to be in opposition. The first idea was acceptance, the acceptance, totally without rancor, of life as it is, and men as they are: in light of this idea it goes without saying that injustice is commonplace. But this did not mean that one could be complacent, for the second idea was of equal power: that one must never, in one’s own life, accept these injustices as commonplace but one must fight them with all one’s strength.A Stoic sees the world clearly...but also sees clearly what the world can be. And then they are brave, and strategic enough to help bring it into reality. Check out the Daily Stoic’s new Four Virtues Medallion here.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Yesterday we discussed the Four Virtues, and talked about the primacy of courage. Of course, life is not so simple as to say that courage is all the counts. While everyone would admit that courage is essential, we are also all well aware of people whose bravery turns to recklessness and becomes a fault when they begin to endanger themselves and others. This is where Aristotle comes in. Aristotle actually used courage as the main example in his famous metaphor of a “Golden Mean.” On one end of the spectrum, he said, there was cowardice—that’s a deficiency of courage. On the other, there was recklessness—too much courage. What was called for, what we required then, was a golden mean. The right amount.That’s what Temperance or moderation is about: Doing nothing in excess. Doing the right thing in the right amount in the right way. In Marguerite Yourcenar’s Memoirs of Hadrian, the emperor Hadrian writes to Marcus Aurelius that “overeating is a Roman vice.” He explains that far too many of his fellow citizens “poison themselves with spice” and drown their plates in rich sauces. The result? They overwhelm their palates—and themselves. By succumbing to excess, they lose the ability to appreciate things and throw themselves off keel.To Hadrian, simple pleasures were better. He tells Marcus that “moderation has always been my delight.” And not just when it comes to dinner. Fitness, being in good fighting form to face the challenges of each day, was critical, yet working out to the point of fanaticism was a step too far. That means refraining from both indolence and overexertion, cutting the middle course between the two poles to find that Golden Mean where one is neither over nor underprepared, but simply ready. So today and every day, remember the Stoic admonition to find the middle ground. Do not adhere to one extreme or the other; make temperance your goal in every part of your life, and your future self will thank you for it.The Daily Stoic has just released our Four Virtues Medallion, featuring temperance, courage, justice, and wisdom. Everything we face in life is an opportunity to respond with these four traits. Learn more here.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.