The Daily Stoic

In the Book of Matthew, we are told of the parable of the talents. Three servants are left sums of money (talents) by their master. The first, who the master believed was most able, doubled his five talents into ten. The second was given two and used it to earn two more. The third was more cautious and less ambitious, and simply buried his in the ground. When the master came back, he was able to return the money, but he had not managed to produce anything from it. As you might expect, the master was quite pleased with the labors of his first two servants and rewarded them accordingly. But with the conservative and cautious one, he was quite upset. Why hadn’t he invested the money? Even the return from a banker would have been better than burying it. So he punished the servant and uttered, in the process, two of the most famous sentences in the Bible: “For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”The lesson that scholars and priests have taken ever since: That we are obligated to make use of the gifts we have been given by God, or by nature--whichever you prefer. It’s almost fitting that “talent” was the name for an amount of money because that’s what the parable is about: about using our talents in this life. Now here’s where this ties into Stoicism. Although we don’t know when the parable dates to, or whether it was even real, St. Matthew and Seneca were born around the same time and died roughly ten years apart. Jesus and Seneca were said to be born in the same year, and died in very similar circumstances. Of the three, Seneca was given the greatest gifts and talents. His father was quite wealthy. He was born with a brilliant mind. By all accounts, he worked very hard to make the most of these gifts, and multiplied them many times over. In short, he lived up not just to the lesson in the parable of talents, but to his own advice, as well. As he wrote in Letter XIV:“We should play the part of the careful householder; we should increase what we have inherited.” Yes, we should. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You’ve probably caught yourself doing it. Life has been rough or depressing, but your social media feed looks awesome. Someone asks how much money you make or how sales on your project were, and you round up quite a bit. Or maybe you’re similarly generous when you talk about your sexual conquests, or commensurately stingy with your weight. Obviously this sort of deceit is not a good thing and we should all try to stop doing it. But what’s interesting is how, when we compare ourselves to other people, we rarely stop to consider that they are probably lying too. You think those Instagram influencers actually live like their photos look? You think it’s not in their financial interest to make their career seem more lucrative and stable than it actually is? And yet, there we are, feeling envious or insecure. You think it’s good business for your competitors to talk about how much trouble they’re having lately? You think that athletes and CEOs are actually working that grinding schedule they talk so much about? That it’s not just basic mythmaking or a way of psyching out the competition? You think that artist or actor in the middle of a whirlwind press junket is going to admit that they’re not happy? Or shoot down the wildly inflated rumors of how much they got paid? Of course not!Marcus Aurelius talked about how even though we are all selfish people, we seem to care about other people’s opinions more than our own. We know that we are prone to exaggeration and posturing, but we seem to have a blindspot for the fact that everyone else is doing this too. It’s like the Missile Gap that John F. Kennedy campaigned on. He just couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that the Soviets were lying, that their system was falling apart and they weren’t ahead of the US, but were laughably behind!We’d all do better and be happier if we realized that this kind of deceit is incredibly common. Everyone is lying—about what they make, about how confident they feel, about how hard they work, about how well things are going. Stop comparing yourself to these lies. Stop thinking about them at all. Focus on your own truth. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Stoics were not unacquainted with awful people. They saw tyrants. They saw cheats. They saw toxic egomaniacs and insatiable ambitions. And what was their reaction to most of these people?Aside from a general wariness and a desire not to be corrupted by them, mostly the Stoics pitied these types. Certainly this is how Marcus Aurelius wrote about someone like Alexander the Great. He almost seemed sad for him. Like, dude, how did you think this was going to end? Did you think conquering the world was going to make you happy? Did you actually think that fame and glory would fill that hole in your soul?There is a wonderful encapsulation of this attitude in the 1941 novel What Makes Sammy Run? by Budd Schulberg (who, if his later novels are any indication, was familiar with Marcus’s writing). In Sammy, the screenwriter Kit questions the anger and animus directed at Sammy Glick, a hopelessly ambitious producer who constantly hurts and betrays everyone he works with in the pursuit of his goals. Speaking of how they might react to someone with polio, she says:“We’re sorry for him because a germ he didn’t have anything to do with got inside him and twisted him out of shape. Maybe we ought to feel the same way about guys with twisted egos.” Which is a remarkably wise and philosophical attitude. Egomaniacs don’t make it easy for us to pity them. Neither do tyrants or cheats. Especially when their success comes at our expense. But the truth is, they can’t help themselves. And it’s not any fun to be them. Not at all. P.S. Ego Is The Enemy by Ryan Holiday is $.99 on Amazon right now for a very limited time. If you want to check it out, or give it as a gift, it’ll never be cheaper than that.And along with the Amazon discount, you can get $6 off our Ego Is The Enemy medallion with the code “EGOCOIN” AND $10 off Ego Is The Enemy print with the code “EGOPRINT” at checkout in the Daily Stoic store. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In 2006, Benjamin Mee bought a zoo. Literally a zoo. It was broken down and in desperate need of a caring owner. Mee and his family were struggling too. Things hadn’t been going well for them either. But in one scene—immortalized by Matt Damon in the movie version of the story—Mee explains to his son that our lives are defined by the moments when we put ourselves out there. When we take a risk that, if we had thought about too much or been too deliberate about, we’d never have been capable of taking.“You know,” he said, “sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage. Just literally twenty seconds of just embarrassing bravery. And I promise you, something great will come of it.”This idea of breaking courage down—the most important of the virtues to the Stoics—into little pieces is a very good one. A person isn’t brave, generally. We can only be brave, specifically. In the moment. This is as true for you or me or Benjamin Mee’s son as it is for the hardest, most decorated soldiers who have ever served in the military.The two highest honors in the U.S. military are the Medal of Honor and the Distinguished Service Cross. The criteria for being worthy of either of these medals is virtually identical, but what distinguishes the former from the latter is this phrase in the description: “for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of life above and beyond the call of duty.” And if you read the citations for many Medal of Honor recipients, particularly in more recent conflicts, they are choked with heroism and selflessness like those for Distinguished Service Cross recipients, but the moment in the action that changes everything, that rises to the level of gallantry and intrepidity, is almost always just a moment. It’s not the fighting off of 12 insurgents for 5 hours— it’s the sprinting across an open plain for 20 seconds, exposed to enemy gunfire on three sides, to come to the aid of a fallen comrade, while you fight. Just literally twenty seconds of insane, embarrassing bravery. That’s what courage is. Marcus Aurelius wrote that we shouldn’t be intimidated by life as a whole. We should just look at what’s immediately in front of us. Assemble yourself step by step, he said, no one can stop you from that. That’s the brilliance of this twenty seconds of insane courage too. Even your own fears and your own weaknesses take longer than that to kick in. Think about that today as you consider whether to get up and approach that attractive person across the room. As you’re mulling over that big decision. As you’re questioning whether you should speak up or just go along with something you disagree with. Don’t get intimidated by all of it as a whole. Just take that single step. Give yourself a few seconds of courage. Something great will come of it. Promise.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It’s very easy to get comfortable. To build up your life exactly how you want it to be. Minimize inconveniences and hand off the stuff you don’t like to do. To find what you enjoy, where you enjoy it, and never leave. A velvet rut, is what it’s called. It’s nice, but the comfort tricks you into thinking that you’re not stuck. The Stoics knew that this was a kind of death. That as soon as we stop growing, we start dying. Or at least, we become more vulnerable to the swings of Fate and Fortune. Seneca talked over and over again about the importance of adversity, of not only embracing the struggle life throws at us but actively seeking out that difficulty, so you can be stronger and better and more prepared. A person who has never been challenged, he said, who always gets their way, is a tragic figure. They have no idea what they are capable of. They are not even close to fulfilling their potential. So that leaves you with something to think about today: Are you challenging yourself? Do the choices you make push you or do they help you atrophy? Are you in a velvet rut?Be honest. And then challenge yourself to do better.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The fact that America exists is the ultimate argument that Stoicism is not apathy and that philosophy is not mere theory. Because without Stoicism, it’s possible there would have been no revolution, no Constitution, no Bill of Rights and no Fourth of July. Thomas Jefferson kept a copy of Seneca on his nightstand. George Washington staged a reproduction of a play about Cato at Valley Forge in the winter of ‘77/’78 to inspire the troops (having first read the Stoics as a teenager). Patrick Henry cribbed lines from that same play which we now credit to him: “Give me Liberty or give me death!” John Adams, Ben Franklin—almost all the founders were well-versed in the works of the Stoics. It’s partly what gave them the courage to found a new nation against such incredible odds, and it’s partly what set up the principles that formed that nation and changed the world. At the core of the American experiment was liberty. At the core of Stoicism we have not only a love of freedom, but the counterbalancing virtues to that freedom: Justice. Duty. Self-Control. Honor. Selflessness. These are the traits that were required not only in those dark days of revolution, as bloody footprints from starving soldiers marked the snows in New Jersey and New York, but also the traits needed equally now in moments of prosperity and plenty, division and distraction.So today, while you’re grilling and relaxing with friends, remember that the comfort you enjoy now grew out of a philosophy that was made to embrace discomfort and to do the right thing, whatever the costs. Remember that the American victory over the British came first because a group of American Stoics first found victory over themselves. Because for all their Stoic resignation, these men and women also deeply believed in their own agency and their own power. Seneca said, “Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.” The Founding Fathers built a country on that very foundation. They employed the Stoic virtues like a hammer and chisel, like saw and nail, to master their passions, divisions, tempers, interests and strive to be something better—something more—than they were remotely capable of being in the years of their colonial youth.That wasn’t easy. It wasn’t free. But they embraced the challenge and challenge us, today, to do the same. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Unlike so many of the other philosophical schools, the Stoics were doers. The Epicureans might have been content to play in their gardens and the Cynics might have believed that most of the obligations of society were a scam, but the Stoics were responsible and public-minded. Marcus Aurelius lead the empire. Seneca was a writer and a political advisor and he ran the many estates his family owned. These were busy people. But they also understood the importance of work-life balance, and were early practitioners of what the author Greg McKeown calls essentialism. They worked hard, but they knew it was impossible and self-defeating to try to do it all. As Seneca wrote: “We will benefit from that helpful precept of Democritus, showing us that tranquility lies in not undertaking tasks, either in public or private, that are either numerous or greater than our resources.”Each of us needs to take the time to set our priorities straight and to understand our limits. What’s the most important thing in our lives? What’s the next most important thing? What are we going to say no to so we can focus on those things? What are we going to say no to (or yes to) in order to protect our personal happiness and peace? The key isn’t to always do more, more, more, but sometimes to do less so that we can do more of what we care most about.P.S. “If you seek tranquillity, do less. Or (more accurately) do what’s essential,” Marcus said. We set up the Daily Stoic Freedom Challenge to help you do just that—21 actionable challenges to help you do less and do it better. Learn more and sign up here!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

If you were to run down the list of the great Stoics of history, who would come to mind?Seneca. Marcus Aurelius. Epictetus. Maybe if you really knew your stuff, you’d mention Zeno or Cleanthes or Chrysippus. What do all those people have in common? They were all men. In fact, you really have to look—and stretch—to come up with even one or two “accepted” female Stoics. Does this mean that Stoicism is just for men? Or that it’s been entirely composed of men for the last twenty five hundred years? Do you think Seneca and Marcus Aurelius and the male Stoics had a monopoly on suffering? On courage? On mastering emotions? On being disappointed? Of having to make due with an imperfect world? No. Not at all. It’s an omission that needs to be addressed. When the biographer Robert Caro was researching what life in Texas was like in the late 19th and early 20th century, he and his wife were appalled by what they found. Just how primitive and tough things were. Most of all, how much backbreaking work was expected of women—doing loads of laundry by hand, carrying endless amounts of water, cooking so much food in such incredible heat, fear of Native Americans, the terrible loneliness and isolation. After speaking to one woman, his wife, Ena, finally said, “I don’t ever want to see another John Wayne movie again.” She was just disgusted at how much of the picture had been left out by historians and writers. Robert Caro would write later about how much this experience opened his eyes: “You hear a lot about gunfights in Westerns; you don’t hear so much about hauling the water after a perineal tear.” Women have had to deal with trials like these as much as, if not more than, the famous Stoics we read and talk about so much here. Certainly, they had to put up with being underappreciated, misunderstood, taken for granted, and being deprived of many critical rights. They did all that on top of having to give birth…and know that they might well die going into it. The fact that they did this, along with countless other sacrifices and daily obligations, and did so bravely and patiently for so long is proof that they are true Stoics. And not only do they deserve our respect for it—but they have a thing or two to teach everyone else about what focusing only on what you can control really looks like.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Twice, Seneca was exiled. Twice, he basically lost everything. Money. Access. Influence. It all went away, like *that.* How did he handle it? The first time, not so well. We can read the thou-dost-protest-too-much letter he wrote to his mother...and we can see what he was willing to do in order to be recalled. By Stoic standards, it wasn’t pretty. The second time, he did a little better—as long as he could be free from Nero, the exile was worth the loss. And when he was approached by Nero’s executioner, he responded, finally, with courage and strength. Only then were the man and his philosophy aligned. “It is a vast kingdom to be able to cope without a kingdom,” Seneca wrote in his play, Thyestes. This was no mere word play. This was hard-won wisdom. Seneca really did know of what he spoke. He really did learn how to break free of the hold that material things and status had over him. And in it, he found both great power and, eventually, immortality. Another fellow traveler in Stoicism was the slave-turned-philosopher Publilius Syrus. “If you are to have a great kingdom,” he said, “rule over yourself!” That’s what we should think about today. Real power can’t be taken away—not by the economy or by an election or by anything else. A populist surfs on the moods of the crowd, but a philosopher—a person worthy of our respect—rests on principles. They can hate you, they can send you away, they can mock you or even kill you, but no one can take away those principles. No one can stop you from ruling over yourself. It’s the best and the biggest and the strongest kingdom there is. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

King George IV was a notorious glutton. His breakfast supposedly consisted of two pigeons, three steaks, a near full bottle of wine, and a glass of brandy. In time, he grew so fat he could no longer sleep laying down, or the weight of his own chest might asphyxiate him. The gout in his hands made it difficult to sign documents — he eventually had his attendants make a stamp of his signature to use instead. Still, he managed to father several illegitimate children while generally neglecting the business of being a king. King George was the type of person who apparently believed that he was exempt from the rules of health and humankind. That his body could and would endure unlimited abuse without consequence. Indeed, his last words, when years of bad habits and lethargy finally caught up with him at 3:30am in 1860, were:“Good God, what is this?” Then he realized what it was. “My boy,” he said as he grasped the hand of a page, “this is death.” It was almost as if he was surprised to find out that he was mortal...and that treating his body like a garbage can for four decades had only hastened his fate. While the Stoics practiced the art of memento mori—and knew that death was something that could randomly visit anyone, at any time—they still took pains to maintain their health. Marcus Aurelius’s doctor was Galen, one of the most famous physicians of antiquity, and presumably Marcus didn’t keep him around to shorten his life. No, he wanted to survive and be as healthy and strong as possible while he was alive. Seneca, for his part, flirted with vegetarianism, and his letters are filled with mentions of various cures he was seeking for his health. The sports metaphors in Epictetus and Marcus’s work also hint at the idea of active, strenuous lives. Health is wealth. Taking care of yourself is important. What good can you do in this world if you feel like shit all the time? Or if you lack the physical and moral strength—or in George’s case, even the basic mobility—to be of good to anyone? We are on this planet for a short amount of time. But if we practice bad habits, if we let our urges run wild, we will surely shorten that time. That’s not Stoic, that’s stupid. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When we hear about an athlete who was doubted and kicked around, or an entrepreneur who ends up buying the previously dominant company that once spurned them, we assume anger must have been the fuel that powered their comeback. When we hear about someone who spent years working in secret to right some long forgotten wrong, we think, “Oh that person must have been really angry.”Think about the case of Peter Thiel, who spent ten years conspiring to take down the powerful gossip outlet, Gawker Media, after they outed him as gay. The knee jerk take from most critics, then and now, is that he should have let it go—that it’s not healthy to be that mad about anything.But what if anger wasn’t the only fuel out there?In his powerful essay, On Anger, Seneca pushes back on this idea that getting even requires getting mad:“‘Does a good man not get angry? Even if he watches his father get killed or his mother raped?’ He won’t get angry, but he’ll avenge them or he’ll protect them. Why are you afraid that duty alone, without anger’s help, will be too little motivation for him?…The good man will carry out his duties without fear or turmoil; he’ll act in a manner worthy of a good man, such that he’ll avoid doing nothing unworthy of a man. My father is being killed; I’ll defend him. He has been killed; I’ll avenge him—but because it’s right, not because I’m grieved…”This is essentially the argument in Conspiracy: A True Story of Power, Sex, and a Billionaire’s Secret Plot to Destroy a Media Empire (out today in paperback), which draws not only on Peter Thiel’s conspiracy but many historical and Stoic-driven conspiracies, like the plot to kill Julius Caesar and the failed Piso-conspiracy which ultimately cost Seneca his life.Indeed, there is a rich history of Stoics plotting to overthrow tyrants and other evil-doers. Did they do this out of anger? Or was it, at least in their eyes, the pursuit of one of their most revered virtues? Justice.Seneca said that we must pursue what is right—which might occasionally involve punishment or vengeance—calmly and rationally. That it was ok to plot and scheme for the right aims, provided it was done “judiciously and with foresight, not driven and raging.”This is a controversial argument, of course, and not everyone will agree. But it’s worth thinking about and it’s worth understanding. Because life isn’t all sunshine and kittens. It’s not Plato’s Republic, as Marcus Aurelius reminds us. People do bad things. Organizations do evil. We will be doubted or held back. And that will require a response—from us—if it’s going to be overcome.What is not controversial is that anger is not how to respond. But rather, with creativity, cunning, determination, courage and strategy. So study the greats, learn their lessons, good and bad.P.S. Ryan Holiday’s book Conspiracy: A True Story of Power, Sex, and a Billionaire’s Secret Plot to Destroy A Media Empire is out in paperback today. The New York Times called it “one helluva pageturner” so if you’re looking for something to read this summer, give it a look. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

William Alexander Percy, the uncle of the great writer Walker Percy, and one of the last Southern Stoics, was a famous host. His mansion in Greenville, Mississippi welcomed many guests, including Robert Wright, Langston Hughes, and William Faulkner. He traveled widely, too, visiting Greece, Samoa, and Paris, and spent time in Belgium fighting in WWI. Will Percy loved to playfully and honestly interrogate the people he met with deep but shapeless questions that forced their recipients to really think. Questions like “What do you love?” or “What do you live by?” This was Will’s way of searching—to understand other people, to understand the world around him and, one can assume, to understand himself. These questions made a very deep impression on his young nephew, Walker, particularly when Will adopted him and his younger brothers after their mother’s death. Indeed, in Walker’s famous novel The Moviegoer, he has the wisest character of the book—based on Will—ask:What do you love? What do you live by? What do you think is the purpose of life?In a way, answers to these three questions are the essential quest of Stoicism too. It’s what Zeno began asking when he washed up in Athens after his shipwreck. It’s what Epictetus was prodding his students to think about and trying to answer with his responses. It’s what Marcus Aurelius was journaling about over and over again from every angle. And it’s what we should be thinking about and asking today. To other people sure, but mostly to ourselves. Because no one is going to magically explain these things to us. They can only show us the world, and help us see it. The rest we have to figure out on our own. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

People do a lot of things that feel mean. That frustrate us. That cause problems for us. That make the world a worse place. They vote for bad politicians. They say offensive things. They make messes. They screw stuff up.Naturally, our first instinct is to get upset about this. To want to confront the perpetrators about it. To hold them fully accountable for the consequences of their behavior. But it’s worth stepping back and asking yourself first, are they really fully accountable?Consider, for instance, Hanlon’s Razor--the idea that one should “never attribute to malice what can easily be attributed to stupidity.” Meaning that most of the bad things people do are not done out of evil...but simple incompetence. Not everyone is as well-educated as you, not everyone was raised to be responsible like you were, not everyone is as talented as you, and it is in this gap that you can find the explanations to most errors, most bad driving, most of the litter you see on the street, and most of the wrongs you feel have been done to you. Remember, this is what Marcus was trying to say in the famous opening passage of Meditations. Yes, we will bump into obnoxious, self-centered, and rude people today. But it’s not because they’re bad or worth less than we are. It’s because they don’t yet know any better. Because they have been left behind and deprived. And if we can remember this, we won’t be so angered by it and it won’t ruin our day. It’s going to take all our patience and preparation to hold onto this, but it will be worth it. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We live in the freest time in the freest places in the history of the world. Yet many of us feel far from free. We are slaves to vices and devices, to our schedules and our poor self-talk. We’re reactive. We look at the world through the lens of other people’s vision for success, often in things we have no interest in. We are chained down in a prison of our own making and it’s high time for us to break out, to break free.But how? The answer comes from Marcus Aurelius and the fact that it came from such a busy man with so many obligations and responsibilities should not be forgotten:If you seek tranquillity, do less. Or (more accurately) do what’s essential – what the logos of a social being requires, and in the requisite way. Which brings a double satisfaction: to do less, better.Because most of what we say and do is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you‘ll have more time, and more tranquillity. Ask yourself at every moment, ‘Is this necessary?’This, Marcus said, was the simple recipe for improvement, for happiness, for freedom. Simple, but of course, not easy. Which is why we’ve set up an awesome, transformative 21-day challenge to help you do less and do it better. The Daily Stoic Freedom Challenge will help you earn freedom from:-Minor decisions-Inner turmoil-Bad habits-Wasting time-Complaining-Distraction-Grudges-Smartphone addictionWe’re going to break down your days and rebuild them for freedom. To maximize your impact and bring you closer to living your best life.“The challenge is the best investment I’ve made for myself so far this year.”- Eric Hokanson. Past participant.Participants will get:✓ 21 Custom Challenges Delivered Daily (Over 25,000 words of all new original content)✓ 21 Custom Video Messages From Bestselling Author Ryan Holiday✓ Printable 21-Day Calendar With custom daily illustrations to track progress✓ Group Slack Channel For Accountability and Community✓ Day 21 Wrap-Up Live Webinar With Bestselling Author Ryan HolidaySo much of what we think we must do, so much of what we end up doing is not essential. We do it out of habit. We do it out of guilt. We do it out of laziness or we do it out of greedy ambition. And then we wonder why our performance suffers. We wonder why our heart isn’t really in it.If you could do less inessential stuff, you’d be able to better do what is essential. The Daily Stoic Freedom Challenge will help you rip off the chains of obligation to things that are inessential and bring a sense of tranquility and purpose to your life. You’ll get a taste of that tranquillity that Marcus was talking about. A double satisfaction.[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.

Really what the Stoics were trying to do is pare down what they had to worry about. That’s why Epictetus said our first job was just to determine what was in our control and what isn’t—because that eliminates an enormous chunk of concern from our concern. Suddenly, we don’t need to think as much about the past or the future. We don’t have to care what people think about us. We don’t need to compare ourselves to anything and anyone.When Rousseau said that man is born free but lives in chains, he knew that most of those chains are self-imposed. But if we can study this philosophy, if we can hold our impressions up to the light and look at them—Does this matter? Is this up to me? Will getting angry or scared make this any better?—we can break free from those shackles.The payoff of this paring down of concerns is freedom. As Epictetus says, the fruit of the philosopher’s work is peace, courage, and above all, liberty. That’s why we’re doing this. So that we can reap the rewards inherent in wisdom.Wisdom—even a tiny bit—is perspective and priorities. And with that is freedom.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Virtue is one of those words that contains multitudes. If you think about it, being virtuous is not doing one thing all the time, or even lots of things all at once. It’s doing all the right things—the important things—in those moments when they matter most. Which is every moment. Day by day, It’s about taking the right actions and holding yourself to the highest standard. Needless to say, that’s really hard. Marcus Aurelius tried to do it all, all the time, but he also knew he was a flawed person. He knew he got overwhelmed (he joked to himself that no one could ever accuse him of being quick-witted). He knew that it was easy to fall short. So he had a little piece of advice for himself about how to stay on the right path. That advice was: Practice the virtues you can show. The public stuff. The stuff that was visible and obvious, that could be illustrated by actions instead of explanation. Virtues like:-honesty-gravity-endurance-austerity-resignation-abstinence-patience-sincerity-moderation-seriousness-high-mindednessThis is a good rule for us today. Yes, we want to be virtuous. We want to do it all. But why don’t we just start with doing the right things right now—with what we can show?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In Richard III and in Othello, Shakespeare has two different characters utter the same line. Both Iago and a nameless orphan say, “I cannot think it.”In both cases, the news they are faced with—the conclusion they are being asked to accept—is simply too much. The Shakespearean scholar, Richard Greenblatt, calls this phrase a kind of motto for those who can’t wrap their mind around perfidy. He’s not being condescending, for it’s a very common experience. Our naivete, our willingness to assume the best about others, leaves us open to betrayal and disillusionment.Which is why the Stoics spend so much time on this very topic. Marcus, for his part, opens Meditations with some musing on the reality of the types of people he’s going to meet in the days to come. But later in Meditations, he speaks about the kind of behavior you see in the boxing ring—gauging, headbutting, and low blows. We see this all the time in the sports world, as a matter of fact. NFL linemen who grease up their jersey so they can’t be grabbed. In NASCAR, they love to say “rubbin’ is racin’.” And then there’s the old saying, “if you’re not cheating, you’re not trying hard enough.”You have to anticipate this kind of behavior, Marcus says, you can’t take it personally. He talks about the inevitability of bumping up against shameless people and how to handle it. He spends time putting himself inside the minds of tyrants, robbers, and perverts—again, because these types exist and we must not be surprised or abused by them.When Seneca was sentenced to death by Nero, his family and friends began wailing in shock and horror. But Seneca was calm. “Who knew not Nero’s cruelty,” he told them. We can’t be surprised by this. Indeed, it was a brave and rational response—the only shame is that Seneca couldn’t have seen this coming earlier. If he had, perhaps he could have stopped the tyrant before he hurt so many people.The point being: This is not a philosophy for the weak or the cowardly. Stoicism is about facing the truth, about thinking about the unthinkable. Not just as it’s happening, but long before. Premeditatio malorum, which we’ve talked a lot about here (and make in coin form as a constant reminder) is the embodiment of that. Keep all the possibilities before you, including—especially—the bad ones. Keep your eyes open. Beware.Think it. Because you might be able to prevent it. And if you can’t, at least you’ll be able to handle the reality of its existence and then respond to it accordingly.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The best way to make sure you are always offended and upset is to be on the lookout for things to be offended by and upset about. The sharper your ears and eyes, the larger your dragnet for information, the more likely you are to find something that pisses you off. And yet this is what most of us do: We have Google Alerts for our names or our businesses. We check our @mentions on Twitter. We ask our friends, “Oh really, what does so-and-so say about me when I’m not around?” We’re like water-diviners with our ability to read tone and body language, able to sense even the slightest sign that we should dig into something. Of course we’re going to be angry! How could we not be?Seneca reminds us: “It is not to your benefit to see and hear everything. Many injuries ought to pass over us; if you ignore them, you get no more injury from them. You want to be less angry? Ask fewer questions.” He would have liked the piece of marriage advice that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has always held close: "In every good marriage, it helps sometimes to be a little deaf." Because true in marriage, true in life: If you want to have less conflict, ask for it less. Forgive more. Stop trying to listen for things you don’t want to hear. 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 certain archetype that is as old as literature and history themselves. One of the first times we see it in the West is with Cassandra in the Greek tragedies. She has the power to see into the future (she prophesied the fall of Troy and the murder of Agamemnon) but no one listens to her. Then we have Demosthenes, whose warnings against the rise of Phillip (Alexander the Great’s father) are so incessant that everyone hates him for it. Later on in Rome, Cato the Elder—Cato’s grandfather—was such a frequent (and ultimately prescient) critic and hawk when it came to Carthage, that he would play the same role. In fact, he would end every speech he gave, no matter the topic, no matter the occasion, with Carthago delenda est (“Carthage must be destroyed”). His grandson, Cato—the towering Stoic—would develop a similar reputation as a kind of obstinate truth-teller, even when it was inconvenient, even when it disturbed the peace, even when it made enemies, even when he was exhausted or knew he would be ignored. In all these cases, people just wanted them to let.it.go. Why do you have to be so annoying? Why can’t you be more strategic? Don’t you see you’re just pissing people off?All of which was legitimate criticism. Perhaps with a bit more tact and better awareness, these important messages could have been heard earlier or more receptively. Cato the Elder and Cato and Demosthenes seemed to almost be trying to alienate people with the way they spoke and hammered their message. But it’s important to understand the distinction between how you say something and how often you say it. Tone is one thing (to always be considered), timing is something else. “Waiting for the right moment.” “Trying to figure out the best way to say it.” “Not wanting to turn people off.” Those are timing issues that, more often than not, we lean on as excuses for avoiding one of the hardest things to do in the world: speaking an unpopular truth. Warning people about a reality they’d rather not deal with. Cicero, a contemporary of Cato (and an admirer of his grandfather), would quote this line of poetry: “Indulgence gets us friendsBut truth gets us hatred.”If we tell ourselves that our main job is to be a good messenger, we risk compromising our message. We end up leaving out important or unpleasant parts of the message, rounding off its sharp edges in the pursuit of fitting in instead of standing out so our message may be heard. We can end up going along to get along...even if the conclusions that come out of that are wrong. But if our job is to tell the truth—no matter what, no matter who it upsets or how unpopular it makes us—and we are committed to doing this as long as we have an ounce of blood in our bodies? Then no pesky considerations or compromises can stop us. And, hopefully, we can wake people up—as Winston Churchill did about Nazism—before it’s too late.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Nietzsche’s classic line was “what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.” It’s a nice sentiment, but is it true? Don’t people who were born with advantages do better in life? Isn’t it better not to suffer setbacks? Why would someone want to experience disadvantages or difficulties?Those questions were answered in a recent paper published by Cornell University. Researchers looked at RO1 grant application for the National Institutes of Health, focusing on individuals who just missed receiving funding (“near-misses”) and individuals who just succeeded in getting funded (“near-winners”). Comparing the two groups over the ten years following first submission, results found that near-misses produced work that garnered substantially higher impacts than their near-win counterparts. Researchers concluded,“For those who persevere, early failure should not be taken as a negative signal—but rather the opposite, in line with Shinya Yamanaka’s advice to young scientists, after winning the Nobel prize for the discovery of iPS cells, ‘I can see any failure as a chance.’”It’s beautiful proof that getting what we want isn’t always what we need. Coming up short, getting stuck, getting passed over—this can be fuel. That’s what Marcus Aurelius was saying when he talked about the impediment to action being an advancement to action, how the obstacle can be the way.There’s another study that shows that college basketball teams down a point or two at half-time were actually more likely to win than the team with the lead. Again, because it made them hungry. The struggles gave them something to prove.In any endeavor—creative, business, or grant proposals—we rarely achieve the result we hope for on our first go. Many great artists, entrepreneurs, and scientists have all admitted some version of Einstein’s, “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.” We must adopt and keep that mindset. We cannot let one obstacle, one “near-miss” turn us off the path. Keep at it. Persist. Resistance is futile. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The occupations of the three most well-known Stoics could not be more different. Seneca was a playwright, a wealthy landowner, and a political advisor. Epictetus was a former slave who became a philosophy teacher. Marcus Aurelius would have loved to be a philosopher but instead found himself wearing the purple cloak of the emperor. Zeno was a prosperous merchant. Cleanthes was a water carrier. Cato was a Senator. The modern Stoics include James Stockdale, a fighter pilot, and Tim Ferriss, a writer and a technology investor.These jobs have very little in common. The lifestyles they support are vastly different as well—so are the opportunities, the temptations, the frustrations and the stresses that they produce. But none of that matters. What matters is how you do your job and how you respond to the situations it creates for you. Marcus Aurelius wrote to himself that it was possible to live a good life anywhere—including in the complicated and intoxicating halls of power. He mostly proved that true. (Sadly, Seneca fell short in those same hallways). It doesn’t matter whether you’re a janitor or a junior senator. It doesn’t matter whether you’re negotiating a multi-million dollar deal or negotiating traffic on the way to your unpaid internship. What matters is what you do with this time. What matters is how you manage it. Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, it’s possible to live a good life and to be a good Stoic. It’s not easy, but it’s possible. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Anne Frank would have celebrated her 90th birthday today. Although her life was cut tragically short, so much of her preternatural wisdom survives to us thanks to her famous, existentially essential diary. In it, we are reminded of the humanity of every individual (and the horrible cost to societies who lose sight of this), and we are inspired—even shamed—by the cheerful perseverance of a child amidst circumstances far worse than any of us could ever know. Page after page, despite the unimaginable terror Anne and her family lived with, we find profound meditations on meaning, happiness, and life. There’s perhaps no better an encapsulation of her spirit and resolve than this passage from one of her final entries:“It’s a wonder I haven’t abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart...I see the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness, I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too, I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more. In the meantime, I must hold on to my ideals.”To the ancient Stoics, no matter the circumstance, no matter how dire or desperate, how straightforward or scary, we must always fall back on one thing: virtue. As Marcus Aurelius reminded himself: “Just that you do the right thing. The rest doesn’t matter.” This was, to him, a recipe for peace and strength in those difficult circumstances. In the darkest of hours, the most trying of times, each of us are tempted to abandon our ideals, our virtues. But if we can have courage, like Anne Frank, to remain steadfast and let virtue guide us, we can always find comfort in knowing that every step we take will be the right one. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It wouldn’t seem like eating well would be an important part of the philosopher’s job, but indeed it is. Antoninus Pius, the adopted stepfather of Marcus Aurelius and one of the quietly great Roman Emperors, kept a simple diet so he could work from dawn to dusk with as few bathroom interruptions as possible—so he could be at the service of the people for longer.In one of his letters, Seneca wrote that the better one eats, the less one needs to exercise, which then frees up valuable time for reading and thinking. Our keen edge, he said, is too often dulled by heavy eating and then wasted further as we drain our life-force in exercise trying to work it off.In the moment, it’s easy to enjoy whatever treat is in front of you—or to grab that extra helping because it’s there. But what we are bad at calculating is what kind of person we’re going to feel like after. It’s like with drinking: it might make you friendlier at first, and then a real monster a few hours later. And the next day? Well then you won’t be good for anything.An Athenian statesman once attended a dinner party put on by Plato. When he met his host again, he is reported to have said “Plato, your dinners are enjoyable not only when one is eating them, but on the morning after as well.” Moderation, discipline, knowing your body—these things are important because they help your mind. They help you as a person, and as a philosopher.This doesn’t mean you must be an ascetic; that you should eat the same thing every day, that it should be stripped of the flavors you enjoy, that you can never indulge, that food can’t both be fuel and fun.But to eat well, is to live well. To eat right, is to live rightly. And that is the goal.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We can think of hardship many ways: As failure. As unfairness. As the end of the conversation. Clearly, this was not meant to be, we can say. They don’t want me to succeed, so what’s the point of trying?Or, we can choose—we can train ourselves—to see it a better way: As grist for the mill. As a chance to learn about endurance, patience, resilience, struggle. As an opportunity to prove our mettle. As a way of learning about people or situations or actions or things.Marcus Aurelius believed in the latter approach. As he wrote: “Our inward power, when it obeys nature, reacts to events by accommodating itself to what it faces—to what is possible. It needs no specific material. It pursues its own aims as circumstances allow; it turns obstacles into fuel. As a fire overwhelms what would have quenched a lamp. What’s thrown on top of the conflagration is absorbed, consumed by it—and makes it burn still higher.”It’s not about accepting hardship then, or resigning ourselves to it. Rather, it’s a matter of agreeing to work with it. To decide to make the most of it. To see hardship as an opportunity, not an obstacle. In this way, we can turn what happens to us into fuel. We can be made better and brighter by everything that happens. P.S. The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday is $1.99 on Amazon right now for a very limited time! If you want to check it out, or give it as a gift, it’ll never be cheaper than that.You can also check out our brand new The Obstacle Is The Way pendant, as well as The Obstacle is the Way medallion which is inspired by the same insights from Marcus Aurelius and is awesome for carrying with you everywhere you go.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Maybe you’re having a difficult time in your relationship. Or work has worn you down. Maybe things have gone exceedingly well in your business and now you’re dealing with opportunities you never thought possible. Or you’re trying to figure out what to do with your life. Or trying to figure out how to help your kid—who has struggled for a long time now—to figure out what to do with their life. These are tough situations. Just a sample of what the days can throw at us...on top of all the things the world likes to throw at us, from economic instability to brutal wars, to snarling traffic and bafflingly incompetent governance. Solving all these problems is probably impossible. Which is why most of us would likely settle for their proper management or at least some amount of pain reduction. The good news is that this stop gap remedy is readily at hand. It’s just a book or a letter or a lecture away. As Seneca writes: “Would you really know what philosophy offers to humanity? Philosophy offers counsel.” For thousands of years, the wisest minds have been offering counsel and wisdom to those who seek it out, those who go forth to look for it. Will you be one of those people? Or will you keep doing things the way you’ve always done them? Will you endure the same trials just hoping one day they will magically change? Will you stick to your own guidance? Or will you let those wise minds help you out?Your problems—our problems—are not new. They are not different. They are the same things humans have always struggled with, just dressed up in modern language and contemporary garb. They fall neatly in the same category that problems have always fallen into (what’s in our control and what isn’t), which means they present the same opportunities that every problem offers (to become better for it...or worse for it), and require the same virtues that all problems require (justice, temperance, wisdom, courage). 2Fortunately, a guide for this gauntlet exists and has for thousands of years: Philosophy. It offers counsel. It offers you help. But only if you avail yourself of it. If you make use of it...and actually listen. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Seneca wasn’t fond of philosophers you could recognize. Not by their fame, but by their uniform. In his time, just as it is in ours, there was a type of person who, in reading about the Diogenes types or the tough Stoic types, thought that philosophy required that they give up their worldly possessions or start dressing like a bum. Today, these types try to signal their virtue by driving a beat up old car or by showing you how little they own. See, they say, I am practicing detachment. See, I don’t want like you want. But these appearances can be deceiving. As Seneca reminds us, “We should not believe the lack of silver and gold to be proof of the simple life.” The simple life is not a matter of externals, it’s about what’s going on inside. Someone can be a billionaire, flying on a private jet, totally at peace, and indifferent to money, just as someone else, much less well-off, might be grinding their teeth in envy and resentment. You can swear off materialism, but if you trade it for public recognition of your superiority and purity, is that really an improvement? Or if you live frugally but obsess over every dollar, miserly extracting as much savings from every situation and interaction, what kind of peace is that? The simple life is defined by its simplicity. By its gratitude. By the ability to enjoy whatever is front of you, whether that’s millions of dollars or a nice chicken sandwich. It’s not a lack of money that we should we be pursuing, but a lack of angst, a lack of need, a lack of resentment, and a lack of insecurity. That’s the simple truth of what wealth is.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 line in the Odyssey (most recently translated by Seneca’s wonderful biographer, Emily Wilson). Odysseus, still early on in his journey home, is speaking with King Alcinous, and telling him of his deeds in the Trojan war. Alcinous remarks that:“The earth sustains all different kinds of people.Many are cheats and thieves, who fashion liesout of thin air."Clearly, Alcinous has been deceived before and knows how to look out for such people. He had a good read on Odysseus and could tell, despite the man’s reputation for cunning and cleverness, he was fundamentally a good and honest person. What’s interesting though is just how similar Alcinous’s remark is to one made by another king, Marcus Aurelius, hundreds of years later.In Meditations, Marcus writes:“When you run up against someone else’s shamelessness, ask yourself this: Is a world without shamelessness possible?No. Then don’t ask the impossible.There have to be shameless people in the world. This is one of them. The same for someone vicious or untrustworthy, or with any other defect. Remembering that the whole world class has to exist will make you more tolerant of its members.”The world is big and filled with all types of people. Some are honest, some are not. Some are good, some are shameless. Might it be better if all were the former and none were the latter? Of course. But that’s not the case. Nor will it ever be.So instead we must learn how to distinguish between the two, so that we may fill our lives with one and insulate it from the other. We must not go around expecting everyone to be perfect or reliable. We must accept that some people—for whatever reason—are destined to fill that undesirable quota of awfulness that the natural order seems to demand.Don’t take it personally. Don’t be surprised. Don’t ask for the impossible. And then, of course, continue to hold yourself to your own high standards, because that’s the class you belong to.P.S. Check out our brand new The Obstacle Is The Way pendant. Our hope is that when you encounter life’s obstacles, you’ll feel the pendant around your neck and remember that each obstacle offers a chance to thrive not just in spite of whatever is in front of you, but because of it!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

If Marcus Aurelius had his choice, he probably never would have been emperor. If he could have chosen how his reign would go, he probably wouldn’t have spent it at war, far from home, either. But that was how life went. Those were the cards he was dealt.What’s remarkable, though, is what he did with those cards, particularly in regards to the last part. Ernest Renan observed that Marcus’s Meditations—one of the most valuable and beautiful books ever created—came about because Marcus was “deprived of the ordinary society of learned men and philosophers” while deep in hostile territory.Marcus wrote in Meditations that “what stands in the way becomes the way.” Really, the quiet scribbling he did in his tent was incredible proof of that idea. If things had gone differently, if he’d been able to enjoy a reign of peace and comfort at home, he may never have written a word. It was only because he was stuck at the front, because he was lonely and desperately needed mental stimulation, that he ended up recording this stunning and unprecedented examination of his own conscience. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t have needed to.This is something that we need to remember when we are stuck somewhere or reckoning with an unpleasant loss of control. First off, that’s life. It doesn’t always go how we want it to go. Second, we have no idea what good might come of this. Even our own recent past can show that sometimes the worst experiences and circumstances can turn out to have been for the best. And third—and most importantly—each one of us possesses the power to actively transform what is in the way into the way.Marcus did it. We can do it, too.Today, we are excited to announce an easy way to keep this important thought in mind. A beautiful sterling silver pendant, a literal and inescapable reminder that “The Obstacle Is The Way.”The front features a great mountain. The back shows Marcus’s enduring words: “The impediment to action advances action, what stands in the way becomes the way.”Our hope is that when you encounter these obstacles you’ll feel the pendant around your neck and remember that each obstacle offers a chance to thrive not just See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Why did Marcus Aurelius write his Meditations? It wasn’t for an audience. It wasn’t simply to practice his Greek or his rhetorical abilities—he was already good at all those things. The book lacks an author’s note and he never seemed to have told anyone about his intentions, so we can’t know for sure. But there are two clues that, when put together, provide an answer as good as any. Have you noticed how much of Meditations is about other people? The opening, “Debts and Lessons,” makes up nearly ten percent of the book. Almost every other page has at least one quote or one story or one mention of a story about somebody else. So when we come across this passage in Book 6, it all suddenly makes sense:“When you need encouragement, think of the qualities the people around you have: this one’s energy, that one’s modesty, another’s generosity, and so on. Nothing is as encouraging as when virtues are visibly embodied in the people around us, when we’re practically showered with them. It’s good to keep this in mind.”Marcus was writing to encourage himself! He was thinking of the qualities of the people around him. He was showering himself in their virtues so that he might be improved by the association. And as far as we can tell, it worked. Because he was a good man, despite facing incredible temptations and pressures. Today, we should follow this example anew. Maybe See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In his twenty-third letter to Lucilius, Seneca opens with some meta snark that is relatable to anyone who has ever been trapped in a banal conversation at a boring cocktail party. “You were probably thinking I was going to open this letter with idle chit chat about the weather,” Seneca begins, “but I’m not, because who has the time?”Certainly not Seneca, who spends the rest of the letter talking about the joy that comes from the study of philosophy and the earnest pursuit of the art of living. Important ideas. None of these trivialities—the weather, ‘what have you been up to lately?,’ ‘how’s your mother?,’ ‘reading anything good?’—that he says are the refuge of people who are “at a loss for topics of conversation.”Topics like philosophy, life, love, death, virtue, fate and fortune. Real stuff.Life is short. You see and speak to your friends rarely enough as it is. New connections, as they happen these days, are rarer still. Let us not fritter that time and opportunity away on banalities. Let us push through the nerves of newness, through the superficialities of introduction or reacquaintance, to greater understanding and deeper connection.The weather. Your mom and dad. Traffic. These are trivialities of conversation designed to create quick, easy connection. To show us that we have something in common despite being strangers or not having seen each other in some time. But we are already connected. We already know these things before we say a word to each other. We are sharing the same space, so we have experienced the same weather. We are humans, so we all have mothers and fathers. We each got to this cocktail party from somewhere else, so we know what it took to get here.These little factoids are what put the trivia in trivialities. They are information, they are not knowledge or insight or wisdom. They are not fake, per se, but they are fruitless. They lack the abundance of the kind of real conversations Seneca had with Lucilius and countless others in his life.So get real. Speak the truth. Ask the uncomfortable questions. Share. You’ll be glad you did.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

There have been all sorts of wonderful technological innovations since Marcus Aurelius’s time, particularly in the domain of writing. We got the printing press. We got typewriters. We got ballpoint pens and erasers and whiteout. We got computers and smartphones. We have emails and tweets and audio memos. Journaling for Marcus wouldn’t have been easy. He needed ink and some sort of pen-like implement, and he had to write on fragile parchment. The supplies weren’t cheap. He needed to do everything by hand. We might think we are superior for all our fancy tools and real-time digital backups and copy and paste. But are we? In a recent interview, Walter Isaacson pointed out just how well paper has held up over the centuries: “Paper’s not a bad technology. It is really a good technology for the storage and retrieval of information. After 500 years, we still can turn the pages of Leonardo’s notebooks. From the 1990s, Steve Jobs had some memos on a NeXT Computer in his house. Even with his tech [abilities], we couldn’t retrieve that, because the NeXT operating system no longer can retrieve the documents that well. So every now and then, one of the lessons I learned is take notes on paper in a notebook. They’ll be around 50 years for ...your grandchildren or great-grandchildren. They’ll be around maybe 500 years.”It is remarkable that the simple letters that Seneca penned by hand to a friend survive to us today and remain best read in print. It’s incredible to think that Marcus Aurelius’s journals, which also endure, were themselves influenced by the notes one of his teachers took while sitting and listening to the lectures of Epictetus. There are fragments in his journal and in the journals and commonplace books of writers that preserve lines from Epictetus that would have otherwise vanished to history. The power of putting things down on paper should not be underestimated, particularly today. Sure, it can be a pain to carry books around with you. Every once in a while a pen breaks in your pocket or your bag and makes a mess. Yes, handwritten words are harder to search. They take up more space in your house than they would in the cloud. But there is something special and timeless and perennial about the art of writing by hand. It’s a more involved process—and that’s the point. It’s good that it takes more time and energy, because you’ll remember it more. It’s good that it’s physical and takes up space—this way you’ll pass it in the hallway when you walk by. It’s good that it’s harder to search...who knows what you’ll find when you flip through the pages, one by one. So what if it’s more delicate? Maybe you’ll treat it with the respect it deserves this way. Take Isaacson’s advice. Get a notebook. Start writing!PS: Check out The Daily Stoic Journal. It’s an easy place to start and is built around the Stoic journaling methods of Marcus Aurelius and Seneca. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We know that Marcus Aurelius cried when he was told that his favorite tutor passed away. We know that he cried that day in court, when he was overseeing a case and the attorney mentioned the countless souls who perished in the plague that had ravaged Rome.We can imagine Marcus cried many other times. This was a man who was betrayed by one of his most trusted generals. This was a man who lost his wife of 35 years. This was a man who lost eightchildren, including all but one of his sons. Marcus didn’t weep because he was weak. He didn’t weep because he was un-Stoic. He cried because he was human. Because these very painful experiences made him sad.Antoninus, Marcus’s stepfather, seemed to be a bit more in touch with his emotions than his young stepson. He seemed to understand how hard Marcus worked to master his temper and his ambitions and his temptations and that this occasionally made him feel bottled up. So when his stepson’s tutor died and he watched the boy sob uncontrollably, he wouldn’t allow anyone to try to calm him down or remind him of the need for a prince to maintain his composure. “Neither philosophy nor empire,” Antoninus said, “takes away natural feeling.”The same goes for you. No matter how much philosophy you’ve read. No matter how much older you’ve gotten or how important your position or how many eyes are on you. It’s OK to cry. You’re only human. It’s okay to act like one.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

For most of us, things are pretty good right now. The economy is booming. Our jobs or our personal lives are going well. Most of the doomsday predictions from critics and watchdogs have turned out to be overwrought or even wrong...so far. The world is mostly at peace—technically. The question—and the main thing that Stoicism is designed to help cultivate inside each of us—is: What will you draw upon if any of that suddenly changes? It’s easy to be strong and self-contained when there is very little threatening us. It’s easy to have momentum with the wind at our back. But when everything is hard? When all is falling apart around us?This year alone, the French have been rioting in the streets. The North Koreans have fired off short-range ballistic missiles. Israel and Hamas have exchanged rocket and mortar fire multiple times. The US is moving a carrier group into the Gulf in a showdown with Iran. Measles is breaking out across Los Angeles. And despite all that, everything is and should be okay. And yet if it isn’t...It was at one of the darkest points of the Revolution that Thomas Paine wrote his pamphlet, The American Crisis. “These are times that try men’s souls,” he said. A lot had gone wrong. Mistakes had been made. People were scared and upset. But this might be a good thing, he wrote, because there are some capacities inherent in us that cannot be unlocked by trifles. It was only in difficult times that we might find—and unlock—within us a “cabinet of fortitude.” The Stoic version of this idea was the Inner Citadel—a fortress of fortitude—that could be drawn on for strength in difficult times...if it had been properly stocked and built in good times. That’s what the study of philosophy was about to them, that’s why we do this reading and follow these exercises. To prepare for an uncertain future and to never be so naive as to expect things to always be booming and pleasant. It’s good that life is pretty good right now. Enjoy it. But be ready. Be sure that you have something to draw on in case of an emergency. Because the worst that could happen is not that the economy could turn or that your personal life could be upended or that war breaks out. It would be for that to happen and for you to turn inside to your cabinet of fortitude or your inner citadel and find it empty. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It’s very easy to associate our possessions and our positions with our identity. There’s even an expression to that effect: The clothes make the man. When we have a powerful job, we feel powerful. When the market is hot, we feel like we have a knack for investing. When we are number one in our space, in our industry, in sales, we’re very into checking and monitoring the rankings. When people are saying nice things about us, we revel in it, because of course it’s all true and deserved.If everything stays well, it’s hard to see what the downside of this approach is (excepting the ego that can often creep in). It’s only when the screw turns that we realize how dangerous this has all been. Because when you associate your identity with externals when things are good, it’s impossible not to associate your identity when suddenly the same externals are showing you to be a loser or a fool or the object of other people’s contempt.The Stoics would urge you to remember that things don’t make the man. Not now, not ever. Epictetus reminds us that just because someone has more money than you doesn’t make them superior. No, only their bank balance is superior. If someone is an eloquent speaker, that doesn’t make them better than you either. It just means they have better diction. “You yourself,” he says, “are neither property nor diction.”Nope. You’re you. And you’re not measured or made by externals, or anything that is outside your control. What matter is who you are on the inside. What matters is what you do with the choices and situations that are inside your control. What matters is how you ride out the highs and the lows, and ideally are changed by neither of them.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Things we didn’t want to happen happen to all of us. A business deal falls through. A grade comes back that we didn’t expect. A person we care about leaves us. Our instinct is to call these events unfortunate.Which makes sense. It’s fortunate when you get what you want, it’s unfortunate when, for whatever reason, you don’t. Right?Marcus Aurelius proposed a different way of looking at things. Instead of telling ourselves that we’re unfortunate because our expectations were disappointed, we should do the opposite:“No it's fortunate that this has happened and I've remained unharmed by it -- not shattered by the present or frightened of the future. It could have happened to anyone. But not everyone could have remained unharmed by it.” To a Stoic, we’re only harmed when our character is affected. We’re only harmed when we let go of what we believe in or when we drop our own standards. It might not be desirable to lose money or a friend, to fail at something or to be criticized, but how does that make us unfortunate? We haven’t been deprived of our ability to respond. Our character remains intact. There’s no rule that says you have to freak out about this or shattered by it or that you have to start getting anxious about the future. No, you’re still in control. You’re still you. That’s very fortunate. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Two years ago, the world lost a great scholar and Stoic philosopher, Peter Lawler. Peter, a longtime writer for National Review and political science professor at Berry College, was the kind of person interested in those seemingly archaic notions of honor and virtue and duty (you can read the interview Peter did with us just a few weeks before his untimely death). He also, according to his friends, was the kind of person who lived those ideals.We live in a time of vulgarity and corruption and oversharing and selfishness. Some embrace these traits openly, others pay lip service to virtue while leading wicked private lives, others contribute to the decline and fall of goodness by trying to tear down everything that isn’t perfect or pure.It would be wonderful if you could take a moment today—whether you’re a man or a woman—to meditate on this thought from Peter’s final essay, which was published on the eve of his death:“Now’s the time to praise manliness, but only in the context of showing the road from anger, meaninglessness, and despair to a world once again full of ladies and gentlemen—people who know who they are and what they’re supposed to do as beings born to know, love, and die, and designed for more than merely biological existence.”That’s the best way that we can honor Peter’s life—through goodness and fulfilling our potential. Thank you, Peter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We tell ourselves that if we just get paid more or get promoted, we’ll stop being so miserable at work. Or we dream for months in advance about some vacation to paradise, only to find, once we arrive, that the hotel was not quite as glamorous as the photographs on the website implied. Maybe we do get that promotion or that raise and it does alleviate some old problems—then suddenly there are new ones like jealous co-workers or additional responsibility.Our rosy expectations set us up to be disappointed. Our expectation that the modern world will not have any problems is why the so called “first world problems” are so vexing. Isn’t everything supposed to be awesome considering all that we’ve accomplished? People tend to think only about how amazing things are going to be...only to find that reality is more complicated. It is this gap—between what we told ourselves things were going to be like and how they actually are—that is the source of so much unhappiness and misery in people’s lives. It’s the reason that so many of us walk around frustrated rather than grateful and relieved.Naturally, a problem like that is something the Stoics zeroed in on resolving. Because the source of it isn’t the outside world, it’s our thoughts about the world that are the issue.“Whenever you are about to start on some activity, remind yourself what the activity is like,” was Epictetus’s advice. “If you go out to bathe, picture what happens at a bathhouse—the people who splash you or jostle you or talk rudely or steal your things. In this way you will be more prepared to start the activity, by telling yourself at the outset, ‘I want to bathe, and I also want to keep my will in harmony with nature.’ Make this your practice in every activity.”Basically, premeditatio malorum.Think about how things really might be in advance. Don’t tell yourself how you want them to be. Don’t lie to yourself as a form of motivation. Be honest. Be clear. Be realistic.If they end up being better than you expect (as things often can be), then wonderful. Enjoy the treat you’ve set up for yourself. If they end up being anything else? Well, you’re prepared now, aren’t you?Better to be pleasantly surprised than unpleasantly surprised. Better to be realistic than delusional.That’s the idea. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A few years ago a study by Brad Bushman at Ohio State University found a link between low blood sugar and arguments between spouses. It pretty much confirms the experiences of anyone who has ever been in a relationship and found themselves fighting right around lunch or dinner time for no good reason. The colloquial term for this? Being hangry. And it can ruin relationships, friendships, and generally make you a jerk. The funny thing is that even the Stoics knew this and warned against it. As Seneca wrote:“Hunger and thirst must be avoided...they grate on and inflame the mind. It’s an old saying that quarrels are sought by the weary’ just as much, too, by the hungry and the thirsty, and by every man who yearns for anything.” So conquering your temper and being kind and respectful and fair is not simply a matter of your mind. How you treat your body affects how your mind operates (another study shows that judges are more merciful after lunch). We know this regardless of what the studies show. When we feel good, it’s easier to be good. When we are rested, it’s easier to be patient. Your tone will be softer when your stomach isn’t growling, and you’ll make better decisions when your energy levels are better. This means that we have to take good care of ourselves. We have to eat right. We have to keep to a smart schedule. We have to know our physical limits. All of which, of course, requires the use of our mind now...so that our body isn’t at odds with it later.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On this day in 1932, Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. Her solo exploits are well known. Less so is that Earhart had already made the same flight less than five years prior. Unable to make a living as a female pilot, Earhart was working a job as a social worker. Then one day the phone rang. On the other end of the line was a pretty offensive offer: She could be the first woman to fly across the Atlantic, but she wouldn’t actually fly the plane and she wouldn’t get paid anything. Guess what she said to the offer? She said yes. Because that’s what people who defy the odds do. That’s how people who become great at things—whether it’s flying or blowing through gender stereotypes—do. They start. Anywhere. Anyhow. They don’t care if the conditions are perfect or if they’re being slighted. They swallow their pride. They do whatever it takes. Because they know that once they get started, if they can just get some momentum, they can make it work. And they can prove the people who doubted them wrong, as Earhart certainly did. “A podium and a prison is each a place, one high and the other low,” Epictetus said. “But in either place your freedom of choice can be maintained if you so wish." On the road to where we are going or where we want to be, we have to do things that we’d rather not do. Often when we are just starting out, our first jobs “introduce us to the broom,” as Andrew Carnegie famously put it. There’s nothing shameful about sweeping. It’s just another opportunity to excel—and to learn. Seize the opportunity. All of them. Any of them.Prove the doubters wrong. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Robert Caro is getting old and people are getting worried. He’s now 83 and each day that passes makes it increasingly unlikely that he’ll ever finish his epic (and must-read) series on Lyndon Johnson. He’s only made it up the the beginning of the Vietnam War...and there is so much material left to tackle. It’s understandable that fans and publishers are subtly trying to nudge him to hurry and finish. With so little time left, they want him to get as much onto the page as possible. You might think that reminding him of his mortality is a feature of the Stoic practice—an important memento mori, but, in fact, it’s missing the point. As Caro recently told a reporter for the New York Times: “People want to make me think about that, but it is a mistake to think about it, because it would make me rush. It’s probably the understatement of all time, but I have not rushed these books. They’ve taken the amount of time that’s necessary to show what I wanted to show. What would be the point of the books if I didn’t do them properly? I’m trying very hard to keep the standard of this book up to whatever standard I had in the other ones.”This is exactly right. When Marcus Aurelius spoke of his own impending and inevitable death, it wasn’t to remind himself to squeeze in as much crap as possible--it wasn’t about picking up the pace. It was to remind himself of what was important, of the standard to which he needed to hold himself. He said, “Do everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your life.” That is: Do it right. Not do it as quickly as possible so you can say it’s complete. Yes, it’s true, we will die. It could be tomorrow, or it could be fifty years from now. Which is why this very moment is so important. And why we can’t let anyone rush us through it.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Think about the last time that someone made you upset. What did they say? What did they do? Now think back: How did you react? What did you say? What did you feel?Now think about the situation another way: If, when that provocation came, you had given yourself space to pause, could you have controlled your reaction? Could you have stayed sober and calm in the face of their hysterics and yelling? Could you have kept your head about you?Marcus Aurelius said, “You have power over your mind—not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” Viktor Frankl talked about how between stimulus and response, we have space, and in that space, we determine not just our response, but who we are. What we’re doing here is trying to train ourselves to do that. All this reading, this writing, this stepping back and reflecting on our patterns of behavior--it’s for a purpose. It’s to improve that default response. So that while others give themselves over to their emotions, we can keep any destructive emotions in check. As they freak out, we can calm down. That’s the whole point of Stoicism: to restore the power over your mind to the only person who ought to have it—you.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Bertrand Russell was no fan of the Stoics. He thought they were cold, hated riches and passion. He thought Seneca and Marcus were hypocrites. But then again he himself was a rather big hypocrite—having had his share of affairs and embarrassing scandals.Nevertheless, there is a passage from Russell that captures an important Stoic theme: the reduction of our own ego so that we might see where we fit in the larger whole of humanity:Make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life. An individual human existence should be like a river — small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past rocks and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being.It should not surprise us that the Stoics were fascinated by the wonders of the universe. Marcus Aurelius himself was particularly fond of using the same river analogy as Bertrand. One of Seneca’s lesser known, but equally passionate, works is titled Natural Questions and it is a multi-volume set on biology and natural phenomenon. As he writes, “I am not unaware, Lucilius, excellent man, of how great is the enterprise whose foundations I am laying in my old age, now that I have decided to traverse the world, to seek out its causes and secrets, and to present them for others to learn about.”We can be sure that Seneca wasn’t writing this book for money or for fame. He was writing it for the same reason that Marcus was constantly looking out at nature and up to the stars—because it was humbling. Because it was a way to attain the philosophical view that is quite difficult when your nose is in other people’s business or too focused on the concerns of the day.The idea of sympatheia—which we think is so important we actually made a medallion of it—is the idea that we are all part of a larger whole. It’s simultaneously a reminder of our greatness and our smallness, our insignificance and our essentialness. Everything about today’s culture is at odds with that understanding. Social media. Me-first self-help. Hero worship. The normalization of toxic ego.You have to fight that. And you fight it by looking to nature, by zooming out your view so it is unable to focus on the tiny, trivial matters before you, by subsuming yourself into something larger, something greater.The Stoics did it. Bertrand Russell would have been better if he did it more often. And so would all of us.We think that every leader and citizen should think deeply about this idea of sympatheia. We were made for each other and to serve a common good, as Marcus put it. That’s why we made our Sympatheia challenge coin, which can serve as a practical, tangible reminder of the causes and the larger whole we are all members of. You can check it out in the See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

There’s plenty written about people pushing through failure, pulling themselves out of the depths of despair, rising above against all odds. There are countless inspiring stories of the struggling artist, living in debt and obscurity for years—a lifetime even—eventually garnering the recognition and commercial success they long believed they deserved. There’s less written about dealing with the pressures of immediate success. We rarely hear about how the artist—the musician whose debut album goes platinum or the author whose debut book is an instant bestseller—deals with the pressures, internal and external, of avoiding the dreaded “One Hit Wonder” label.Mark Manson’s debut book The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck was an international sensation which sold more than 8 million copies. His second book Everything Is F*cked: A Book About Hope releases today. In our interview with Mark for DailyStoic.com, we asked how he approached following up the massive success of Subtle Art: I had to own up to the fact that...at the ripe old age of 32, it's extremely likely that, commercially speaking, my career had peaked...That is hard to swallow. So, when I sat down to write this book, it was really rough...This is going to sound cliche, but ultimately what "saved" me and kept me sane was remembering why I write: I write to sort out the ideas and issues that trouble me and try to do it in a way that can teach and help others...So, that was the starting point. Learning to regain some hope for myself—and for me, that was zeroing in on one goal: just write a better book. And I believe I did. Since making that commitment, it's been liberating. I don't feel anxious about this book release. It might bomb. It might sell really well. Fans might love it. They might hate it. But I truly believe it is a better book: it's smarter, deeper, more mature, better-written than Subtle Art was. So, regardless of the worldly result, I will always be proud of it. And ultimately, that's what matters.The Stoics talk about detaching from results and outcomes. “Don’t let your imagination be crushed by life as a whole,” Marcus Aurelius said. “Stick with the situation at hand.” The less attached we are to outcomes the better. When fulfilling our own standards—when doing the right thing—is what fills us with pride and self-­respect, when the effort is enough, we are liberated. Let that be your mindset today. Focus only on what’s immediately in front of you. No strain, no struggle, no worry. Just one simple movement after another with just one goal: your best effort.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On the eve of the 2008 election, the journalist Joe Klein asked Barack Obama how he’d made his decision to respond to the brewing scandal about Obama’s pastor, Jeremiah Wright, having made controversial statements about the government and terrorist attacks. Whether you were upset by that situation or not, whether you think he properly addressed it or not, the mindset that Obama explained to Klein is worth spending a few minutes thinking about: “My gut was telling me that this was a teachable moment and that if I tried to do the usual political damage control instead of talking to the American people like an adult—like they were adults and could understand the complexities of race, that I would not only be doing damage to the campaign but missing an important opportunity for leadership.”From this, a beautiful and important speech about race relations—known as the “A More Perfect Union” speech—came into existence. A rather ordinary political scandal became a teachable moment. But that kind of transformation is not solely the domain of politicians or world leaders. It is also our duty and goal as aspiring students of Stoicism—we should all be trying to take the ordinary, frustrating, complex, difficult, and surprising situations that life throws at us and turning them into something.We should be doing this for ourselves, for our colleagues, for our children, for history. Our goal should be to never miss an important opportunity for leadership—internally or externally. We should always be getting better and stronger for what will happen. That’s what Amor Fati is about. That’s what it means to say that the obstacle is the way and then to take the first steps in that direction.There is something to teach and something to learn with every moment. There is something to do with every moment. If you’re brave enough, strong enough, committed enough to eschew the path of least resistance—the damage control path—and engage these moments like an adult. Like a human being. 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.

Sometimes we get asked or tasked with doing stuff in life we’d rather not have to do. Maybe that’s working a less than glamorous job when we’re young. Maybe that’s filling a role in your family that diverges from traditional gender roles. Maybe that’s taking heat for something that wasn’t our fault, or being seen as the bad guy, even though the facts are on our side. There is a tendency to be ashamed of these things, and then to hide them. We’re afraid of people judging us, so we hedge or cover or try to do them at night, when no one can see us. Nonsense. If it’s the right thing to do, then it’s right to do it. Don’t hide it. Embrace it. Own it. Epictetus’s rule for his students was: “Whenever you do something you have decided ought be done, never try to avoid being seen doing it, even if people in general may disapprove of it. If, of course, your action is wrong, just don’t do it at all, but if it’s right, why be afraid of people whose criticism is off the mark?” If being a stay-at-home dad is the right thing for your family, then do it—and anyone who thinks overwise can go to hell. If wearing a silly hat, or “pieces of flair,” while you wait tables is what you’ve got to do to pay for college, then wear it proudly. The hat doesn’t say anything bad about you as a person. It’s a badge of honor not for the job, but for you and your commitment to your family, your goals, your future. If a leader makes a call they know is right, that has to be enough. Who cares if people criticize it afterwards? The fact that other people are mad about it is irrelevant to whether it was what you knew to be the correct choice. “Just that you do the right thing,” Marcus Aurelius said. “The rest doesn’t matter.”Ignore the criticism. Ignoring the judging. Don’t give a second thought to how it looks. If it’s right, it’s right for you. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When James Stockdale was shot down in Vietnam, he was taken prisoner by the North Vietnamese. He spent seven years being tortured and subjected to unimaginable loneliness and terror. He had little choice over the fact that he was shot down, or that he was taken prisoner. But what he told himself—and what helped him endure this terrible ordeal—was the sense of agency that Stoicism gave him, the sense that he could ultimately use this experience as fuel. As he said later: “I never lost faith in the end of the story, I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which, in retrospect, I would not trade.” The sheer bravery and strength Stockdale exhibited by truly embodying this notion of amor fati gives one goosebumps, even some 50 years later. It’s just unreal. It’s a reminder that for everything outside of our control, we retain—at the core of our being—an incredible power: The power to choose what we do with what happens to us. The power to decide what role an event will play in our lives. The power to write the end of our own story. No one can take that away from us. People can hurt us. Money can be lost. Jobs can disappear. Cars can crash into each other. Stoicism can’t change what happened. No philosophy is a time machine. But what we can do, what the Stoic practice is meant to help us do, is to prevail over what happened, and decide what comes next.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It’s easy to look at people who are calm and self-disciplined and assume that their disposition comes naturally to them, or that it is somehow divinely inspired. These people, they simply don’t have to struggle with the temptations or the frustrations that we mere mortals struggle with—that’s why they are able to stand before us as models of equanimity and poise. Perhaps in some cases this is true, but usually it’s not. Take someone like George Washington for example. To the people who encountered him, he was a paragon of rationality and self-control. But those who really knew him understood that he, like all ambitious people, was subject to great passions and a roiling temper from his earliest days. Indeed, this was exactly what made Washington so impressive to those who actually worked with him. As the Governor Robert Morris wrote of Washington, it was with these passions that Washington waged "his first contest, and his first victory was over himself." The same was true of Cato and Marcus Aurelius. They were not naturally stoic. If they had been, their example would not be nearly so meaningful. Because then they wouldn’t have been examples at all: it would just be biology or divinity or random luck. Marcus’s Meditations is not preaching...it’s a workbook intended almost solely for the writer himself. Cato was not perfect. His peers saw in him all the same flaws they saw in themselves—but they were inspired by the way he got closer to victory than they had. He pushed them to be better. (Seneca, on the other hand, was a better writer than either one...but far less victorious). We face the same inner-contest as Washington. We have ambitions. We have passions. We have tempers. We have temptations. But what matters is how we rise above these things; how we channel them to positive ends. Whether that’s forming a new nation or leading one, being kind when it’d be easier to be mean, resisting the impulse of ego or selfishness, we can conquer ourselves and thus make the world a better place. The victory starts at home. It starts inside. And make no mistake, it is a battle that is as difficult to win as it is to fight. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Of the Stoics, Seneca seems like the one who had the most fun. He’s the one who it’s easiest to picture spending time with friends or mingling at a dinner party (in fact, he was known for his legendary parties with hundreds of guests). Whereas almost all of Marcus’s writing is private and solitary, and Epictetus’s comes to us in the form of lecture notes from his students, a sizeable chunk of what survives of Seneca are the letters he wrote to his dear friend Lucilius.We don’t know too much about Lucilius, except that he was a governor of Sicily and possibly also a writer. Nor do we know much about who the guests at Seneca’s parties were. But from what we do know, we can gather than Seneca was social and had a large circle of friends and acquaintances with whom he spent a lot of time.Which begs the question: How did he choose these friends? We can hope—and expect—that Seneca’s many friendships adhered to the rule he put down to Lucilius in one of those famous letters:“Associate with those who will make a better man of you. Welcome those whom you yourself can improve.”It’s an impossible thing to know really—even for ourselves—how we came to know most of the people in our lives. But how they stayed in our lives? How our acquaintances evolved into friendships, that should be easier to figure out. And Seneca’s rule is a wonderful guide because what he’s describing is what friendship is about. A process of mutual improvement, benefit, and enjoyment.We become like the people we spend the most time with...so we should choose wisely. And we should choose widely because life is too short to live lonely or narrowly—even for a StoicSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In his Discourses, Epictetus asks a probing question: “Your respect, trustworthiness and steadiness, peace of mind, freedom from pain and fear, in a word your freedom. For what would you sell these things?”The answer, too often, is “for pennies on the dollar.” We trade our word for a small edge in business. We give up peace of mind for a bigger house or a nicer car. We mortgage our self-respect for fancy friends or fame. We sell our freedom for a job that makes us miserable, or a relationship full of incessant fighting.We only have one life to live...and how many of us sell it quickly and cheaply instead of holding on tightly to this incredible asset we have been given? We value our principles and our happiness like penny stocks, like fetid swampland. In Stoicism, there are four virtues that sit atop the ledger of human existence: Justice. Moderation. Wisdom. Courage. That is: Fairness. Discipline. Tranquility. Bravery. Compared to these things, everything else is cheap, if not worthless. No bargain is worth giving them up. And only a sucker sells them. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In one of the darkest passages in all of Stoic thought, Epictetus discusses the prospect of putting your child to bed and saying goodbye to them in your mind as you do so because it may be the last time you get the chance. It’s an image that is hard to swallow. It’s morbid. It’s tempting fate. What kind of fatalistic person would do that?In his new translation of Epictetus, A.A Long responds to this criticism and puts Epictetus’s thinking in proper context: “His memento mori warnings concerning wife and children touch a bleak note—until we reflect on the prevalence of infant mortality and premature death in his time. Rather than insensitivity, they betoken the strongest possible recommendation to care for loved ones as long as we are permitted to have them.”That’s well said. Epictetus wasn’t thinking morbid thoughts about his family because he didn’t care about them. He was thinking those thoughts as a way of making sure that his actions fully aligned with how much he truly did care about them. Because the truth is that too often there is far too great a disparity between what we say we feel and how we act on those feelings. It’s only after the sudden loss of a friend that we realize we had been taking them for granted, for instance. It’s only after a natural disaster wipes out some distant attraction that we realize what our memories of it meant to us, and how we lost our chance to visit one more time. It’s only after we hurt someone—after we can see the pain we’ve caused them—that we understand how selfish we’ve been. Well, what Epictetus was trying to do was give himself that moment of precipitous clarity. Reminding ourselves that we can lose a loved one at any moment, that inevitably one of our interactions with them will be our final interaction, is a way to make sure that our choices are aligned with how we truly feel, and that our actions reflect it. Today could be the last day your father calls you—so make sure you answer when you see his name on the screen. Put down whatever you’re doing and pay attention to the words he speaks to you. Today could be your last morning with your wife, your child, your husband, your best friend. Do you really want it to be another one of those days where you rush them, nag them, put them off, or make some tiny issue into a fight? Of course not. All we have for sure is this present moment. So let’s love it, and the people we are experiencing it with, while we still can. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.