Ryan Holiday's Blog, page 19

This Question Will Change Your (Reading) Life

When I was a teenager, I began a habit that would change the course of my entire life. I don’t mean to overstate it — it was simple, just a question I would ask the people I met — but without it, I’m not sure who I would have turned out to be.

Every time I would meet a successful or important person I admired, I would ask them: What’s a book that changed your life?* And then I would read that book. (In college, for instance, I was lucky enough to meet Dr. Drew, who was the one who turned me on to Stoicism.)

Who I asked the question to first, or how I came to the habit, I can’t recall, but the results stayed with me. I can reel off the titles of the books that came out of it like they are tattooed on my body:

48 Laws of Power
Meditations
Autobiography of Malcolm X
History of the Peloponnesian War
What Makes Sammy Run?
Man’s Search for Meaning

The question that produced these books as answers was not borne of idle curiosity. It was my way of cutting through a personal conundrum, which was this:

I loved books and was very hungry for the good stuff — what Tyler Cowen has called “quake books.” The ones that shake you. That knock everything over and turn it upside down. But I also understood that there are so many books out there, and only so much time. It was overwhelming.

Which books should I read? Should I read books about physics or books about history or books about self-improvement? And even if I knew the genre I preferred, which authors should I read and why? Should I read new books or old books? The books getting rave reviews or the classics or the ones on the featured table in the front of the store?

I didn’t know. So this question was my hack.

If a book changed someone’s life — whatever the topic or style — it was probably worth the investment. If it changed them, I thought, it might at least help me.

What resulted was a kind of ad-hoc reading list of transformational books and surprise rabbit holes that I would have never expected. Because the books that change people cut across the entire spectrum of intellectual pursuits: philosophy, psychology, literature, poetry, and self-help. The discrete topics of those books, individually, are as varied as the individuals who answered this question.

You could fill up an entire life of reading with just these books and that would be enough.

Eventually, I applied this little trick beyond just people that I met. Whenever I read interviews of interesting people and they mentioned a book that was particularly influential or important to their development, I would buy it.

I didn’t need to be told in person. I didn’t even need to be the one asking the question. (The New York Times By The Book column is a good place to start)

I read an interview where Neil Strauss mentioned John Fante’s Ask the Dust, so I bought it, read it, and fell in love with it…and in reading about John Fante, I learned that he’d been influenced by Nietzsche and Knut Hamsun, so I read both of them. Napoleon and Alexander Hamilton were changed by Plutarch’s Lives (and so were about a million other people across history), so of course, I read it. I heard that Phil Jackson recommended his players read Corelli’s Mandolin, and that Pete Carroll recommends The Inner Game of Tennis. Lots of successful people have reading lists that they either post on their blogs or that have been compiled by biographers after their deaths. I made my way through those too, book by book. 

This strategy has lead me to some busts, of course, Elon Musk supposedly loves Twelve Against The Gods, but I didn’t quite get what the fuss was about (the used copy I bought cost $139). I saw entrepreneurs I admired who swore by Ayn Rand and read Atlas Shrugged, and even in my early twenties, I thought it was a bit ridiculous. Tim Ferriss loves Zorba the Greek, but it didn’t do it for me. But even in these books, I got something out of them. I got more out of them than I would have gotten from most of the forgettable titles the New York Times was slating for review or whatever was tearing up the bestseller lists at that moment.

Socrates supposedly said that we should employ our time improving ourselves by other men’s writings, and that in doing so we can “come by easily what others have labored hard for.” Yes. That’s the point of literature — it is the accumulation of the painful lessons humans have learned by trial and error. For 5,000 years we’ve been recording this knowledge in books. The more hard knocks we can avoid by reading them, the better. (This quote, attributed to Mark Twain, says it well: “The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.”)

Not only have we been creating books for thousands of years, but humans — particularly the smart and successful ones — have been reading them for just as long. We’ve been reading on cuneiform tablets, on scrolls, on books created out of stretched animal skins, and now on mass-produced paperbacks and via Audible. Over those centuries, there has been an incredible filtering mechanism working for us, finding and highlighting the books that contain the most wisdom.

That’s why I started asking people for the books that changed their lives. We should seek out the literature that has shaped the people we admire and respect — we can cut down even on the discovery costs of looking for those books. They’ve given us a shortcut to the treasure map.

Everybody seems to want a mentor. Meanwhile, they’re passing up the opportunity to learn directly from the people who taught the people you aspire to be like. When someone like John McCain spends his whole life raving about For Whom The Bell Tolls, why would you not check it out? Clearly, it got him through some shit. Peter Thiel credits Rene Girard and Things Hidden Since The Foundation Of The World with shaping his worldview. Clearly, it’s made him some money—you’re not going to pick that up? Angela Merkel—Forbes’ number 1 most powerful women twelve of the last thirteen years—lists Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina and Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov as her favorite reads. Add them to the list!

The people you admire or want to be like in your own space, something made them the way they are. They didn’t come out of the womb that way. It wasn’t only experiences that contributed to what they know and how they think. Right now I am reading How The Classics Made Shakespeare…which is literally a book about all the books that taught the greatest playwright who ever lived. 

Why not try to find these books? You’re just going to figure it all out on your own? You’re going to just pass on this opportunity for connection? (I’ll tell you, there is nothing people like hearing more than thoughtful questions about their favorite book or author.)

C’mon.

Send an email. Raise your hand and ask a question. Stop by office hours. Dig through old interviews.

Then…

Go to the library. Pull up Amazon and buy the cheapest used copy you can find. “Borrow it” from a friend.

Whatever it takes.

And after these books change you, as wells as other books you discover on your own, you have one important job: You have to pay it forward.

Because that’s what we’re trying to do here — we’re trying to help others learn from the wisdom of other’s experiences. We’re trying to filter the good stuff to the top — to upvote it — to make it even more readily available than it was in our own lives.

That’s why I keep my own list now, of books to base your life on. It’s why I run my reading list newsletter each month. And it’s why I’ll almost always stop, no matter how tired I am or how many emails I have in my inbox, to respond when people ask: What books changed your life? What do you think I should read?

Because it’s the most important question in the world.

***

* There are other versions of the question you can ask:

“What book do you wish you read earlier in life?”
“What book shaped your career as a _______ more than any other?”
“Is there a book out there that really changed your mind?”
“I’m dealing with ___________ right now; what authors would you recommend on that topic?”

______

Want To Take Your Reading To The Next Level?

We’ve created a challenge at Daily Stoic that’s perfect for you: Read to Lead: A Daily Stoic Reading Challenge

Reading is the shortest, most established path to total self-improvement. We know intuitively that this is true. The question is: what active steps are we taking toward our better selves, to improve every aspect of our lives, to ensure success? We created the Read To Lead challenge as a way to give you an answer to that question.

There’s No Such Thing as ‘Quality’ Time

When you’re too busy aiming for it, you miss the moments in front of you

It’s one of those lines we throw out casually: “I want to spend more ‘quality time’… ” whether it’s with friends, with family, with your kids, or with yourself.

While the phrase certainly comes from a good place, there’s a disconnect: The perfectionist side of our brain, fueled by movies and Instagram, wants everything to be special, to be “right.” But that’s an ideal that the busy, ordinary, doing-the-best-we-can versions of ourselves can’t always live up to.

The result? An inevitable sense of disappointment. We feel awful for the deficiency, so out of guilt, we plan elaborate vacations. We project enormous expectations and pressure on ourselves. We think “Oh, if only I had more money, or a better job, or lived in France where the child care benefits were different, then I could be happy.”

That’s not fair. And it’s also damaging.

The reason is that there is no such thing as “quality time.” Jerry Seinfeld, who has three teenage kids, put it well:

I’m a believer in the ordinary and the mundane. These guys that talk about ‘quality time’ — I always find that a little sad when they say, ‘We have quality time.’ I don’t want quality time. I want the garbage time. That’s what I like. You just see them in their room reading a comic book and you get to kind of watch that for a minute, or [having] a bowl of Cheerios at 11 o’clock at night when they’re not even supposed to be up. The garbage, that’s what I love.

To be fair, Seinfeld is the master of the mundane. Banality has made him a near-billionaire. But there is a deeper truth to what he’s getting at. Special days? Nah. Every day is special. Every minute can be “quality time.”

I remember when my book The Obstacle Is the Way first starting making its way through professional sports, I was invited to see the Seahawks training camp up in Renton, Washington. I had just gotten married and my career was really firing, so I asked Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll how coaches manage to make a personal life work with such insane hours. Pete, who has been married for more than 40 years, looked at me and said, “You have to find the moments between moments.”

It’s something I’ve seen inside the buildings of most of the sports teams I’ve visited. Yeah, the coaches and staff often get there before the sun comes up and leave long after it’s gone down. Yeah, they travel a lot. But their families are always around. They’re doing lunches and dinners at the office. They are taking time between sessions to sit and talk, to hang out, to work out, to do things together.

It’s all about the moments between the moments for ordinary people, too. I’ve never understood parents who complain about “being a chauffeur” to their kids. “What am I, your driver?” they say. Sure, it can be a pain in the ass to drive your kids around. To day care. To school. To a friend’s house. To a doctor’s appointment. To soccer practice. Sometimes it can feel like this is all parenting is — driving a little person around. For free.

But instead of seeing the drive as an obligation or an inconvenience, why not choose to see it as a gift? A moment between moments. In fact, it’s a lot of moments. Even better, it’s captive time. You are stuck together! This is wonderful. This is what you wanted, right? An opportunity to connect? To bond? To have fun? So use it!

As many parents with older children will tell you, something changes when kids are in the car with you. Suddenly, you’re not the parent. You’re just a companion, a fellow human being equalized by traffic. Kids will share things in the car they wouldn’t say anywhere else. Better yet, when their friends are in the car too, you fade into the background and suddenly you can watch how your kid is with other people. It’s like you’re a detective watching through one-way glass. You’ll learn things about your own son or daughter that you’d never know otherwise. You’ll get a glimpse into who they are in a way they could never articulate to you directly.

This isn’t only true for kids. Some of my best memories with my wife, or friends, have happened in the car. Or when we were sitting at the gate, waiting for a delayed plane. Sometimes these awkward, in-between moments allow for conversations that never would have happened otherwise. Even some of my best writing and thinking have come when I was stuck somewhere I didn’t want to be, or doing something I didn’t want to do. When you’re out of excuses for being busy, when you can’t defer or plan for some idealized future, you’re forced to just make do with what’s in front of you. The distinction between “quality” time and “garbage” time falls away and you’re left with what simply is.

Often when we are trying really hard to attain something, we end up missing the fact that we’ve had it in our hands the whole time. Sure, letting your kids blow off school for a fun day together can be wonderfully special — but so can the 20-minute drive in traffic to school. So can mailing a letter or watching a garbage truck meander through the neighborhood.

All time with your kids — all time with anyone you love — is created equal. What you do with it is what makes it special. Not where. Or for how long. Or at what cost.

Think back to your own childhood. Rushing around to get somewhere on time. Packing for that trip to Disneyland. Getting all dressed for those ridiculous matching group photos. “Why are we doing this?” you asked when you were old enough to notice that it seemed really stressful and not fun. The answer was always something like: “Because we’re a family.” As if you couldn’t be a family anywhere, doing anything. As if you couldn’t do it right here and now.

This is worth remembering in all facets of life: You can be a family without getting dressed and leaving the house. You can be in love in the McDonald’s drive-through. You can be romantic near the eggs at the grocery store. You can be a writer as you ride the elevator down to take out the trash. You can be a good person in how you answer the phone or how you send emails.

There’s a Tolstoy quote I love: “There is no past and no future; no one has ever entered those two imaginary kingdoms. There is only the present.”

When you realize there is no such thing as “quality time,” when you become okay with “garbage time,” you end up getting the best kind of time there is. You get the moment right in front of you.

If you’re looking for parenting advice, I highly recommend you check out Daily Dad. I write a daily email about how to become a better parent, every day. One piece of timeliness advice, delivered to your inbox each morning. It’s free! Check it out here.

How Does It Feel To Get Everything You Ever Wanted?

There are two tragedies in life, Oscar Wilde once said: not getting what you want and getting everything you want. The last, he lamented, is much worse. 

I wanted to be a writer. I don’t know when that dream started, but for a very long time, I craved accomplishment in this creative calling that very few are lucky enough to make a living in, let alone find success in. 

Of course, like most people, I also fantasized about what it would be like to have money, or more specifically, to have lots of it. It’d be cool to be a little famous too, while I was at it. To be connected with or have influence over important people, to be sought after for advice or input. That has to be awesome too, right? 

Maybe, apart from the genuine love of writing, that’s what attracted me to being an author. It was a way to have all those things. And indeed, in the last year or so, it has become harder to deny that I have accomplished most of them. 

My books have sold extremely well. They have been reviewed in major newspapers and are translated in dozens of languages. Looking at my bank account here, as I write this, I am relieved to say that I don’t really need to think about money anymore. Few authors make that life-changing, generational kind of wealth, but I’ve done well enough to have my and my family’s needs met without worry, probably for good. If that weren’t lucky enough, I regularly get invited to speak with all sorts of interesting people from the worlds of politics, finance, sports, and entrepreneurship, to name a few. 

So how does that feel? How does it feel to have everything you ever wanted in life? To have it earlier than you ever could have realistically expected?

I can tell you: It feels like nothing. 

Hitting #1 on the bestseller list?

Looking at a comfortable bank balance?

Sitting across the table from some powerful person as they hang on your every word?

Nothing.

In the new Taylor Swift documentary she talks about that moment where 1989 came out and utterly dominated the music industry. “Oh god that was all you wanted,” was the only thought in her head as she won Album of the Year for the second time. “That was all you wanted. That was all you focused on…. You get to the mountaintop and you look around and you’re like, ‘Oh God, what now?’

Ten years ago, I probably would have scoffed at that, whether I was hearing it from a  mega-famous mega-millionaire or a grandparent. I know that was my reaction a long time ago to a beautiful passage from F. Scott Fitzgerald:

“From that period I remember riding in a taxi one afternoon between very tall buildings under a mauve and rosy sky; I began to bawl because I had everything I wanted and knew I would never be so happy again.”

But today, I get it. I understand that existential angst. You work so long and hard to accomplish what feel like crazy pie-in-the-sky dreams, then when the opportunity knocks, you answer, and success comes flooding in, you expect the high to last. You expect it will feel wonderful and exciting, but it doesn’t. In fact, it doesn’t really feel like anything at all. 

Maybe it feels even worse than nothing because you expected something so different.

I was mowing the lawn when I found out my book hit #1 this year. I saw the email come in and went right back to mowing the lawn. Nothing was different. Nothing changed. I was still me. And when I hit it two more times over the next twelve months? The same…only less because the novelty had worn off. The news wasn’t new anymore. 

I wish I could tell you that this feeling is the exception, but it’s probably closer to the rule. 

It’s what Olympic medalists feel, it’s what politicians feel the day they are sworn in, it’s what actors feel when they win an Oscar, it’s what scientists feel when they are awarded the Nobel Prize. 

We all think some external accomplishment is going to change everything, but it never seems to. It doesn’t change how you see yourself, it doesn’t change how you go through the world, it doesn’t change what you feel like when you wake up in the morning. 

Yet even as I write those words, I know most people won’t hear me. We’re hard-wired not to—and to delete them instead. It makes complete sense from an evolutionary point of view why we would believe that achievement will make life better, why it will be worth all the sacrifice and pain, how it will transform and change everything bad in our lives into something good. It’s that drive that has sent many an explorer off on another dangerous voyage into the unknown, kept an inventor in their workshop despite all the wealth and admiration in the world, it’s what made someone want to be not just a king but the king of kings. But just because something is good for progress, doesn’t mean it’s good for a person. You have to learn the lie of our biology by experience. 

To be clear, I am not writing this to the person who is still early in their career, who has yet to put that first big win on the board. That person is not ready to hear what I am saying. I am instead writing to the person who has already done it, who is asking, as Taylor Swift and countless other people have before and since asked: What now? What do I do now?

First: Do not deceive yourself. The ‘nothing’ you feel is not because what you did is nothing, or not enough. A second ring is not the answer. It does not prove the existence of the first ring, nor increase its luster. Proving to yourself and critics that this was not an accident is not possible. Advancing higher in the ranks, moving the goalposts a little further back, telling yourself that it will be different next time—this is the definition of insanity (expecting new results from the same inputs). 

Second: Do not despair. The problem for most people is that they have put so much pressure on this moment—not when the work is complete, but rather when the achievement is recognized—that when it comes it wrecks them. They turn to drugs. They act out and self-sabotage. Or they quit and walk away. The grief over this lost hope can destroy you. Because you’re not sure what to live for now, you’re even less sure how to keep going. 

What you must do instead is realize that what you have been doing is not the problem, it’s the why. You thought that doing important or impressive work will make you happy. This was precisely wrong. It’s that being happy will help us do important and impressive work, quite possibly better and more pure work. 

There is a story I wrote about in Stillness is the Key in which Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller, the authors of Slaughterhouse Five and Catch-22, respectively, were once at a fancy party in New York. As they stood in the home of some billionaire, Vonnegut needled his friend. 

“Joe,” he said, “how does it feel that our host only yesterday may have made more money than your novel has earned in its entire history?” 

“I’ve got something he can never have,” Heller replied. 

“And what on earth could that be?” Vonnegut asked. 

“The knowledge that I’ve got enough.”

Enough. 

This is actually the best place to work from, to live from.

Over the last year, I have tried to see if I can’t operate from a place of fullness rather than craving, realizing that I already have everything I want and, in fact, have since the moment I was born. That doesn’t mean I’ve stopped working—Joseph Heller didn’t—but it means that I now see the results as extra, not as entitlements or rewards or just dues. 

“We are here as if immersed in water head and shoulders underneath the great oceans,” the great Zen master Gensha once said, “and yet how piteously we are extended our hands for water.” 

To be alive, that is the accomplishment. To have your health. To have people you love. This is winning. To get to do the work—that’s the reward, not whether the work is recognized. Which is all we control anyway. 

Theodore Roosevelt was a published author by age 23. He had wealth, fame, medals and power. But eventually he realized that “far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.” 

I’ve come to realize along those lines that there is a difference between being a writer and an author. What I love, what I should chase is the writing, being an author is about results. That’s why I always found rewards underwhelming. I was focusing on the wrong prize, missing that I had it along. 

The irony is that winning great prizes not only feels like nothing, but understood properly should change absolutely nothing! We should accept the honors with gratitude, we should cash the checks (saving the money responsibly), we should enjoy the parties or the praise, and then we should, as soon as possible, get back down to work.

Do the verb, rather than be the noun. 

Not to prove anything to anyone. Not to scale a higher mountain because it will feel different. Not to really get our parents to notice this time. Not because flying private is even better than flying first class is better than economy. 

No.

We get back to work because the dream is the doing. The lucky break is the opportunity. It’s the process that we have always loved, it’s the joy of realizing our potential that should never get old or let us down. 

It is the only fruit that doesn’t underwhelm or spoil. 

***

P.S. My latest book Stillness is the Key was an instant #1 New York Times and Wall Street Journal Bestseller. Whether you’ve achieved everything you dreamed of and don’t know what to do now, or you’re feeling overwhelmed, or you need a simple but inspiring antidote to the stress of 24/7 news and social media, Stillness is the Key is for you. I think it’s the best writing I’ve ever done, and I also think it’s the most important topic I have ever written about.

Take A Walk: The Work & Life Benefits of Walking

If you’ve ever doubted whether human beings are designed for walking, all you have to do is strap a fussy baby into a BabyBjörn and take them out for a stroll. The crying stops. With each step, the resistance and the kicking and the screaming fades away. It’s almost as if they enter a trance.

Hours can pass and, if you’re moving, whether they’re an infant strapped to your chest or a toddler in a stroller, even an ordinarily troublesome child turns into a dream.

We evolved this way. To travel by foot, to explore, to cover distances both short and long, slowly and steadily. Which is why my point here really has nothing to do with childcare.

Taking a walk works on a racing or miserable mind just as well as a colicky baby. We are an ambulatory species and often the best way to find stillness—in our hearts and in our heads—is to get up and out on our feet. To get moving. To take a damn walk.

For decades, the citizens of Copenhagen witnessed the philosopher Søren Kierkegaard embody this very idea. The cantankerous philosopher would write in the morning at a standing desk, and then around noon would head out onto the busy streets of Denmark’s capital city.

He walked on the newfangled “sidewalks” that had been built for fashionable citizens to stroll along. He walked through the city’s parks and through the pathways of Assistens Cemetery, where he would later be buried. On occasion, he walked out past the city’s walls and into the countryside. Kierkegaard never seemed to walk straight either—he zigged and zagged, crossing the street without notice, trying to always remain in the shade. When he had either worn himself out, worked through what he was struggling with, or been struck with a good idea, he would turn around and make for home, where he would write for the rest of the day.

In a beautiful letter to his sister-in-law, who was often bedridden, and depressed as a result, Kierkegaard wrote to her of the importance of walking. “Above all,” he told her in 1847, “do not lose your desire to walk: Every day I walk myself into a state of well-being,” he wrote, “and walk away from every illness; I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it.”

Life is a path, he liked to say, we have to walk it. He was by no means alone in believing that.

Nietzsche said that the ideas in Thus Spoke Zarathustra came to him on a long walk. Nikola Tesla discovered the rotating magnetic field, one of the most important scientific discoveries in modern history, on a walk through a city park in Budapest in 1882. When he lived in Paris, Ernest Hemingway would take long walks along the quais whenever he was stuck in his writing and needed to clarify his thinking. Charles Darwin’s daily schedule included several walks, as did those of Steve Jobs and the groundbreaking psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, the latter of whom wrote that “I did the best thinking of my life on leisurely walks with Amos.” It was the physical activity in the body, Kahneman said, that got his brain going.

Freud was known for his speedy walks around Vienna’s Ringstrasse after his evening meal. The composer Gustav Mahler spent as much as four hours a day walking, using this time to work through and jot down ideas. Ludwig van Beethoven carried sheet music and a writing utensil with him on his walks for the same reason. Dorothy Day was a lifelong walker, and it was on her strolls along the beach in Staten Island in the 1920s that she first began to feel a strong sense of God in her life and the first flickerings of the awakening that would put her on a path toward sainthood. It’s probably not a coincidence that Jesus himself was a walker—a traveler—who knew the pleasures and the divineness of putting one foot in front of the other. Indeed, it’s no coincidence that many of the greatest expressions of faith and devotion involve long walks (i.e. pilgrimages) to holy sites around the globe.

Why does walking work? Why has it worked for so many different kinds of people in some many different kinds of careers?

Walking is a deliberate, repetitive, ritualized motion. It is an exercise in peace.

The Buddhists talk of “walking meditation,” or kinhin, where the movement after a long session of sitting, particularly movement through a beautiful setting, can unlock a different kind of stillness than traditional meditation.

Personally, I’ve found that being aware on my walks—being present and open to the experience—has brought me closest to what I assume the Buddhists are talking about. I put the pressing problems of my life away, or rather I let them melt away as I move. I look down at my feet. What are they doing? I notice how effortlessly they move. Is that really me who’s doing that? Or do they just sort of move on their own? I listen to the sound of the leaves crunching underfoot. I feel the ground pushing back against me.

These are things anyone can do on a walk. Things you can do. Breathe in. Breathe out. Consider who might have walked this very trail in the centuries before you. Consider the person who paved the asphalt you are standing on. What was going on with them? Where are they now? What did they believe? What problems did they have?

But I don’t have time you say. Sure you do. Get up earlier. Take your phone calls outside, as I try to do. Do walking meetings instead of sitting ones. Do a couple laps around the parking lot before you go inside. Don’t call an Uber, walk there instead.

We aren’t that different from a baby. Stuff gets us stressed. We have feelings that we can’t quite find the words to explain and process. The world is overwhelming. Our needs aren’t being met. If we are allowed to simply stew in this, of course, we’ll cry and yell and get angry.

The adult must come in and break us out of this. The adult must take us outside and get us moving. Stimulate our senses. Calm our emotions and thoughts down by the rhythm of the walk, by reassuring firmness of the ground underfoot.

The poet William Wordsworth walked as many as 180,000 miles in his lifetime—an average of six and a half miles a day since he was five years old! It wasn’t for the physical fitness benefits that he put in these miles, though it certainly didn’t hurt. He did much of his writing while walking, as lines of poetry came to him, Wordsworth would repeat them over and over again, since it might be hours until he had the chance to write them down. Biographers have wondered ever since: Was it the scenery that inspired the images of his poems or was it the movement that jogged the thoughts?

Every ordinary person who has ever had a breakthrough on a walk knows that the two forces are equally and magically responsible.

Which is why whoever you are and whatever you do, you should do yourself a favor today and take a walk!

–

Learn more about stillness and how to find it in your life by reading Ryan Holiday’s latest book, Stillness Is the Key. A #1 Bestseller in both the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. Get yours today.  

Do Yourself a Favor Today… and Go For a Walk

If you’ve ever doubted whether human beings are designed for walking, all you have to do is strap a fussy baby into a BabyBjörn and take them out for a stroll. The crying stops. With each step, the resistance and the kicking and the screaming fades away. It’s almost as if they enter a trance.

Hours can pass and, if you’re moving, whether they’re an infant strapped to your chest or a toddler in a stroller, even an ordinarily troublesome child turns into a dream.

We evolved this way. To travel by foot, to explore, to cover distances both short and long, slowly and steadily. Which is why my point here really has nothing to do with childcare.

Taking a walk works on a racing or miserable mind just as well as a colicky baby. We are an ambulatory species and often the best way to find stillness—in our hearts and in our heads—is to get up and out on our feet. To get moving. To take a damn walk.

For decades, the citizens of Copenhagen witnessed the philosopher Søren Kierkegaard embody this very idea. The cantankerous philosopher would write in the morning at a standing desk, and then around noon would head out onto the busy streets of Denmark’s capital city.

He walked on the newfangled “sidewalks” that had been built for fashionable citizens to stroll along. He walked through the city’s parks and through the pathways of Assistens Cemetery, where he would later be buried. On occasion, he walked out past the city’s walls and into the countryside. Kierkegaard never seemed to walk straight either—he zigged and zagged, crossing the street without notice, trying to always remain in the shade. When he had either worn himself out, worked through what he was struggling with, or been struck with a good idea, he would turn around and make for home, where he would write for the rest of the day.

In a beautiful letter to his sister-in-law, who was often bedridden, and depressed as a result, Kierkegaard wrote to her of the importance of walking. “Above all,” he told her in 1847, “do not lose your desire to walk: Every day I walk myself into a state of well-being,” he wrote, “and walk away from every illness; I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it.”

Life is a path, he liked to say, we have to walk it. He was by no means alone in believing that.

Nietzsche said that the ideas in Thus Spoke Zarathustra came to him on a long walk. Nikola Tesla discovered the rotating magnetic field, one of the most important scientific discoveries in modern history, on a walk through a city park in Budapest in 1882. When he lived in Paris, Ernest Hemingway would take long walks along the quais whenever he was stuck in his writing and needed to clarify his thinking. Charles Darwin’s daily schedule included several walks, as did those of Steve Jobs and the groundbreaking psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, the latter of whom wrote that “I did the best thinking of my life on leisurely walks with Amos.” It was the physical activity in the body, Kahneman said, that got his brain going.

Freud was known for his speedy walks around Vienna’s Ringstrasse after his evening meal. The composer Gustav Mahler spent as much as four hours a day walking, using this time to work through and jot down ideas. Ludwig van Beethoven carried sheet music and a writing utensil with him on his walks for the same reason. Dorothy Day was a lifelong walker, and it was on her strolls along the beach in Staten Island in the 1920s that she first began to feel a strong sense of God in her life and the first flickerings of the awakening that would put her on a path toward sainthood. It’s probably not a coincidence that Jesus himself was a walker—a traveler—who knew the pleasures and the divineness of putting one foot in front of the other. Indeed, it’s no coincidence that many of the greatest expressions of faith and devotion involve long walks (i.e. pilgrimages) to holy sites around the globe.

Why does walking work? Why has it worked for so many different kinds of people in some many different kinds of careers?

Walking is a deliberate, repetitive, ritualized motion. It is an exercise in peace.

The Buddhists talk of “walking meditation,” or kinhin, where the movement after a long session of sitting, particularly movement through a beautiful setting, can unlock a different kind of stillness than traditional meditation.

Personally, I’ve found that being aware on my walks—being present and open to the experience—has brought me closest to what I assume the Buddhists are talking about. I put the pressing problems of my life away, or rather I let them melt away as I move. I look down at my feet. What are they doing? I notice how effortlessly they move. Is that really me who’s doing that? Or do they just sort of move on their own? I listen to the sound of the leaves crunching underfoot. I feel the ground pushing back against me.

These are things anyone can do on a walk. Things you can do. Breathe in. Breathe out. Consider who might have walked this very trail in the centuries before you. Consider the person who paved the asphalt you are standing on. What was going on with them? Where are they now? What did they believe? What problems did they have?

But I don’t have time you say. Sure you do. Get up earlier. Take your phone calls outside, as I try to do. Do walking meetings instead of sitting ones. Do a couple laps around the parking lot before you go inside. Don’t call an Uber, walk there instead.

We aren’t that different from a baby. Stuff gets us stressed. We have feelings that we can’t quite find the words to explain and process. The world is overwhelming. Our needs aren’t being met. If we are allowed to simply stew in this, of course, we’ll cry and yell and get angry.

The adult must come in and break us out of this. The adult must take us outside and get us moving. Stimulate our senses. Calm our emotions and thoughts down by the rhythm of the walk, by reassuring firmness of the ground underfoot.

The poet William Wordsworth walked as many as 180,000 miles in his lifetime—an average of six and a half miles a day since he was five years old! It wasn’t for the physical fitness benefits that he put in these miles, though it certainly didn’t hurt. He did much of his writing while walking, as lines of poetry came to him, Wordsworth would repeat them over and over again, since it might be hours until he had the chance to write them down. Biographers have wondered ever since: Was it the scenery that inspired the images of his poems or was it the movement that jogged the thoughts?

Every ordinary person who has ever had a breakthrough on a walk knows that the two forces are equally and magically responsible.

Which is why whoever you are and whatever you do, you should do yourself a favor today and take a walk!

***

Learn How to Seek Out Stillness

Today’s article is about how one simple action—taking a walk—can bring you peace of mind and stillness, no matter who you are or where you live. If you want to learn more about the benefits of stillness and how to achieve it, check out Ryan Holiday’s latest book, Stillness Is the Key. It’s a #1 Bestseller in both the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. Get yours today.

You Could Have Today. Instead You Choose Tomorrow.

For me, the perfect Saturday involves getting up early. Not disgustingly early, just early enough that the morning is still fresh and young. I get my son dressed and we go for a long walk with the stroller while my wife gets much-deserved sleep.

Taking our time, we cover a few miles as the sun comes up, and then we come back home. I do a few pushups on the porch before coming back inside. (My son tries his best to do the same.) By now my wife is up, and we have a nice breakfast together as a family. Eggs from the chickens that graze on the grasses and grubs that grow around the coop behind the house, maybe some leftovers from the week thrown into something on the stove.

There’s nothing on the schedule or the calendar for the day. It’s Saturday, after all, and nobody else is working. The house is quiet. The phone hasn’t rung once. I head upstairs to my office and sit for a few minutes with my journal. And then, inspired by the stillness and the peace of the day, I usually do a little writing. Nothing super taxing, nothing that feels like hard work—something nice. Something like this piece. A riff on some topic that’s been bouncing around in my head during the week. Or maybe I just take notes on a book I read a while ago and wanted to review.

By the time I come downstairs an hour or two later, it’s just the best feeling. What I got done was a bonus. It didn’t feel forced, but it was still an accomplishment. And guess what? Now the whole rest of the day remains before me.

Sometimes we go into town. Or we hang out around the house. We go shopping or we play in the yard. We get the satisfaction of checking off little projects we’ve been meaning to finish. We watch college football. Or a movie. We read books. We jump in the pool. We go to the zoo or the grocery store. We get hay for the cows or feed them cubes. We go to the gym or for a run in the park. Or we do what seems like nothing for quite a long time.

It’s our day. Not anyone else’s. There’s no purpose to it. No real structure. And everything we do is by choice. No frenzy. No rush. No imposition. Just presence and peace.

Anyway, that’s what my perfect Saturday looks like. Yours may look very different. Maybe yours has a more leisurely morning or brunch with friends. Maybe there’s a 40-mile bike ride or hundreds of pages of scientific papers to be read. Maybe the concept of a “perfect Saturday” has never occurred to you because you work on weekends. Maybe your Saturday is actually Wednesday, your only day off, I don’t know. But if you do have a day off, it’s yours. And it should be whatever you want.

Callie Oettinger put it well:

You don’t have to do a lot every day, but you have to do something.

Something. Every day.

So what is that something?

When you know what that something is, suddenly you have power and clarity and control. You know what to say yes to. What to say no to. You know who you are and what your life needs to be built around.

***

One can’t design a life around what it’s like to be on vacation. Vacations are not real. They cost money. They happen somewhere far away from where you live. Life can’t be filled with the day of your greatest, most impressive accomplishment either. To be Tom Brady every day, coming back from 28–3 in the Super Bowl to pull off a surprise victory in overtime—that would be exhausting. That’s great once.

What we need is something sustainable. Something balanced. Something deliberate without being forced. Purposeful without being obsessed with productivity. We need something like a great Saturday—or one of those Mondays where you’re not sure if it’s part of a three-day weekend, resulting in just enough work that it’s productive, but not so much that it’s a chore.

The funny thing is, as much as I enjoy these days, they are fleeting and rare. Why is it that I allow Wednesday to suck? Why do I choose for Tuesday to be filled with meetings that I don’t remember agreeing to attend? Or phone calls that I answer?

Part of the answer is that yes, I must make a living, but the truth is, my best work never comes on those crappy days. In fact, the idea for the book project I am selling now came to me on one of those long walks. And that’s what pays for my house, not the emails I spend so much time responding to.

Earlier I said that those Saturdays were the kinds of days to build a life around. I think the mistake is that a lot of people try to build a life toward them instead. What’s that line from the famous Loverboy song?

Everybody’s working for the weekend.

Exactly. People think they have to live a life they don’t want for a long time so that eventually, off in the distant future, they can live a life they do want. They need to make millions or get famous or earn their big break. Then and only then can they…

I’ve always found it’s better to think about what I want my ordinary life to look like most of the time. Then I try to make decisions based on the simple metric of whether they allow for more or less of that right now. A really cool job opportunity? I’ll consider it. But wait, it means I have to move my family to D.C., wear a suit most days, and be on someone else’s schedule? And I won’t be able to write much? Never mind, sorry. Oh, I could make a lot of money investing in startups? I like the sound of that. But I’ll have to read lots of pitch decks and go to lots of meetings? You know what, I’ll pass.

I’m a firm believer that how long we live is outside of our control. I don’t feel comfortable trading the present for an uncertain future. “You could be good today,” the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote. “But instead you choose tomorrow.” That quote haunts me as much as it inspires me. And it does a lot of each.

You might ask: “But isn’t this a privileged way to live? It must be so nice only having to work a couple hours a day.” Yes, I do feel very privileged that for me happiness is relatively cheap. My ideal day doesn’t require me to be rich or powerful or important. It just requires that I be good enough at something to sell my services on the open market and strong enough to say no to things that are beyond my needs. That is a privilege, and it’s more accessible than we think. There are plenty of billionaires who don’t have it, plenty of ordinary people who have never lost it.

The poet Heraclitus said, “One day is equal to every day.” Today could be that amazing day for you. Today could be how you want life to be. You just have to choose for it to be. Or rather, stop choosing for it not to be.

***

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This Is What You Should Read Every Day

Reading is not just something you should do on vacation, or when you have free time. It should be, like all important things in your life, a daily practice, something you’re working to get better at. Although I certainly read on some days more than others, I work hard to make sure I read something everyday. 

That means I am spending time each day with whatever book I am trying to get through, but it means I spend time, daily, with a few specific books (and authors) that I benefit from each time I pick them up. Which is why I am sending this special Reading List Email with some recommendations of books (and sites) I try to look at every single morning.

And don’t tell me you don’t have time to read everyday. You do! 

A Calendar of Wisdom by Leo Tolstoy

Tolstoy believed his most essential work was not his novels but his daily read, A Calendar of Wisdom. As Tolstoy wrote in his diary, the continual study of one text, reading one page at the start of each day, was critical to personal growth. “Daily study,” Tolstoy wrote in 1884, is “necessary for all people.” So Tolstoy dreamed of creating a book comprised of “a wise thought for every day of the year, from the greatest philosophers of all times and all people…Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Lao-Tzu, Buddha, Pascal.” As he wrote to his assistant, “I know that it gives one great inner force, calmness, and happiness to communicate with such great thinkers as Socrates, Epictetus, Arnold, Parker… They tell us about what is most important for humanity, about the meaning of life and about virtue.” It would take seventeen years for this book to be published, then ninety-three more for the English translation, titled A Calendar of Wisdom. 

The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman

Of course, I don’t actually read my own book each morning, but I did design that book to mimic a ritual I have, which is to pick up and read one passage from the Stoics each morning. Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, I want to put something from them in my brain each morning. Unfortunately, there was no book that put them all together until we made The Daily Stoic (which has now sold 500,000 copies and is translated in more than 30 languages). We also put out an email version (and a podcast) for DailyStoic.com that has continued the same service. More than 250,000 people check in with these texts this morning because it’s important. You want to start your day off with wisdom and when it comes to wisdom, there is nobody better than the Stoics. 

Marginal Revolution by Tyler Cowen

There is nobody who has exposed me to more books and ideas than Tyler Cowen. That’s why his blog MarginalRevolution.com is basically the only site I check every single day, without fail, sometimes multiple times a day. Tyler is a polymath, a diverse and contrarian thinker, who has incredible taste for interesting ideas, ways of thinking and modern and classical wisdom. If you are not reading this site everyday, you’re not learning as much as you can. I really like Tyler’s books as well, including Average is Over, The Complacent Class and Discover Your Inner Economist. I listen to his podcast weekly, and if Tyler had a page a day book, I’d read that each morning. 

Some other good daily reads:

Calling it a Day: Daily Meditations for Workaholics by Robert Larranaga

Marcus Aurelius was the Emperor, millions depended on him, he was famous, his face was literally on the coins of the currency—yet, he reminded himself in Meditations, not “to be all about business.” There is more to life than work: the most important work—becoming the person we need to be for the people who need it from us the most. 

Listening to Your Life: Daily Meditations by Frederick Buechner

366 quotations culled from Buechner’s works—novels, sermons, lectures, autobiographical ruminations—by an admirer and elaborated on by Buechner himself, who wants everyone to “pay attention to the world and all that dwells therein and thereby learn at last to pay attention to yourself and all that dwells therein.”

You Are the Beloved: Daily Meditations for Spiritual Living by Henri J. M. Nouwen

There is a great line in a great song by The Head and The Heart: Until you learn to love yourself, The door is locked to someone else. “We are the Beloved,” Nouwen writes, “we are intimately loved long before our parents, teachers, spouses, children and friends loved or wounded us…That’s the truth I want you to claim for yourself.”

Journey To The Heart 

Bible In A Year 

Healing After Loss

Your True Home

365 Tao

The Everyday Torah

Journals

The other “book” I pick up each day is a journal. Actually, I pick up three. In the first one—a small blue gold leafed notebook—I write one sentence about the day that just passed. In the next, a black Moleskine, I journal two quick pages about yesterday’s workout (how far I ran or swam), what work I did, any notable occurrences, and some lines about what I am grateful for, what I want to get better at, and where I am succeeding. And then finally, I pick up The Daily Stoic Journal where I prepare for the day ahead by meditating on a short prompt, then set an intention or a goal for the day—just something to give myself something I can review at the end of the day, that I can evaluate myself against.

For years, journaling has been the most important thing I do every morning. It takes all of maybe 15 minutes and then it’s done. But by the time I am finished, I am centered, I am calm, and most importantly, I am primed to do the actual creative work by which I make my living. It’s something countless writers, creators, thinkers and leaders have done for thousands of years. I’ve written, as far as I know, the most comprehensive guide on journaling—how to start journaling, the science-backed benefits of journaling, and much much more. You can read the whole article on DailyStoic.com.

Newsletters

I’m a big fan of newsletters, as well. Here are some that I subscribe to:

James Clear’s “3-2-1 Thursday”

Mark Manson’s “Motherfucking Monday”

Tim Ferriss’ “5 Bullet Friday”

Ramit Sethi’s “I Will Teach You To Be Rich”. 

Maria Papova’s “BrainPickings”

Matt Levine’s Money Stuff (which I heard about from Tyler Cowen) 

The last thing I’d like to mention is actually my favorite thing to write. It’s not a book yet but it will be soon. It’s called the Daily Dad, and it’s a daily email that goes out to 20,000 people each morning. Being a parent is without a doubt the hardest, most demanding thing I’ve ever done in my life. And being a great dad is without a doubt the most important thing I want to achieve in my life. So I read every dad book I could find looking for some help and guidance to get there. Unfortunately, I found that most published advice falls abysmally short. They are typically age-specific and only situationally applicable—useful in a window of time that closes before the back cover does. Inspired by the format of the daily reads listed above, I hunt out the greatest wisdom and lessons from history, science, literature and ordinary parents, to give you real advice and insight for being a great dad every day. It’s free and will be waiting in your inbox every morning. I hope you’ll check it out (Dr. Drew, Casey Neistat, Charlamagne tha God and Brett McKay are all advisors on the project). 

If you’re looking to read other books and written works about how to live well,  check out Scribd . You can get a one month  free trial of unlimited audiobooks and ebooks , plus subscriptions to a whole bunch of great places like The Atlantic and the New York Times.

How You Do Anything Is How You Do Everything

Whatever you’re doing right now, chances are you’d probably rather not be doing it. Even if you’ve got your dream job, it’s very likely that right now you could still be on a conference call you’d rather skip, scheduling some meeting you’re doing as a favor to someone else or dealing with some administrative detail you wish someone else would handle.

Or maybe you’re home from work and you’re picking up around the house. Maybe you’ve got some writing to do and the resistance is setting in. Or you’ve got homework, an application to fill out or someone to fire or need to have difficult conversation with your significant other.

It’s easy to blow these things off. It’s tempting to phone them in. But you can’t.

Because how you do anything, is how you do everything.

Long past his humble beginnings, President Andrew Johnson would speak proudly of his career as a tailor before he entered politics. “My garments never ripped or gave way,” he would say.

On the campaign trail, a heckler once tried to embarrass him by shouting about his working-class credentials. Johnson replied without breaking stride: “That does not disconcert me in the least; for when I used to be a tailor I had the reputation of being a good one, and making close fits, always punctual with my customers, and always did good work.”

Another president, James Garfield, paid his way through college in 1851 by persuading his school, the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute, to let him be the janitor in exchange for tuition. He did the job every day smiling and without a hint of shame. Each morning, he’d ring the university’s bell tower to start the classes — his day already having long begun — and stomp to class with cheer and eagerness.

Within just one year of starting at the school he was a professor — teaching a full course load in addition to his studies. By his twenty-sixth birthday he was the dean.

This is what happens when you do your job — whatever it is — and do it well.

These men went from humble poverty to power by always doing what they were asked to do — and doing it right and with real pride. And doing it better than anyone else. In fact, doing it well because no one else wanted to do it.

Sometimes, 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.

But we are always so busy thinking about the future, we don’t take enough pride in the tasks we are given right now. Too often we phone it in, cash our check, and dream of some higher station in life. Or we think, This is just a job, it isn’t who I am, it doesn’t matter.

This is foolishness.

Everything we do matters — whether it’s making smoothies to save up money or studying for the bar — even after we’ve already achieved the success we sought. Everything is a chance to do and be our best. Only self-absorbed assholes think they are too good for whatever their current station requires.

Wherever we are, whatever we’re doing and wherever we are going, we owe it to ourselves, to our art, to the world to do it well. That’s our primary duty. And our obligation. When action is our priority, vanity falls away.

An artist is given many different canvases and commissions in their lifetime, and what matters is that they treat each one as a priority. Whether it’s the most glamorous or highest paying is irrelevant. Each project matters, and the only degrading part is giving less than one is capable of giving.

Same goes for us. We will be and do many things in our lives. Some are prestigious, some are onerous, none are beneath us. To whatever we face, our job is to respond with:

hard work
honesty
helping others as best we can

We should never have to ask ourselves, But what am I supposed to do now? Because we know the answer: our job.

Whether anyone notices, whether we’re paid for it, whether the project turns out successfully — it doesn’t matter. We can and always should act with those three traits — no matter the obstacle.

There will never be any obstacles that can ever truly prevent us from carrying out our obligation — harder or easier challenges, sure, but never impossible. Each and every task requires our best. Whether we’re facing down bankruptcy and angry customers, or raking in money and deciding how to grow from here, if we do our best we can be proud of our choices and confident they’re the right ones. Because we did our job — whatever it is.

Yeah, yeah, I get it. “Obligations” sound stuffy and oppressive. You want to be able to do whatever you want.

But duty is beautiful, and inspiring and empowering.

Steve Jobs cared even about the inside of his products, making sure they were beautifully designed even though the users would never see them. Taught by his father — who finished even the back of his cabinets though they would be hidden against the wall — to think like a craftsman. In every design predicament, Jobs knew his marching orders: Respect the craft and make something beautiful.

Every situation is different, obviously. We’re probably not inventing the next iPad or iPhone, but we are making something for someone — even if it’s just our own resume. Every part — especially the work that nobody sees, the tough things we wanted to avoid or could have skated away from — we can treat the same way Jobs did: with pride and dedication.

The great psychologist Viktor Frankl, survivor of three concentration camps, found presumptuousness in the age-old question: “What is the meaning of life?” As though it is someone else’s responsibility to tell us. Instead, he said, the world is asking you that question. And it’s our job to answer with our actions.

In every situation, life is asking us a question, and our actions are the answer. Our job is simply to answer well.

Right action — unselfish, dedicated, masterful, creative — that is the answer to that question. That’s one way to find the meaning of life. And how to turn every obstacle into an opportunity.

If you see any of this as a burden, you’re looking at it the wrong way.

Because all we need to do is those three little duties — to try hard, to be honest, and to help others and ourselves. That’s all that’s been asked of us. No more and no less.

Sure, the goal is important. But never forget that each individual instance matters, too — each is a snapshot of the whole. The whole isn’t certain, only the instances

How you do anything is how you can do everything. We can always act right.

***
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It’s Not Enough to Be Right—You Also Have to Be Kind

There is a story about Jeff Bezos from when he was a young boy. He was with his grandparents, both of whom were smokers. Bezos had recently heard an anti-smoking PSA on the radio that explained how many minutes each cigarette takes off a person’s lifespan. And so, sitting there in the backseat, like a typical precocious kid, he put his math skills and this new knowledge to work and proudly explained to his grandmother, as she puffed away, “You’ve lost nine years of your life, Grandma!”

The typical response to this kind of innocent cheekiness is to pat the child on the head and tell them how smart they are. Bezos’ grandmother didn’t do that. Instead, she quite understandably burst into tears. It was after this exchange that Bezos’ grandfather took his grandson aside and taught him a lesson that he says has stuck with him for the rest of his life. “Jeff,” his grandfather said, “one day you’ll understand that it’s harder to be kind than clever.”

Some people might say that young Bezos did nothing wrong. They’re just facts, and the truth hurts. How else do you expect someone to recognize the seriousness of what they’re doing to themselves? There’s something to that, but it captures the central conceit of a dangerous assumption we seem to have made as a culture these days: that being right is a license to be a total, unrepentant asshole. After all, why would you need to repent if you haven’t committed the ultimate sin of being wrong? Some say there’s no reason to care about other people’s feelings if the facts are on your side.

The causes of this spreading through our culture are many. As we’ve become more polarized and more algorithmically sorted, we care a lot less about the people who think differently than us and put little effort into persuading them. That’s because persuasion is no longer the goal—it’s signaling. And with signaling, it’s vehemence that matters, not quality. The constraints of social media also reduce the space for any nuance or qualification you might be inclined to offer; 140 characters or even 240 does not leave much room for humility or kindness. And the desire for viral sharing heightens the need for aggressive, simplistic arguments.

This callous, call-out culture has completely infected both sides of the political aisle, corrupting normal people and pundits with equal viciousness.

The Donald Trumps and Stephen Millers of the world seem to think that that there is no level of personal attack or invective off-limits in the course of exposing liberal hypocrisy; and if it pisses off liberals in the process, all the better. Political correctness has become such a problem, they say, that the only solution is blunt, merciless honesty. Meanwhile, the John Olivers and Daily Show-type hosts of the world play to the left-wing blogosphere, which loves clips of them destroying and roasting and nailing the people on the right. (Jon Stewart famously “took down” Tucker Carlson on Crossfire in 2004.) It’s become a war to see who can be crueler or meaner in a headline: “Is Jordan Peterson the stupid man’s smart person?” and “Democrats Are coddling Ilhan Omar like she’s an idiot child, much like Republicans do with Trump.” Talking heads know that a really good insult or a sick burn will get them online pickups the next day, the same way that athletes know that an awesome dunk will get them on SportsCenter—or sports Twitter.

The ridiculous thing is that political correctness is a real problem. I’ve written about it before. No society can succeed if it runs from or denies uncomfortable truths. And just because a fact is inconvenient does not mean it is offensive. This game of “behalfism” where we are offended—often in advance—on behalf of other marginalized groups has become utterly absurd. A white woman can’t paint a picture of Emmett Till. Little girls can’t dress up as their favorite princess. A TV show has to get rid of a character that had been in the show for nearly 30 years. Young adult novelists get cast aside for not being woke enough.

Anti-intellectualism is also a real problem. We should be worried about the death of expertise. What we feel about an issue does not change the fundamental facts or dispute data. One in three citizens can’t name who the vice president is, one in three can’t identify the Pacific Ocean on a map, and more than one in three can’t name a single right protected by the First Amendment. Not reading is not a badge of honor. People think bringing a snowball to the Senate floor is an argument against climate change. There are politicians who think rape victims can’t get pregnant. Yet, no amount of yelling or condescension or trolling is going to fix any of this. It never has and never will.

When I look back at some of my own writing, I see versions of that same mistake Jeff Bezos made as a kid. I thought if I was just overwhelmingly right enough, people would listen. If I humiliated my opponent, they would have to admit I was right and they were wrong. I’ve even said in interviews that the goal of my first book was to rip back the curtain on how media really works so people could not turn away. But guess what? A lot of people still did. Of course they did. I was right, but I was also being an asshole.

Indeed, most of the writing that I look back on and regret is characterized by a similar tone that has way too much superiority and certainty and not nearly enough intellectual humility or empathy. It’s something I am guilty of in writing since and will be guilty of again—because it’s so much easier to be certain and clever than it is to be nuanced and nice.

You can see some version of this in a lot of the media opposition to populist politics (both left and right). There is this unshakeable assumption that if they can just present the right fact—if they can prove indisputably that Donald Trump is a liar or that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a Marxist—that people will change their minds. If they can just show you the right study that proves there is no link between vaccines and autism or that the planet is getting warmer, they’ll have to tap out and admit, “Okay, that was stupid. We’re wrong. We’ll agree with you now.” And when that doesn’t happen, that’s when the shaming and the humiliation and the personal attacks begin: “I showed you the study. It’s from Harvard. What more do you want, you inbred idiot?” “Face facts, you Hillary-loving socialist!”

After spending years and millions of words and hours of video on this, we’ve had almost zero success. Why? Because you can’t reason people out of positions they didn’t reason themselves into. No one responds well to having their identity attacked. No argument made in bad faith—that the person on the other side is a moron or a dupe or a racist or a snowflake—is ever going to be received in good faith.

Reason is easy. Being clever is easy. Humiliating someone in the wrong is easy too. But putting yourself in their shoes, kindly nudging them to where they need to be, understanding that they have emotional and irrational beliefs just like you have emotional and irrational beliefs—that’s all much harder. So is not writing off other people. So is spending time working on the plank in your own eye than the splinter in theirs. We know we wouldn’t respond to someone talking to us that way, but we seem to think it’s okay to do it to other people.

There is a great clip of Joe Rogan talking during the immigration crisis last year. He doesn’t make some fact-based argument about whether immigration is or isn’t a problem. He doesn’t attack anyone on either side of the issue. He just talks about what it feels like—to him—to hear a mother screaming for the child she’s been separated from. The clip has been seen millions of times now and undoubtedly has changed more minds than a government shutdown, than the squabbles and fights on CNN, than the endless op-eds and think-tank reports.

Rogan doesn’t even tell anyone what to think. (Though, ironically, the clip was abused by plenty of editors who tried to make it partisan). He just says that if you can’t relate to that mom and her pain, you’re not on the right team. That’s the right way to think about it.

If you can’t be kind, if you won’t empathize, then you’re not on the team. That team is Team Humanity, where we are all in this thing together. Where we are all flawed and imperfect. Where we treat other people’s point of view as charitably as we treat our own. Where we are civilized and respectful and, above all, kind to each other—particularly the less fortunate, the mistaken, and the afraid.

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A Radical Guide to Spending Less Time on Your Phone

It’s there: in your pocket. On the desk. In the cup holder of the car.

You want to use it. Just grab it and alleviate the boredom or discomfort. Might as well check the headlines instead of struggling to type words on a blank screen. And why stay in this tense argument with your spouse when you can see what’s new on Instagram? “Hey, sorry buddy, I can’t play dinosaurs right now — I have to answer this email.”

That’s what our phones have become. An instant escape, and a constant burden. I remember when I got my first BlackBerry. It was an exciting and surprisingly moving moment. Not because of the technology, but because of what it meant: Someone at my job thought I was important enough to need one of these.

Over the years, though, that pride has worn off. My phone, once a source of liberation — I could check my email without having to go home, which meant I could spend more time out doing things — eventually became a weight that tied me down. Instead of making me better at my job, it started preventing what Cal Newport calls “deep work” — focused, dedicated, creative time. Instead of helping me have fun, it was making me miserable.

So recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about how to use it less. About how to get the benefits from the technology without all the downsides.

If that’s what you’re looking for, too, these strategies might help you. Some of them are easy. Others are tougher, and you’ll probably think some of them are nuts. Maybe they are. But they work.

Turn off all alerts

My lock screen is almost always blank. It’s not because nothing is happening or nobody needs me. It’s because I went into the general settings on my phone and turned off all alerts by default, with the exception of texts and alarms for literal emergencies. (In Texas, we have flash floods and tornadoes.) Even once I unlock my phone, I don’t see any red circles showing me how many messages or notifications I have. I don’t need Strava to tell me I need to check Strava. I definitely don’t allow anything to make noise or buzz me. (I turned off vibrate for texts as well.) No alerts means fewer things to check and a lot less FOMO.

Decide how you’re going to be reachable

One of the best decisions I made a few years ago was to limit how people can get in touch with me. Some people have email, text, phone calls, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Messenger, Twitter and Instagram DMs, LinkedIn messages, Slack, Telegram, and God knows what else. No wonder they’re overwhelmed.

I basically limit myself to three: You can text, email, or call me. Email is day-to-day work stuff, texts are for friends and family, and when my phone rings, it’s usually something important from either one of those groups. I no longer feel the need to check 20 different apps and inboxes 50 times a day, because I know everything that actually matters will come in through one of those three channels.

Sleep with your phone in the other room

Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska is known for giving his young staffers old-school alarm clocks — not because he wants to make sure they’re on time for work, but so they don’t have an excuse to sleep with their phone on the nightstand. If you have an alarm that’s not your clock app, your phone can go in the other room, and if your phone is in the other room, you can’t check it at night.

This means you won’t know if you get a text message or an email. It means you won’t be tempted to scroll through social. It means you’ll have to lie there with your own thoughts, read a book, or maybe even go to sleep at a reasonable time.

Start phone-free mornings

About six months ago, I was invited to a challenge on the habit-building app Spar to not touch my phone for at least 10 minutes after I woke up. I’d been sleeping with it in the other room for years, but I still usually grabbed it first thing in the morning.

The challenge came with a powerful incentive — each time I failed, I’d have to pay $10. But the real draw was that it meant I could focus on being present with my son in my first waking moments. Soon, I started challenging myself to stretch 10 minutes into 30, then 45, then an hour. Now some mornings, if I am writing, I might not touch my phone until lunch. On those days, I’m happier and more productive.

Get a smartwatch

I’m not a big fan of the “solve a device problem with another device” logic, but in this case, it’s really worked. Having a watch that connects to my phone — but that I don’t use as a phone — has substantially reduced the amount of time I spend on my phone, and helped me curb the desire to always have it near me. The only alerts I allow on my watch are calendar reminders and phone calls, which keeps me at least somewhat tethered to my work life. I can reject calls from my wrist, too, without having to go into my pocket.

Get AirPods, too

Not having a physical cord tethering me to my phone makes a huge difference. I want to listen to music. I don’t want to be tempted by my email. I want to talk to this person on the phone. I don’t want to be scrolling at the same time.

Get rid of social apps

I am old enough to remember the days when you checked Facebook and Twitter on your computer instead of carrying the apps around on your body 24 hours a day. That world was slightly less awful than the one we’re in today. Twitter used to be fun. Facebook used to have photos of people’s lunches. Now they’re both filled with constant arguing.

The decision to remove social media from my phone radically reduced the role these apps played in my life. Twitter is fine as a social diversion from time to time. As a thing you can access every time a thought pops in your head? Not so much.

Don’t use your phone for entertainment at all

Why do cellphone companies strike deals with Netflix? Why did AT&T buy DirecTV? Because they want to turn your phone into your television. They want you to mainline data and entertainment. This is good for them, but not good for you. When I’m on a plane, I don’t pull up my phone and watch movies; I read books. When I want to watch TV, I have to sit down on the couch and use a remote.

While we’re on the subject, delete your games, too. Really smart psychologists, designers, and marketers have figured out how to make them as addictive and immersive as possible, and cutting them out is one easy way to use your phone less. My phone is for communication, not entertainment, and maintaining this distinction helps subordinate its role in my life.

Carry two devices

Chris “Drama” Pfaff, founder of the clothing brand Young & Reckless, once told me he carries two phones: one for work and one for fun. The fun one — the one with all his social media and other apps he likes — stays in the car while he’s at work. People laugh at him when he has to walk down to the garage to send a message, but it works. If you can afford it, this strategy is a good one.

Don’t sync your computer and phone

If your phone is a distraction machine, your computer should be a tool for focus — and the more you keep them separate, the better. The last thing I want is my computer to start ringing. What the hell do I need texts on my desktop for? The more you can minimize interruptions, the better.

Print your tickets at the airport

When I fly somewhere, the first thing I do is print my ticket at the self-check-in monitors. Why? First off, the bar code thing never works and I hate people who hold up the line trying to position their phone properly. Second, and more importantly, I don’t want to give myself an excuse to keep my phone at hand — the piece of paper in my pocket tells me everything I need to fly, and now I can zip my phone into my backpack and not check it. A minor reduction in phone time, sure, but I’ll take it where I can get it.

Use child protection settings

You know you can block certain sites on your phone, right? So if you deleted Facebook but still check it in your browser, you can use parental controls to protect yourself from yourself. There are a number of sites I wanted to stop checking, so I made it harder for me to do so.

Go on a purge

Delete contacts you don’t use. Delete apps you don’t need. Clear your cookies. Do you need the Macy’s app? Do you actually need both Lyft and Uber? Simplify. Your phone wants to remember everything to make your experience using it more seamless. Don’t let it.

“Do Not Disturb” is your friend

Use this feature all the time. Whenever you sit down to a meeting. Whenever you got into a movie. Whenever you’re doing something nice with your family. Put up a wall that prevents people, emails, and texts from getting through. Protect your space. Be in the moment.

Whenever possible, replace your phone with another solution

If you read news on your phone, try subscribing to a newspaper or a magazine. If you want a restaurant recommendation, ask a friend. If you use a countdown app with your kids, get a kitchen timer. Yes, the phone can be easier for all these things, but what we don’t factor in is the mindless scrolling that we slip into once the task at hand is done. The less you use your phone to deal with trivial matters or minor conveniences, the less dependent you’ll be on it.

Okay, but what do you use your phone for, then? Well, lots of helpful things. It’s a calculator. It lets me look up information I need on the go. I can take pictures. I can listen to music and podcasts. I get directions. I can call an Uber to pick me up anywhere in the world. I manage my schedule. I write notes to myself. I record my runs and my swims. I FaceTime my kids when I’m away.

My life is better because of the ability to do these things. It’s the stuff that prevents me from doing them that I want to get rid of.

Because it’s my life and it’s ticking away every second. I want to be there for it, not staring at a screen.

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