The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

by Ryan Holiday

This is what I’ve got to do or put up with? Well, I might as well be happy about it.

No one understands him, this man who smiles. Well, the story of the fight is the story of a smile. If ever a man won by nothing more fatiguing than a smile, Johnson won today.

Cheerfulness in all situations, especially the bad ones.

The goal is: Not: I’m okay with this. Not: I think I feel good about this. But: I feel great about it. Because if it happened, then it was meant to happen, and I am glad that it did when it did. I am meant to make the best of it.

We don’t get to choose what happens to us, but we can always choose how we feel about it.

You love it because it’s all fuel. And you don’t just want fuel. You need it.

Adversity is fuel to move forward.

“Gentleman, I am hardening on this enterprise. I repeat, I am now hardening towards this enterprise.” —WINSTON CHURCHILL

Persistence is an action. Perseverance is a matter of will. One is energy. The other, endurance.

Determination, if you think about it, is invincible. Nothing other than death can prevent us from following Churchill’s old acronym: KBO. Keep Buggering On. Despair? That’s on you. No one else is to blame when you throw in the towel.

Even if we can’t carry the load all the way, we’re going to take our crack at picking up the heavy end. We’re going to be of service to others. Help ourselves by helping them. Becoming better because of it, drawing purpose from it.

No harshness, no deprivation, no toil should interfere with our empathy toward others.

Help your fellow humans thrive and survive, contribute your little bit to the universe before it swallows you up, and be happy with that. Lend a hand to others. Be strong for them, and it will make you stronger.

Death doesn’t make life pointless, but rather purposeful.

Memento mori, the Romans would remind themselves. Remember you are mortal.

We can learn to adjust and come to terms with death—this final and most humbling fact of life—and find relief in the understanding that there is nothing else nearly as hard left.

Understand that each battle is only one of many and that you can use it to make the next one easier.

Philosophy was never what happened in the classroom. It was a set of lessons from the battlefield of life.