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

by Ryan Holiday

Our actions may be impeded . . . but there can be no impeding our intentions or dispositions. Because we can accommodate and adapt. The mind adapts and converts to its own purposes the obstacle to our acting.

The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.

he truly saw each and every one of these obstacles as an opportunity to practice some virtue: patience, courage, humility, resourcefulness, reason, justice, and creativity.

Whatever we face, we have a choice: Will we be blocked by obstacles, or will we advance through and over them?

How skilled we are at cataloging what holds us back!

Every obstacle is unique to each of us. But the responses they elicit are the same: Fear. Frustration. Confusion. Helplessness. Depression. Anger.

really only one thing is at fault: our attitude and approach.

Andy Grove, former CEO of Intel, outlined when he described what happens to businesses in tumultuous times: “Bad companies are destroyed by crisis. Good companies survive them. Great companies are improved by them.”

It’s not just: How can I think this is not so bad? No, it is how to will yourself to see that this must be good—an opportunity to gain a new foothold, move forward, or go in a better direction. Not “be positive” but learn to be ceaselessly creative and opportunistic.

“The obstacle in the path becomes the path. Never forget, within every obstacle is an opportunity to improve our condition.”

We’re soft, entitled, and scared of conflict. Great times are great softeners. Abundance can be its own obstacle, as many people can attest.

Objective judgment, now at this very moment. Unselfish action, now at this very moment. Willing acceptance—now at this very moment—of all external events. That’s all you need. —MARCUS AURELIUS

While others are excited or afraid, we will remain calm and imperturbable. We will see things simply and straightforwardly, as they truly are—neither good nor bad.

Choose not to be harmed—and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed—and you haven’t been. —MARCUS AURELIUS

Our perceptions are the thing that we’re in complete control of.

through our perception of events, we are complicit in the creation—as well as the destruction—of every one of our obstacles.

There is no good or bad without us, there is only perception. There is the event itself and the story we tell ourselves about what it means.

There is always a countermove, always an escape or a way through, so there is no reason to get worked up. No one said it would be easy and, of course, the stakes are high, but the path is there for those ready to take it.

Does what happened keep you from acting with justice, generosity, self-control, sanity, prudence, honesty, humility, straightforwardness?

Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become the next moment. By the same token, every human being has the freedom to change at any instant. —VIKTOR FRANKL

Where the head goes, the body follows. Perception precedes action. Right action follows the right perspective.

To argue, to complain, or worse, to just give up, these are choices. Choices that more often than not, do nothing to get us across the finish line.

the most harmful dragon we chase is the one that makes us think we can change things that are simply not ours to change.

Focusing exclusively on what is in our power magnifies and enhances our power.

ignore the totality of your situation and learn to be content with what happens, as it happens.

Remember that this moment is not your life, it’s just a moment in your life. Focus on what is in front of you, right now. Ignore what it “represents” or it “means” or “why it happened to you.”

Our perceptions determine, to an incredibly large degree, what we are and are not capable of. In many ways, they determine reality itself. When we believe in the obstacle more than in the goal, which will inevitably triumph?

Though of course we don’t control reality, our perceptions do influence it.

It’s our preconceptions that are the problem. They tell us that things should or need to be a certain way, so when they’re not, we naturally assume that we are at a disadvantage or that we’d be wasting our time to pursue an alternate course.

“That which doesn’t kill me makes me stronger” is not a cliché but fact.

Some academic once asked Demosthenes what the three most important traits of speechmaking were. His reply says it all: “Action, Action, Action!”

It feels better to ignore or pretend. But you know deep down that that isn’t going to truly make it any better. You’ve got to act. And you’ve got to start now.

People turn shit into sugar all the time—shit that’s a lot worse than whatever we’re dealing with. We’re talking physical disabilities, racial discrimination, battles against overwhelmingly superior armies. But those people didn’t quit. They didn’t feel sorry for themselves. They didn’t delude themselves with fantasies about easy solutions. They focused on the one thing that mattered: applying themselves with gusto and creativity.

The time for that has passed. The wind is rising. The bell’s been rung. Get started, get moving.

Take the bat off your shoulder and give it a swing. You’ve got to start, to go anywhere.

You’re going soft. You’re not aggressive enough. You’re not pressing ahead. You’ve got a million reasons why you can’t move at a faster pace. This all makes the obstacles in your life loom very large.

For some reason, these days we tend to downplay the importance of aggression, of taking risks, of barreling forward. It’s probably because it’s been negatively associated with certain notions of violence or masculinity.

Be deliberate, of course, but you always need to be moving forward.

those who attack problems and life with the most initiative and energy usually win.

We talk a lot about courage as a society, but we forget that at its most basic level it’s really just taking action—whether that’s approaching someone you’re intimidated by or deciding to finally crack a book on a subject you need to learn.

Just because the conditions aren’t exactly to your liking, or you don’t feel ready yet, doesn’t mean you get a pass. If you want momentum, you’ll have to create it yourself, right now, by getting up and getting started.

At Vicksburg, Grant learned two things. First, persistence and pertinacity were incredible assets and probably his main assets as a leader.

Remember and remind yourself of a phrase favored by Epictetus: “persist and resist.” Persist in your efforts. Resist giving in to distraction, discouragement, or disorder.

It’s okay to be discouraged. It’s not okay to quit. To know you want to quit but to plant your feet and keep inching closer until you take the impenetrable fortress you’ve decided to lay siege to in your own life—that’s persistence.

The best men are not those who have waited for chances but who have taken them; besieged chance, conquered the chance, and made chance the servitor. —E. H. CHAPIN

And things can always be worse. Not to be glib, but the next time you: Lose money? Remember, you could have lost a friend. Lost that job? What if you’d lost a limb? Lost your house? You could have lost everything.

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.

It’s a story as old as time. Man nearly dies, he takes stock, and emerges from the experience a completely different, and better, person.

The diagnosis is terminal for all of us. A death sentence has been decreed. Each second, probability is eating away at the chances that we’ll be alive tomorrow; something is coming and you’ll never be able to stop it. Be ready for when that day comes.

The philosopher and writer Nassim Nicholas Taleb defined a Stoic as someone who “transforms fear into prudence, pain into information, mistakes into initiation and desire into undertaking.”