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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Ryan Holiday
Read between
November 25, 2016 - December 15, 2018
“Let us therefore set out whole-heartedly, leaving aside our many distractions and exert ourselves in this single purpose, before we realize too late the swift and unstoppable flight of time and are left behind. As each day arises, welcome it as the very best day of all, and make it your own possession. We must seize what flees.” —SENECA, M
“Let us also produce some bold act of our own—and join the ranks of the most emulated.” —SENECA, MORAL LETTERS, 98.13
“Reflect, then,” he said, “that your ancestors set up those trophies, not that you may gaze at them in wonder, but that you may also imitate the virtues of the men who set them up.”
“Kindness is invincible, but only when it’s sincere, with no hypocrisy or faking. For what can even the most malicious person do if you keep showing kindness and, if given the chance, you gently point out where they went wrong—right as they are trying to harm you?” —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 11.18.5.9
Most rudeness, meanness, and cruelty are a mask for deep-seated weakness. Kindness in these situations is only possible for people of great strength. You have that strength. Use it.
e are what we repeatedly do,” Aristotle said, “therefore, excellence is not an act but a habit.”
Think about your activities of the last week as well as what you have planned for today and the week that follows. The person you’d like to be, or the person you see yourself as—how closely do your actions actually correspond to him or her? Which fire are you fueling? Which person are you becoming?
“Don’t set your mind on things you don’t possess as if they were yours, but count the blessings you actually possess and think how much you would desire them if they weren’t already yours. But watch yourself, that you don’t value these things to the point of being troubled if you should lose them.” —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 7.27
Sustained execution, not shapeless epiphanies.
“But what is philosophy? Doesn’t it simply mean preparing ourselves for what may come? Don’t you understand that really amounts to saying that if I would so prepare myself to endure, then let anything happen that will? Otherwise, it would be like the boxer exiting the ring because he took some punches. Actually, you can leave the boxing ring without consequence, but what advantage would come from abandoning the pursuit of wisdom? So, what should each of us say to every trial we face? This is what I’ve trained for, for this my discipline!” —EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 3.10.6–7
“I don’t complain about the lack of time . . . what little I have will go far enough. Today—this day—will achieve what no tomorrow will fail to speak about. I will lay siege to the gods and shake up the world.” —SENECA, MEDEA, 423–425
“Show me that the good life doesn’t consist in its length, but in its use,
the fortunate person is the one who gives themselves a good fortune.
“Diligence is the mother of good luck.”
“I am a great believer in luck. The harder I work, the more of it I seem to have.”
Today, you can hope that good fortune and good luck magically come your way. Or you can prepare yourself to get lucky by focusing on doing the right thing at the right time—and, ironically, render luck mostly unnecessary in the process.
“Well-being is realized by small steps, but is truly no small thing.” —ZENO, QUOTED IN DIOGENES LAERTIUS, LIVES OF THE EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS, 7.1.26
“Why then are we offended? Why do we complain? This is what we’re here for.” —SENECA, ON PROVIDENCE, 5.7
No one said life was easy. No one said it would be fair. Don’t forget, though, that you come from a long, unbroken line of ancestors who survived unimaginable adversity, difficulty, and struggle. It’s their genes and their blood that run through your body right now. Without them, you wouldn’t be here. You’re an heir to an impressive tradition—and as their viable offspring, you’re capable of what they are capable of. You’re meant for this. Bred for it. Just something to keep in mind if things get tough.
That government report or that sympathetic news article isn’t going to pay the bills or rehab your broken leg or find that bridge loan you need. Succumbing to the self-pity and “woe is me” narrative accomplishes nothing—nothing except sapping you of the energy and motivation you need to do something about your problem.
We have a choice: Do we focus on the ways we have been wronged, or do we use what we’ve been given and get to work? Will we wait for someone to save us, or will we listen to Marcus Aurelius’s empowering call to “get active in your own rescue—if you care for yourself at all—and do it while you can.” That’s better than just blowing your own nose (which is a step forward in itself).
“Think of those who, not by fault of inconsistency but by lack of effort, are too unstable to live as they wish, but only live as they have begun.” —SENECA, ON TRANQUILITY OF MIND, 2.6b
“We like to say that we don’t get to choose our parents, that they were given by chance—yet we can truly choose whose children we’d like to be.” —SENECA, ON THE BREVITY OF LIFE, 15.3a
“You must build up your life action by action, and be content if each one achieves its goal as far as possible—and no one can keep you from this. But there will be some external obstacle! Perhaps, but no obstacle to acting with justice, self-control, and wisdom. But what if some other area of my action is thwarted? Well, gladly accept the obstacle for what it is and shift your attention to what is given, and another action will immediately take its place, one that better fits the life you are building.” —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 8.32
focus instead on doing the absolutely smallest things well—practicing with full effort, finishing a specific play, converting on a single possession. A season lasts months, a game lasts hours, catching up might be four touchdowns away, but a single play is only a few seconds. And games and seasons are constituted by seconds.
“There is no vice which lacks a defense, none that at the outset isn’t modest and easily intervened—but after this the trouble spreads widely. If you allow it to get started you won’t be able to control when it stops. Every emotion is at first weak. Later it rouses itself and gathers strength as it moves along—it’s easier to slow it down than to supplant it.” —SENECA, M
“If you find something very difficult to achieve yourself, don’t imagine it impossible—for anything possible and proper for another person can be achieved as easily by you.” —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 6.19
One is zero-sum and jealous (if you win, I lose). The other is non-zero-sum (there’s plenty to go around) and sees the success of others as an inspiration.
‘Train my mind to adapt to any circumstance.’ . . . In this way, if circumstances take you off script . . . you won’t be desperate for a new prompting.” —EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 2.2.20b–1; 24
they have confidence that they’ll be able to adapt and change with the circumstances. Instead of looking for instruction, they cultivate skills like creativity, independence, self-confidence, ingenuity, and the ability to problem solve. In this way, they are resilient instead of rigid. We can practice the same.
“Don’t be ashamed of needing help. You have a duty to fulfill just like a soldier on the wall of battle. So what if you are injured and can’t climb up without another soldier’s help?” —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 7.7
“Fortune doesn’t have the long reach we suppose, she can only lay siege to those who hold her tight. So, let’s step back from her as much as possible.” —SENECA, MORAL LETTERS, 82.5
“Philosophy,” he says, helps us tame the “mad frenzy of our greed and tamps down the fury of our fears.”
“Let Fate find us prepared and active. Here is the great soul—the one who surrenders to Fate. The opposite is the weak and degenerate one, who struggles with and has a poor regard for the order of the world, and seeks to correct the faults of the gods rather than their own.” —SENECA, MORAL LETTERS, 107.12
Whatever happens today, let it find us prepared and active: ready for problems, ready for difficulties, ready for people to behave in disappointing or confusing ways, ready to accept and make it work for us. Let’s not wish we could turn back time or remake the universe according to our preference. Not when it would be far better and far easier to remake ourselves.
Let’s not wish we could turn back time or remake the universe according to our preference. Not when it would be far better and far easier to remake ourselves.
Stay focused on the present situation and ask yourself why it’s so unbearable and can’t be survived.” —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 8.36
A character in Chuck Palahniuk’s novel Lullaby says, “The trick to forgetting the big picture is to look at everything close up.” Sometimes grasping the big picture is important, and the Stoics have helped us with that before. A lot of times, though, it’s counterproductive and overwhelming to be thinking of everything that lies ahead. So by focusing exclusively on the present, we’re able to avoid or remove those intimidating or negative thoughts from our frame of view. A man walking a tightrope tries not to think about how high up he is. An undefeated team tries not to think about their
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“If then it’s not that the things you pursue or avoid are coming at you, but rather that you in a sense are seeking them out, at least try to keep your judgment of them steady, and they too will remain calm and you won’t be seen chasing after or fleeing from them.” —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 11.11
“Calm is contagious.”
That’s who you want to be, whatever your line of work: the casual, relaxed person in every situation who tells everyone else to take a breath and not to worry. Because you’ve got this. Don’t be the agitator, the paranoid, the worrier, or the irrational. Be the calm, not the liability. It will catch on.
“We should take wandering outdoor walks, so that the mind might be nourished and refreshed by the open air and deep breathing.” —SENECA, ON TRANQUILITY OF MIND, 17.8
As Nietzsche would later say: “It is only ideas gained from walking that have any worth.”
Nourish yourself and your mind and solve your problems along the way.
Failure is a part of life we have little choice over. Learning from failure, on the other hand, is optional. We have to choose to learn. We must consciously opt to do things differently—to tweak and change until we actually get the result we’re after. But that’s hard.
“You could enjoy this very moment all the things you are praying to reach by taking the long way around—if you’d stop depriving yourself of them.” —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 12.1
Now you ask a couple more questions, such as “Why are you doing that?” or “What are you hoping it will be like when you get it?” and you find at the very core of it, people want freedom, they want happiness, and they want the respect of their peers.
A Stoic looks at all this and shakes his head at the immense effort and expense we put into chasing things that are simple and straightforward to acquire. It’s as if we prefer to spend years building a complicated Rube Goldberg machine instead of just reaching out and picking up what we want. It’s like looking all over for your sunglasses and then realizing they were on your head the whole time. Freedom? That’s easy. It’s in your choices. Happiness? That’s easy. It’s in your choices. Respect of your peers? That too is in the choices you make. And all of that is right in front of you. No need
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The next time you face a political dispute or a personal disagreement, ask yourself: Is there any reason to fight about this? Is arguing going to help solve anything?
Just think of what you could accomplish—and how much better you would feel—if you could conquer the need to fight and win every tiny little thing.
