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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Ryan Holiday
Read between
November 25, 2016 - December 15, 2018
“Nature is merciful,” he later wrote in a newspaper article about the experience, “and does not try her children, man or beast, beyond their compass. It is only where the cruelty of man intervenes that hellish torments appear. For the rest—live dangerously; take things as they come; dread naught, all will be well.”
Because like Epicurus says, nothing is unending. You just need to be strong and gracious enough to get through it.
The point is not to have an iron will, but an adaptable will—a will that makes full use of reason to clarify perception, impulse, and judgment to act effectively for the right purpose.
“The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing, because an artful life requires being prepared to meet and withstand sudden and unexpected attacks.” —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 7.61
The order and the peace might be interrupted by a new circumstance. OK. Get a hold of yourself and find your way back.
“Difficulties show a person’s character. So when a challenge confronts you, remember that God is matching you with a younger sparring partner, as would a physical trainer. Why? Becoming an Olympian takes sweat! I think no one has a better challenge than yours, if only you would use it like an athlete would that younger sparring partner.” —EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 1.24.1–2
The greats don’t avoid these tests of their abilities. They seek them out because they are not just the measure of greatness, they are the pathway to it.
the mind freed from passions is an impenetrable fortress—a person has no more secure place of refuge for all time. —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS
Bruce Lee once made an interesting claim: “I fear not the man who has practiced ten thousand kicks once,” he said, “but I fear the man who has practiced one kick ten thousand times.” When we repeat an action so often it becomes unconscious behavior, we can default to it without thinking.
Think about which behaviors you’d like to be able to default to if you could. How many of them have you practiced only once? Let today be twice.
“Being unexpected adds to the weight of a disaster, and being a surprise has never failed to increase a person’s pain. For that reason, nothing should ever be unexpected by us. Our minds should be sent out in advance to all things and we shouldn’t just consider the normal course of things, but what could actually happen. For is there anything in life that Fortune won’t knock off its high horse if it pleases her?” —SENECA, MORAL LETTERS, 91.3
We must prepare in our minds for the possibility of extreme reversals of fate. The next time you make a donation to charity, don’t just think about the good turn you’re doing, but take a moment to consider that one day you may need to receive charity yourself.
“Where,” Seneca asked them repeatedly, “are your maxims of philosophy, or the preparations of so many years’ study against evils to come? Who knew not Nero’s cruelty?” That is: he knew it could happen to him too, and so he was prepared for it.
“Show me someone who isn’t a slave! One is a slave to lust, another to greed, another to power, and all are slaves to fear. I could name a former Consul who is a slave to a little old woman, a millionaire who is the slave of the cleaning woman. . . . No servitude is more abject than the self-imposed.” —SENECA, MORAL LETTERS, 47.17 We’re all addicts in one way or another. We’re addicted to our routines, to our coffee, to our comfort, to someone else’s approval. These dependencies mean we’re not in control of our own lives—the dependency is. “Anyone who truly wants to be free,” Epictetus said,
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This is why we must strengthen ourselves by testing these dependencies before they become too
Make yourself invulnerable to your dependency on comfort and convenience, or one day your vulnerability might bring you to your knees.
one day your vulnerability might bring you to your knees.
Robert Caro has written that “power doesn’t corrupt, it reveals.” In some ways, prosperity—financial and personal—is the same way.
