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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Ryan Holiday
Started reading
January 6, 2024
The answer to the question “Why did you do the right thing?” should always be “Because it was the right thing to do.”
People are depending on you. Your purpose is to help us render this great work together. And we’re waiting and excited for you to show up.
Some die on the first rungs of the ladder of success, others before they can reach the top, and the few that make it to the top of their ambition through a thousand indignities realize at the end it’s only for an inscription on their gravestone.”
Money creates problems. Climbing one mountain exposes another, higher peak.
But can you be fully content with your life, can you bravely face what life has in store from one day to the next, can you bounce back from every kind of adversity without losing a step, can you be a source of strength and inspiration to others around you? That’s Stoic joy—the joy that comes from purpose, excellence, and duty.
We must not get so wrapped up in our work that we think we’re immune from the reality of aging and life.
Take pride in your work. But it is not all.
We want things to go perfectly, so we tell ourselves that we’ll get started once the conditions are right, or once we have our bearings. When, really, it’d be better to focus on making do with how things actually are.
It’s far better that we become pragmatic and adaptable—able to do what we need to do anywhere, anytime. The place to do your work, to live the good life, is here.
You must no longer feel anger, resentment, envy, or regret.”
“The more you say,” Robert Greene has written, “the more likely you are to say something foolish.” To that we add: the more you say, the more likely you are to blow past opportunities, ignore feedback, and cause yourself suffering.
“We don’t abandon our pursuits because we despair of ever perfecting them.”
Today, see if you can go without blaming a single person or single thing. Someone messes up your instructions—it’s on you for expecting anything different. Someone says something rude—it’s your sensitivity that interpreted their remark this way.
If you can’t make it for a day, see if you can make it for an hour. If not for an hour, then for ten minutes. Start where you need to. Even one minute without playing the blame game is progress in the art of living.
Some people think that “choosing your battles” is weak or calculating. How could reducing the amount of times we fail or minimizing the number of needless injuries inflicted upon us be weak? How is that a bad thing?
by longing for things to come it will lose the ability to enjoy present things.”
Best case scenario—if the news turns out to be better than expected, all this time was wasted with needless fear. Worst case scenario—we were miserable for extra time, by choice.
explain why a wise person shouldn’t get drunk—not with words, but by the facts of its ugliness and offensiveness.
If you find yourself trying to persuade someone to change or do something differently, remember what an effective lever self-interest is. It’s not that this or that is bad, it’s that it is in their best interest to do it a different way. And show them—don’t moralize.
What wisdom or help would you be able to find today if you stopped caring about affiliations and reputations? How much more could you see if you just focused on merit?
the journey showed me this—how much of what we have is unnecessary, and how easily we can decide to rid ourselves of these things whenever it’s necessary, never suffering the loss.”
We can still live well without becoming slaves to luxury.
“No person has the power to have everything they want, but it is in their power not to want what they don’t have, and to cheerfully put to good use what they do have.” —SENECA, MORAL LETTERS, 123.3
you could try to increase your wealth, or you could take a shortcut and just want less.
Earlier we were reminded of Socrates’s tolerant belief that “no one does wrong on purpose.” The clearest proof of that hypothesis? All the times we did wrong without malice or intention.
This is why it is so important not to write people off or brand them as enemies. Be as forgiving of them as you are of yourself. Cut them the same slack you would for yourself so that you can continue to work with them and make use of their talents.
It’s supposed to hurt. That’s how you’ll develop the will to endure and persevere through life’s many difficulties.
“I judge you unfortunate because you have never lived through misfortune. You have passed through life without an opponent—no one can ever know what you are capable of, not even you.” —SENECA, ON PROVIDENCE, 4.3
There’s another benefit of so-called misfortune. Having experienced and survived it, we walk away with a better understanding of our own capacity and inner strength. Passing a trial by fire is empowering because you know that in the future you can survive similar adversity.
why worry? This might be one of those formative experiences you will be grateful for later.
A tough situation isn’t helped by terror—it only makes things harder.
Instead of ‘a way to not lose my child,’ try asking for ‘a way to lose my fear of it.’”
A person who overcame not just the external obstacles to success but mastered themselves and their emotions along the way? That’s much more impressive. The person who has been dealt a harder hand, understood it, but still triumphed? That’s greatness.
“What if someone despises me? Let them see to it. But I will see to it that I won’t be found doing or saying anything contemptible. What if someone hates me? Let them see to that. But I will see to it that I’m kind and good-natured to all, and prepared to show even the hater where they went wrong. Not in a critical way, or to show off my patience, but genuinely and usefully.” —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 11.13
The order and the peace might be interrupted by a new circumstance. OK. Get a hold of yourself and find your way back.
Everyone has found themselves outmatched by an opponent, frustrated by some skill or attribute they have that we don’t—height, speed, vision, whatever. How we choose to respond to that struggle tells us about who we are as athletes and who we’ll be as people. Do we see it as a chance to learn and get stronger? Do we get frustrated and complain? Or worse, do we call it off and find an easier game to play, one that makes us feel good instead of challenged?
Make yourself invulnerable to your dependency on comfort and convenience, or one day your vulnerability might bring you to your knees.
To sit around all day and do nothing? To watch endless amounts of television or simply travel from place to place so that you might cross locations off a checklist? That is not life.
We are so used to what we have, we half believe we’d die without it. Of course, this is just the comfort talking.
If someone treats you rudely and you respond with rudeness, you have not done anything but prove to them that they were justified in their actions.
The distant future is irrelevant. Be good and noble and impressive now—while it still matters.
Our will shouldn’t be directed at becoming the person who is in perfect shape or who can speak multiple languages but who doesn’t have a second for other people.
Let’s not confuse getting better at stuff with being a better person. One is a much bigger priority than the other.
remember that there are positive qualities that you can develop that don’t depend on genetic accidents.
Which of these is easiest to change: our opinion or the event that is past?
Accept what happened and change your wish that it had not happened. Stoicism calls this the “art of acquiescence”—to accept rather than fight every little thing.
Remember, events are objective. It’s only our opinion that says something is good or bad (and thus worth fighting against or fighting for). A better attitude? To decide to make the most of everything. But to do that you must first cease fighting.
You don’t have to believe there is a god directing the universe, you just need to stop believing that you’re that director.
Alexander reaches a river crossing only to be confronted by a philosopher who refuses to move. “This man has conquered the world!” one of Alexander’s men shouts. “What have you done?” The philosopher responds, with complete confidence, “I have conquered the need to conquer the world.”
in Diogenes’s real confrontation with Alexander, the philosopher was more powerful than the most powerful man in the world—because, unlike him, Diogenes had fewer wants.
