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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Ryan Holiday
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February 5 - December 31, 2019
As you lie in bed, remember that sleep is a form of surrender and trust and how easily it comes. And prepare to start the whole cycle over again tomorrow.
In Seneca’s essay on tranquility, he uses the Greek word euthymia, which he defines as “believing in yourself and trusting that you are on the right path, and not being in doubt by following the myriad footpaths of those wandering in every direction.” It is this state of mind, he says, that produces tranquility. Clarity of vision allows us to have this belief. That’s not to say we’re always going to be 100 percent certain of everything, or that we even should be. Rather, it’s that we can rest assured we’re heading generally in the right direction—that we don’t need to constantly compare
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Taking that time is what Stoics advocated more than almost anything else. We don’t know whether Marcus Aurelius wrote his Meditations in the morning or at night, but we know he carved out moments of quiet alone time—and that he wrote for himself, not for anyone else.
That’s what Seneca is reminding us. As someone who was one of the richest men in Rome, he knew firsthand that money only marginally changes life. It doesn’t solve the problems that people without it seem to think it will. In fact, no material possession will. External things can’t fix internal issues.
That’s the kind of deep reading and study we need to cultivate as well, which is why we’re reading just one page a day instead of a chapter at a time. So we can take the time to read attentively and deeply.
The more things we desire and the more we have to do to earn or attain those achievements, the less we actually enjoy our lives—and the less free we are.
Our judgment affects what we desire, our desires affect how we act, just as our judgment determines how we act. But we can’t just expect this to happen. We must put real thought and energy into each area of our lives. If we do, we’ll find real clarity and success.
“Keep this thought handy when you feel a fit of rage coming on—it isn’t manly to be enraged. Rather, gentleness and civility are more human, and therefore manlier. A real man doesn’t give way to anger and discontent, and such a person has strength, courage, and endurance—unlike the angry and complaining. The nearer a man comes to a calm mind, the closer he is to strength.” —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 11.18.5b
Today, when you find yourself getting anxious, ask yourself: Why are my insides twisted into knots? Am I in control here or is my anxiety? And most important: Is my anxiety doing me any good?
“Who then is invincible? The one who cannot be upset by anything outside their reasoned choice.”
If there’s a central message of Stoic thought, it’s this: impulses of all kinds are going to come, and your work is to control them, like bringing a dog to heel.
The combination of power, fear, and mania can be deadly. The leader, convinced that he might be betrayed, acts first and betrays others first. Afraid that he’s not well liked, he works so hard to get others to like him that it has the opposite effect. Convinced of mismanagement, he micromanages and becomes the source of the mismanagement. And on and on—the things we fear or dread, we blindly inflict on ourselves.
“We have the power to hold no opinion about a thing and to not let it upset our state of mind—for things have no natural power to shape our judgments.” —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 6.52
Thomas Jefferson once joked in a letter to John Adams, “How much pain have cost us the evils which have never happened!”
And Seneca would put it best: “There is nothing so certain in our fears that’s not yet more certain in the fact that
most of what we dread comes t...
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Getting upset is like continuing the dream while you’re awake. The thing that provoked you wasn’t real—but your reaction was. And so from the fake comes real consequences. Which is why you need to wake up right now instead of creating a nightmare.
Life (and our job) is difficult enough. Let’s not make it harder by getting emotional about insignificant matters or digging in for battles we don’t actually care about. Let’s not let emotion get in the way of kathêkon, the simple, appropriate actions on the path to virtue.
“It is quite impossible to unite happiness with a yearning for what we don’t have. Happiness has all that it wants, and resembling the well-fed, there shouldn’t be hunger or thirst.” —EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 3.24.17
Locate that yearning for more, better, someday and see it for what it is: the enemy of your contentment. Choose it or your happiness. As Epictetus says, the two are not compatible.
When it comes to your goals and the things you strive for, ask yourself: Am I in control of them or they in control of me?
“You shouldn’t give circumstances the power to rouse anger, for they don’t care at all.” —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 7.38
Think of the last time you flew off the handle. What was the outcome? Was there any benefit?
question. In one of his famous letters, Seneca observes how often powerful people are slaves to their money, to their positions, to their mistresses, even—as was legal in Rome—to their slaves. “No slavery is more disgraceful,” he quipped, “than one which is self-imposed.”
“If a person gave away your body to some passerby, you’d be furious. Yet you hand over your mind to anyone who comes along, so they may abuse you, leaving it disturbed and troubled—have you no shame in that?” —EPICTETUS, ENCHIRIDION, 28
“You are not your body and hair-style, but your capacity for choosing well. If your choices are beautiful, so too will you be.” —EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 3.1.39b–40a
“Today I escaped from the crush of circumstances, or better put, I threw them out, for the crush wasn’t from outside me but in my own assumptions.” —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 9.13
“People seek retreats for themselves in the country, by the sea, or in the mountains. You are very much in the habit of yearning for those same things. But this is entirely the trait of a base person, when you can, at any moment, find such a retreat in yourself. For nowhere can you find a more peaceful and less busy retreat than in your own soul—especially if on close inspection it is filled with ease, which I say is nothing more than being well-ordered. Treat yourself often to this retreat and be renewed.” —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 4.3.1
It’s the chaos that ensues from not having a plan. Not because plans are perfect, but because people without plans—like a line of infantrymen without a strong leader—are much more likely to get overwhelmed and fall apart.
“Your mind will take the shape of what you frequently hold in thought, for the human spirit is colored by such impressions.” —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 5.16
“It isn’t events themselves that disturb people, but only their judgments about them.” —EPICTETUS, ENCHIRIDION, 5
“Throw out your conceited opinions, for it is impossible for a person to begin to learn what he thinks he already knows.” —EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 2.17.1
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.
For habit is first weakened and then obliterated.
It’s important for us to remember in our own journey to self-improvement: one never arrives. The sage—the perfect Stoic who behaves perfectly in every situation—is an ideal, not an end.
“Pay attention to what’s in front of you—the principle, the task, or what’s being portrayed.” —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 8.22
“What’s the point of having countless books and libraries, whose titles could hardly be read through in a lifetime. The learner is not taught, but burdened by the sheer volume, and it’s better to plant the seeds of a few authors than to be scattered about by many.” —SENECA, ON TRANQUILITY OF MIND, 9.4
“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
“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, MORAL LETTERS, 106.2b–3a
“How much more harmful are the consequences of anger and grief than the circumstances that aroused them in us!” —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 11.18.8
“Don’t let your reflection on the whole sweep of life crush you. Don’t fill your mind with all the bad things that might still happen. Stay focused on the present situation and ask yourself why it’s so unbearable and can’t be survived.” —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 8.36
There is a maxim that Navy SEALs pass from officer to officer, man to man. In the midst of chaos, even in the fog of war, their battle-tested advice is this: “Calm is contagious.”
“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
Sticking with the same unsuccessful pattern is easy. It doesn’t take any thought or any additional effort, which is probably why most people do it.
“This is why we say that nothing happens to the wise person contrary to their expectations.” —SENECA, ON TRANQUILITY OF MIND, 13.3b
“What assistance can we find in the fight against habit? Try the opposite!” —EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 1.27.4 Viktor Frankl, the brilliant psychologist and Holocaust survivor, cured patients suffering from phobias or neurotic habits using a method he called “paradoxical intention.” Let’s say a patient couldn’t sleep. The standard therapy would have been something obvious, like relaxation techniques. Frankl instead encouraged the patient to try not to fall asleep. He found that shifting focus off the problem deflected the patient’s obsessive attention away from it and allowed them to eventually
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No need to be too hard on yourself. Hold yourself to a higher standard but not an impossible one. And forgive yourself if and when you slip up.
“While it’s true that someone can impede our actions, they can’t impede our intentions and our attitudes, which have the power of being conditional and adaptable. For the mind adapts and converts any obstacle to its action into a means of achieving it. That which is an impediment to action is turned to advance action. The obstacle on the path becomes the way.” —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 5.20
The Stoics believed that every person, animal, and thing has a purpose or a place in nature. Even in ancient Greek and Roman times, they vaguely understood that the world was composed of millions of tiny atoms.
Everyone had a job—a specific duty. Even people who did bad things—they were doing their job of being evil because evil is a part of life.
