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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Ryan Holiday
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March 11 - December 31, 2019
Don’t spend much time thinking about what other people think. Think about what you think. Think instead about the results, about the impact, about whether it is the right thing to do.
One does not magically get one’s act together—it is a matter of many individual choices. It’s a matter of getting up at the right time, making your bed, resisting shortcuts, investing in yourself, doing your work. And make no mistake: while the individual action is small, its cumulative impact is not.
To quote Belichick again: “Do your job.”
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.”
Stoics do not seek to have the answer for every question or a plan for every contingency. Yet they’re also not worried. Why? Because they have confidence that they’ll be able to adapt and change with the circumstances.
Always Say Less Than Necessary.
“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.
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 to take the long way to get there.
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
TURN HAVE TO INTO GET TO
Can you trust that if you put in the effort, the rest will take care of itself? Because it will. Love the craft, be a craftsman.
“But what does Socrates say? ‘Just as one person delights in improving his farm, and another his horse, so I delight in attending to my own improvement day by day.’” —EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 3.5.14
We must do what leaders do, because it’s what leaders do—not for the credit, not for the thanks, not for the recognition. It’s our duty.
How does what you do every day reflect, in some way, the values you claim to care about? Are you acting in a way that’s consistent with something you value, or are you wandering, unmoored to anything other than your own ambition?
First, you ought to live your own life in such a way that it doesn’t negatively impose on others. Second, you have to be open-minded and accepting enough to let others do the same.
You don’t have to do the right thing, just as you don’t have to do your duty. You get to. You want to.
Workaholics always make excuses for their selfishness.
all evil needs to prevail is for good men to do nothing.
Stoic joy—the joy that comes from purpose, excellence, and duty. It’s a serious thing—far more serious than a smile or a chipper voice.
The inexperienced and fearful talk to reassure themselves. The ability to listen, to deliberately keep out of a conversation and subsist without its validity is rare. Silence is a way to build strength and self-sufficiency.
PERFECTION IS THE ENEMY OF ACTION
We’re never going to be perfect—if there is even such a thing. We’re human, after all. Our pursuits should be aimed at progress, however little that it’s possible for us to make.
More important, they believed that what was said mattered less than what was done.
You become the sum of your actions, and as you do, what flows from that—your impulses—reflect the actions you’ve taken. Choose wisely.
The Stoics weren’t being hypothetical when they said we ought to act with a reverse clause and that even the most unfortunate events can turn out to be for the best. The entire philosophy is founded on that idea!
Don’t be the person who says yes with their mouth but no with their actions.
“Quality is much better than quantity. . . . One home run is much better than two doubles.”
“Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”
It’s not weak to change and adapt. Flexibility is its own kind of strength. In fact, this flexibility combined with strength is what will make us resilient and unstoppable.
General Douglas MacArthur once said, in words later engraved at the gymnasium at West Point: UPON THE FIELDS OF FRIENDLY STRIFE ARE SOWN THE SEEDS THAT, UPON OTHER FIELDS, ON OTHER DAYS WILL BEAR THE FRUITS OF VICTORY.
We could look at the upcoming day and despair at all the things we don’t control: other people, our health, the temperature, the outcome of a project once it leaves our hands. Or we could look out at that very same day and rejoice at the one thing we do control: the ability to decide what any event means. This second option offers the ultimate power—a true and fair form of control. If you had control over other people, wouldn’t other people have control over you? Instead, what you’ve been granted is the fairest and most usable of trump cards. While you don’t control external events, you retain
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Is this thing I’m about to do consistent with what I believe? Or, better: Is this the kind of thing the person I would like to be should do?
I will do good in this particular instance, right now.
It’s awful to be a cheat, to be selfish, to feel the need to inflict pain on our fellow human beings. Meanwhile, living morally and well is quite nice.
As always, we’re going to focus on what we control: in this case, the ability to choose to respond with kindness.
Let’s not confuse getting better at stuff with being a better person. One is a much bigger priority than the other.
You have two essential tasks in life: to be a good person and to pursue the occupation that you love. Everything else is a waste of energy and a squandering of your potential.
the philosophy we see from the Stoics makes it simple enough: say no to distractions, to destructive emotions, to outside pressure.
Try to do the right thing when the situation calls for it. Treat other people the way you would hope to be treated. And understand that every small choice and tiny matter is an opportunity to practice these larger principles.
“art of acquiescence”—to accept rather than fight every little thing.
amor fati (a love of fate).
Remember, events are objective. It’s only our opinion that says something is good or bad (and thus worth fighting against or fighting for).
“No man steps in the same river twice.” Because the river has changed, and so has the man. Life is in a constant state of change. And so are we.
It’s not about overcoming our fears but understanding that both hope and fear contain a dangerous amount of want and worry in them.
four critical habits: 1. Accept only what is true. 2. Work for the common good. 3. Match our needs and wants with what is in our control. 4. Embrace what nature has in store for us.
There is a helpful analogy to explain the logos: We are like a dog leashed to a moving cart. The direction of the cart will determine where we go. Depending on the length of the leash, we also have a fair amount of room to explore and determine the pace, but ultimately what each of us must choose is whether we will go willingly or be painfully dragged. Which will it be? Cheerful acceptance? Or ignorant refusal? In the end, they amount to the same.
“Death is one prophecy that never fails.” Every person is born with a death sentence. Each second that passes by is one you’ll never get back.
people you admire, the ones who seem to be able to successfully handle and deal with adversity and difficulty, what do they have in common? Their sense of equilibrium, their orderly discipline. On the one-yard line, in the midst of criticism, after a heartbreaking tragedy, during a stressful period, they keep going. Not because they’re better than you. Not because they’re smarter. But because they have learned a little secret. You can take the bite out of any tough situation by bringing a calm mind to it. By considering it
The purpose of all our reading and studying is to aid us in the pursuit of the good life (and death). At some point, we must put our books aside and take action. So
