The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living

by Ryan Holiday

just begin the work. The rest follows.

But the reminder here is that no matter what happens, no matter how disappointing our behavior has been in the past, the principles themselves remain unchanged. We can return and embrace them at any moment. What happened yesterday—what happened five minutes ago—is the past. We can reignite and restart whenever we like. Why not do it right now?

It’s not because these men are cheap. It’s because the things that matter to them are cheap.

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.

Every time you get upset, a little bit of life leaves the body. Are these really the things on which you want to spend that priceless resource? Don’t be afraid to make a change—a big one.

“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 I’ll be happy when I graduate, we tell ourselves. I’ll be happy when I get this promotion, when this diet pays off, when I have the money that my parents never had. Conditional happiness is what psychologists call this kind of thinking. Like the horizon, you can walk for miles and miles and never reach it. You won’t even get any closer.

Eagerly anticipating some future event, passionately imagining something you desire, looking forward to some happy scenario—as pleasurable as these activities might seem, they ruin your chance at happiness here and now. 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.

Epictetus is saying that one becomes a philosopher when they begin to exercise their guiding reason and start to question the emotions and

“In public avoid talking often and excessively about your accomplishments and dangers, for however much you enjoy recounting your dangers, it’s not so pleasant for others to hear about your affairs.”

Try your best not to create this fantasy bubble—live in what’s real. Listen and connect with people, don’t perform for them.

“Above all, keep a close watch on this—that you are never so tied to your former acquaintances and friends that you are pulled down to their level. If you don’t, you’ll be ruined. . . . You must choose whether to be loved by these friends and remain the same person, or to become a better person at the cost of those friends . . . if you try to have it both ways you will neither make progress nor keep what you once had.” —EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 4.2.1; 4–5

How much more tolerant and understanding would you be today if you could see the actions of other people as attempts to do the right thing?

“It is impossible for a person to begin to learn what he thinks he already knows.”

“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

That’s what the Stoics urge us to consider. Not how things appear, but what effort, activity, and choices they are a result of.

It doesn’t do you much good to criticize those folks after the fact. It’s better to look at how greed and vices might be having a similar effect in your own life.

“When you first rise in the morning tell yourself: I will encounter busybodies, ingrates, egomaniacs, liars, the jealous and cranks. They are all stricken with these afflictions because they don’t know the difference between good and evil. Because I have understood the beauty of good and the ugliness of evil, I know that these wrong-doers are still akin to me . . . and that none can do me harm, or implicate me in ugliness—nor can I be angry at my relatives or hate them. For we are made for cooperation.” —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 2.1

Remember, if there is one core teaching at the heart of this philosophy, it’s that we’re not as smart and as wise as we’d like to think we are. If we ever do want to become wise, it comes from the questioning and from humility—not, as many would like to think, from certainty, mistrust, and arrogance.

Part of Stoicism is cultivating the awareness that allows you to step back and analyze your own senses, question their accuracy, and proceed only with the positive and constructive ones.

Workability

“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

“If anyone can prove and show to me that I think and act in error, I will gladly change it—for I seek the truth, by which no one has ever been harmed. The one who is harmed is the one who abides in deceit and ignorance.” —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 6.21

So yes, spend some time—real, uninterrupted time—thinking about what’s important to you, what your priorities are. Then, work toward that and forsake all the others. It’s not enough to wish and hope. One must act—and act right.

The conspicuously wealthy earn and ultimately get what they want out of spending: their reputation. But what an empty one! Is it really that impressive to spend, spend, spend? Given the funds, who wouldn’t be able to do that? Marcus Aurelius courageously sold off some of the imperial furnishings to pay down war debts. More recently, José Mujica, the former president of Uruguay, stood out for giving 90 percent of his presidential salary to charity and driving a twenty-five-year-old car. Who can do stuff like that? Not everyone. So who’s the more impressive?

Take notes US politicians

“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, 11.18.5.9a

we should take pleasure from our actions—in taking the right actions—rather than the results that come from them.

Our ambition should not be to win, then, but to play with our full effort. Our intention is not to be thanked or recognized, but to help and to do what we think is right. Our focus is not on what happens to us but on how we respond. In this, we will always find contentment and resilience.

“If you don’t wish to be a hot-head, don’t feed your habit. Try as a first step to remain calm and count the days you haven’t been angry. I used to be angry every day, now every other day, then every third or fourth . . . if you make it as far as 30 days, thank God! For habit is first weakened and then obliterated. When you can say ‘I didn’t lose my temper today, or the next day, or for three or four months, but kept my cool under provocation,’ you will know you are in better health.” —EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 2.18.11b–14

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“That’s why the philosophers warn us not to be satisfied with mere learning, but to add practice and then training. For as time passes we forget what we learned and end up doing the opposite, and hold opinions the opposite of what we should.” —EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 2.9.13–14

“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

“In this way you must understand how laughable it is to say, ‘Tell me what to do!’ What advice could I possibly give? No, a far better request is, ‘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; 24b–25a

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. 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.

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? Would an educated or wise person really be as quarrelsome as you might initially be inclined to be? Or would they take a breath, relax, and resist the temptation for conflict? 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.

You have the power to use the Stoic exercise of turning obstacles upside down, which takes one negative circumstance and uses it as an opportunity to practice an unintended virtue or form of excellence. If something prevents you from getting to your destination on time, then this is a chance to practice patience. If an employee makes an expensive mistake, this is a chance to teach a valuable lesson. If a computer glitch erases your work, it’s a chance to start over with a clean slate. If someone hurts you, it’s a chance to practice forgiveness. If something is hard, it is a chance to get stronger.

Seneca’s advice to someone studying the classics is to forget all that. The dates, the names, the places—they hardly matter. What matters is the moral. If you got everything else wrong from The Odyssey, but you left understanding the importance of perseverance, the dangers of hubris, the risks of temptation and distraction? Then you really learned something. We’re not trying to ace tests or impress teachers. We are reading and studying to live, to be good human beings—always and forever.

We must not get so wrapped up in our work that we think we’re immune from the reality of aging and life. Who wants to be the person who can never let go? Is there so little meaning in your life that your only pursuit is work until you’re eventually carted off in a coffin? Take pride in your work. But it is not all.

“We don’t abandon our pursuits because we despair of ever perfecting them.” —EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 1.2.37b

we can’t forget that although theories are clean and simple, situations rarely are.

No amount of travel or reading or clever sages can tell you what you want to know. Instead, it is you who must find the answer in your actions, in living the good life—by embodying the self-evident principles of justice, self-control, courage, freedom, and abstaining from evil.

The Stoics are stereotyped as suppressing their emotions, but their philosophy was actually intended to teach us to face, process, and deal with emotions immediately instead of running from them.