Stillness is the Key: An Ancient Strategy for Modern Life

by Ryan Holiday

philosophy, if a person could develop peace within themselves—if they could achieve apatheia, as they called it—then the whole world could be at war, and they could still think well, work well, and be well.

To tap into the dao and the logos. The Word. The Way.

Buddhism. Stoicism. Epicureanism. Christianity. Hinduism. It’s all but impossible to find a philosophical school or religion that does not venerate this inner peace—this stillness—as the highest good and as the key to elite performance and a happy life.

They developed unique paths to the same critical destination: The stillness required to become master of one’s own life. To survive and thrive in any and every environment, no matter how loud or busy.

This book is an attempt to answer the pressing question of our time: If the quiet moments are the best moments, and if so many wise,

To achieve stillness, we’ll need to focus on three domains, the timeless trinity of mind, body, soul—the head, the heart, the flesh.

Keep strong, if possible. In any case, keep cool. Have unlimited patience. Never corner an opponent, and always assist him to save face. Put yourself in his shoes—so as to see things through his eyes. Avoid self-righteousness like the devil—nothing is so self-blinding.

We must cultivate mental stillness to succeed in life and to successfully navigate the many crises it throws our way.

The less energy we waste regretting the past or worrying about the future, the more energy we will have for what’s in front of us.

Knowing what not to think about. What to ignore and not to do. It’s your first and most important job.

We’d rather make ourselves miserable than make ourselves a priority, than be our best selves.

To become empty is to become one with the divine—this is the Way. —AWA KENZO

Your job, after you have emptied your mind, is to slow down and think. To really think, on a regular basis.

Keeping a journal is a common recommendation from psychologists as well, because it helps patients stop obsessing and allows them to make sense of the many inputs—emotional, external, psychological—that would otherwise overwhelm them.

“Wherever we are, what we hear is mostly noise,” he would say. “When we ignore it, it disturbs us. When we listen to it, we find it fascinating.”

In shutting up—even if only for a short period—we can finally hear what the world has been trying to tell us. Or what we’ve been trying to tell ourselves.

“Learning must never cease. . . . The noble person who studies widely and examines himself each day will become clear in his knowing and faultless in his conduct.”

Wrestle with big questions. Wrestle with big ideas. Treat your brain like the muscle that it is. Get stronger through resistance and exposure and training.

There is perhaps no one less at peace than the egomaniac, their mind a swirling miasma of their own grandiosity and insecurity. They constantly bite off more than they can chew. They pick fights everywhere they go. They create enemies. They are incapable of learning from their mistakes (because they don’t believe they make any). Everything with them is complicated, everything is about them.

Confident people know what matters. They know when to ignore other people’s opinions. They don’t boast or lie to get ahead (and then struggle to deliver). Confidence is the freedom to set your own standards and unshackle yourself from the need to prove yourself. A confident person doesn’t fear disagreement and doesn’t see change—swapping an incorrect opinion for a correct one—as an admission of inferiority.

Both egotistical and insecure people make their flaws central to their identity—either by covering them up or by brooding over them or externalizing them. For them stillness is impossible, because stillness can only be rooted in strength.

He preferred instead to teach his students an important mental skill: detachment.

We’ll get the stillness we need if we focus on the individual steps, if we embrace the process, and give up chasing. We’ll think better if we aren’t thinking so hard.

He wanted them to get lost in the process. He wanted them to give up their notions of what archery was supposed to look like. He was demanding that they be present and empty and open—so they could learn.

What we should be doing is practicing. What we should be doing is pushing away that willful will.

Yet that stillness is often fleeting. Why? Because it is undermined by disturbances elsewhere—not just the expected turbulence of the surrounding world, but also inside us. In our spirit and our physical bodies.

Everybody’s got a hungry heart—that’s true. But how we choose to feed that heart matters. It’s what determines the kind of person we end up being, what kind of trouble we’ll get into, and whether we’ll ever be full, whether we’ll ever really be still.

These are not just important elements of a balanced life; they are sources of stillness that allow us to endure defeat and enjoy victory.

Virtue, the Stoics believed, was the highest good—the summum bonum—and should be the principle behind all our actions. Virtue is not holiness, but rather moral and civic excellence in the course of daily life. It’s a sense of pure rightness that emerges from our souls and is made real through the actions we take.

junzi—a word that translators still have trouble finding equivalents for in English but is roughly understood as a person who emanates integrity, honor, and self-control.

the “gentleman is self-possessed and relaxed, while the petty man is perpetually full of worry.”

What is virtue? Seneca would ask. His answer: “True and steadfast judgment.” And from virtue comes good decisions and happiness and peace. It emanates from the soul and directs the mind and the body.

Virtue, on the other hand, as crazy as it might seem, is a far more attainable and sustainable way to succeed.

Sigmund Freud himself wrote about how common it is for deficiencies, big and small, at a young age to birth toxic, turbulent attitudes in adulthood.

Give more. Give what you didn’t get. Love more. Drop the old story.

Joseph Epstein’s brilliant line is: “Of the seven deadly sins, only envy is no fun at all.” Democritus, twenty-four hundred years before him: “An envious man pains himself as though he were an enemy.”

To have an impulse and to resist it, to sit with it and examine it, to let it pass by like a bad smell—this is how we develop spiritual strength. This is how we become who we want to be in this world.

There is no stillness for the person who cannot appreciate things as they are,

You will never feel okay by way of external accomplishments. Enough comes from the inside. It comes from stepping off the train. From seeing what you already have, what you’ve always had.

What do we want more of in life? That’s the question. It’s not accomplishments. It’s not popularity. It’s moments when we feel like we are enough. More presence. More clarity. More insight. More truth. More stillness.

exstasis—a heavenly experience that lets us step outside ourselves.

It’s ironic that stillness is rare and fleeting in our busy lives, because the world creates an inexhaustible supply of it. It’s just that nobody’s looking.

Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself. —ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

There is no stillness to the mind that thinks of nothing but itself, nor will there ever be peace for the body and spirit that follow their every urge and value nothing but themselves.

Stillness is best not sought alone. And, like success, it is best when shared. We all need someone who understands us better than we understand ourselves, if only to keep us honest.

Love, Freud said, is the great educator. We learn when we give it. We learn when we get it. We get closer to stillness through it.

Which is why stillness requires other people; indeed, it is for other people.

“Always remember, others may hate you, but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself.”

anger ultimately blocks us from whatever goal we are trying to achieve.

Our stillness depends on our ability to slow down and choose not to be angry, to run on different fuel.