Stillness is the Key

by Ryan Holiday

Of course, leisure can easily become an escape, but the second that happens it’s not leisure anymore. When we take something relaxing and turn it into a compulsion, it’s not leisure, because we’re no longer choosing it.

No one is making us do this. We can quit if we’re struggling, we can cut corners and cheat (ourselves) without fear of repercussion. No money is on the line to motivate us, no rewards or validation but the experience. To do leisure well—to be present, to be open, to be virtuous, to be connected—is hard. We cannot let it turn into a job, into another thing to dominate and to dominate others through.

Sitting alone with a canvas? A book club? A whole afternoon for cycling? Chopping down trees? Who has the time? If Churchill had the time, if Gladstone had the time, you have the time. Won’t my work suffer if I step away from it?

But too often, the frenzied or the miserable think that an escape—literal or chemical—is a positive good. Sure, the rush of traveling, the thrill of surfing, or the altered state of a psychedelic can relieve some of the tension that’s built up in our lives. Maybe you get some pretty pictures out of it, and some pseudo-profundity that impresses your friends. But when that wears off? What’s left?

When you defer and delay, interest is accumulating. The bill still comes due . . . and it will be even harder to afford then than it will be right now. The one thing you can’t escape in your life is yourself.

A plane ticket or a pill or some plant medicine is a treadmill, not a shortcut. What you seek will come only if you sit and do the work, if you probe yourself with real self-awareness and patience.

Marcus Aurelius pointed out that we don’t need to “get away from it all.” We just need to look within. “Nowhere you can go is more peaceful—more free of interruptions,” he said, “than your own soul.”

To see people who will notice a need in the world and do something about it. . . . Those are my heroes. —FRED ROGERS

What is better? To live as a coward or to die a hero? To fall woefully short of what you know to be right or to fall in the line of duty? And which is more natural? To refuse a call from your fellow humans or to dive in bravely and help them when they need you?

A person who makes selfish choices or acts contrary to their conscience will never be at peace. A person who sits back while others suffer or struggle will never feel good, or feel that they are enough, no matter how much they accomplish or how impressive their reputation may be.

Marcus Aurelius spoke of moving from one unselfish action to another—“only there,” he said, can we find “delight and stillness.” In the Bible, Matthew 5:6 says that those who do right will be made full by God.

It was Cicero who said that to study philosophy is to learn how to die.

Most of this book has been about how to live well. But in so doing, it is also about how to die well. Because they are the same thing. Death is where the three domains we have studied in these pages come together. We must learn to think rationally and clearly about our own fate. We must find spiritual meaning and goodness while we are alive. We must treat the vessel we inhabit on this planet well—or we will be forced to abandon it early. Death brings an end to everything, to our minds, our souls, and our bodies, in a final, permanent stillness. So we end this book there as well.