Discipline Is Destiny: The Power of Self-Control (The Stoic Virtues Series)

by Ryan Holiday

We can say that each of us has a higher and lower self, and that these two selves are in a constant battle with each other. The can versus the should. What we can get away with, and what’s best. The side that can focus, and the side that is easily distracted. The side that strives and reaches, the side that stoops and compromises. The side that seeks balance, the side that loves chaos and excess.

There, at the head of an alliance of nations totaling upward of seven hundred million citizens, he discovered that far from being exempt from the rules, he had to be stricter with himself than ever. He came to find that the best way to lead was not by force or fiat, but through persuasion, through compromise, through patience, by controlling his temper, and, most of all, by example.

His greatness, like all true greatness, was not rooted in aggression or ego or his appetites or a vast fortune, but in simplicity and restraint—in how he commanded himself, which in turn made him worthy of commanding others. Contrast him with the conquerors of his time: Hitler. Mussolini. Stalin. Contrast him even with his contemporaries: MacArthur. Patton. Montgomery. Contrast him with his peers of the past: Alexander the Great. Xerxes. Napoleon. In the end, what endures, what we truly marvel at, is not the ambition but the self-mastery. The self-awareness. The temperance. As a young man, Eisenhower’s mother had quoted him a verse from the Book of Proverbs, “He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty,” she had told him, “and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.” She taught him the same lesson that Seneca himself tried to instill in the rulers he advised, that “Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.”

the ancients were fond of the metaphor of a charioteer. To win the race, one must not only get their horses to run quickly—but also keep the team under control, calm their nerves and jitters, have such a firm grasp on the reins that they can steer with pinpoint precision in even the most difficult of circumstances. The charioteer must figure out how to balance strictness and kindness, the light and the heavy touch. They have to pace themselves and their animals, and find every ounce of speed when it counts. A driver without control will go fast . . . but they will inevitably crash. Especially around the hairpin turns of the arena and the winding, pockmarked road of life. Especially when the crowd and the competition are rooting for exactly that. It is through discipline that not only are all things possible, but also that all things are enhanced.