Philosophy calls for simple living, but not for penance—it’s quite possible to be simple without being crude.
—Seneca, Moral Letters, 5.5
Marcus‘s meditations are filled with self-criticism and so are the writings of other Stoics. It’s important to remember, however, that that’s as far as it goes. There was no self-flagellation, no paying penance, so self-esteem issues from guilt or self-loathing. You never hear them call themselves worthless pieces of crap, nor do they ever starve or cut themselves as punishment. Their self-criticism is constructive.
Laying into yourself, unduly depriving yourself, punishing yourself—that’s self-flagellation, not self-improvement.
No need to be too hard on yourself. Hold yourself to a higher standard but not an impossible one. And forgive yourself if and when you slip up.
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
How does it help, my husband, to make misfortune heavier by complaining about it? This is more fit for king—to seize your adversities head on. The more precarious his situation, the more imminent his fall from power, the more firmly he should be resolved to stand and fight. It isn’t manly to retreat from fortune.
—Seneca, Oedipus, 80
As the CEO of Charles Schwab, Walt Bettinger hires hundreds of people each year and interviews hundreds more. Over his lifetime, we can safely assume he’s had his share of hits, misses, and surprises when it comes to bringing people on board. But consider one technique he’s used as he’s gotten older: he takes a candidate to breakfast and asks the restaurant’s manager to purposely mess up the candidate’s breakfast order.
He’s testing to see how they react. Do they get upset? Do they act rudely? Do they let this little event spoil the meeting? Do they handle the inconvenience with grace and kindness?
How you handle even minor adversity might seem like nothing, but, in fact, it reveals everything.
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
What assistance can we find in the fight against habit? Try the opposite!
—Epictetus, Discourses, 1.27.4
Viktor Frankl, the brilliant psychologist and Holocaust survivor, cured patients suffering from phobias or neurotic habits using a method he called “paradoxical intention.” Let’s say a patient couldn’t sleep. The standard therapy would have been something obvious, like relaxation techniques. Frankl instead encouraged the patient to try not to fall asleep. He found that shifting focus off the problem deflected the patient’s obsessive attention away from it and allowed them to eventually sleep normally.
Fans of the TV show Seinfeld might remember an episode called “The Opposite” where George Costanza magically improves his life by doing the opposite of whatever he’d normally do. “If every instinct you have is wrong,” Jerry says to him, “then the opposite would have to be right.” The larger point is that sometimes our instincts or habits get stuck in a bad pattern that pushes us further from our natural, healthy selves.
Now you shouldn’t immediately toss out everything in your life—some stuff is working (you’re reading this book!). But what if you explored opposites today? What if you broke the pattern?
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
We talk bacause we think it’s helping, whereas in reality it’s making things hard for us. If our spouse is venting, we want to tell them what they should do. In fact, all they actually want us to do is hear them. In other situations, the world is trying to give us feedback or input, but we try to talk ourselves out of the problem—only to make it worse.
So today, will you be part of the problem or part of the solution? Will you hear the wisdom of the world or drown it out with more noise?
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
The beautiful and good person neither fights with anyone nor, as much as they are able, permits others to fight … this is the meaning of getting an education—learning what is your own affair and what is not. If a person carries themselves so, where is there any room for fighting?
—Epictetus, Discourses, 4.5.1; 7b-8a
Socrates famously traveled around Athens, approaching the people he disagreed with most, and engaging them in long discussions. In these discussions—or what record we have of them—there are many examples of his conversation mates getting exasperated, upset, or aggravated by his many questions. Indeed, the people of Athens eventually got so upset, they sentenced Socrates to death.
But Socrates never seemed to get upset himself. Even when talking about matters of life and death, he always kept his cool. He was much more interested in hearing what the other person had to say than making sure he was heard or—as most of us insist upon—winning the argument.
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.
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
You could enjoy this very moment all the things you are praying to reach by taking the long way around—if you’d stop depriving yourself of them.
—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 12.1
Ask most people what they’re working toward and you’ll get an answer like: “I’m trying to become a [insert profession].” Or they’ll tell you they’re trying to get appointed to some impressive committee or position, become a millionaire, get discovered, become famous, whatever. Now you ask a couple more questions, such as “Why are you doing that?” or “What are you hoping it will be like when you get it?” and you find at the very core of it, people want freedom, they want happiness, and they want the respect of their peers.
A Stoic looks at all this and shakes his head at the immense effort and expense we put into chasing things that are simple and straightforward to acquire. It’s as if we prefer to spend years building a complicated Rube Goldberg machine instead of just reaching out and picking up what we want. It’s like looking all over for your sunglasses and then realizing they were on your head the whole time.
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.
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
If you are defeated once and tell yourself you will overcome, but carry on as before, know in the end you’ll be so ill and weakened that eventually you won’t even notice your mistake and will begin to rationalize your behavior.
—Epictetus, Discourses, 2.18.31
It’s been said that the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result. Yet that’s exactly what most people do. They tell themselves: Today, I won’t get angry. Today, I won’t gorge myself. But they don’t actually do anything differently. They try the same routine and hope it will work this time. Hope is not a strategy!
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.
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
We should take wandering outdoor walks, so that the mind might be nourished and refreshed by the open air and deep breathing.
—Seneca, On Tranquility Of Mind, 17.8
In a notoriously loud city like Rome, it was impossible to get much peace and quiet. The noises of wagons, the shouting of vendors, the hammering of a blacksmith—all filled the streets with piercing violence (to say nothing of the putrid smells of a city with poor sewage and sanitation). So philosophers went on a lot of walks—to get where they needed to go, to clear their heads, to get fresh air.
Throughout the ages, philosophers, writers, poets, and thinkers have found that walking offers an additional benefit—time and space for better work. As Nietzsche would later say: “It is only ideas gained from walking that have any worth.”
Today, make sure you take a walk. And in the future, when you get stressed or overwhelmed, take a walk. When you have a tough problem to solve or a decision to make, take a walk. When you want to be creative, take a walk. When you need to get some air, take a walk. When you have a phone call to make, take a walk. When you need some exercise, take a long walk. When you have a meeting or a friend over, take a walk together.
Nourish yourself and your mind and solve your problems along the way.
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
