How satisfying it is to dismiss and block out any upsetting or foreign impression, and immediately to have peace in all things.
—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 5.2
The Stoics were mercifully spared the information overload endemic to today’s society. They had no social media, no newspapers, no television chatter to rile them up. But even back then, an undisciplined person would have found plenty to be distracted and upset by.
Part of the Stoic mindset then was a sort of a cultivated ignorance. Publilius Syrus‘s epigram expresses it well: “Always shun that which makes you angry.” Meaning: turn your mind away from the things that provoke it. If you find that discussing politics at the dinner table leads to fighting, why do you keep bringing it up? If your sibling’s life choices bother you, why don’t you stop picking at them and making them your concern? The same goes for so many other sources of aggravation.
It’s not a sign of weakness to shut them out. Instead, it’s a sign of strong will. Try saying: “I know the reaction I typically take in these situations, and I’m not going to do it this time.” And then follow it with: “I’m also going to remove this stimulus from my life in the future as well.”
Because what follows is peace and serenity.
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
We are like many pellets of incense falling on the same altar. Some collapse sooner, others later, but it makes no difference.
—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 4.15
What’s the difference between you and the richest person in the world? One has a little more money than the other. What’s the difference between you and the oldest person in the world? One has been around a little longer than the other. Same goes for the tallest, smartest, fastest, and on down the line.
Measuring ourselves against other people makes acceptance difficult, because we want what they have, or we want how things could have gone, not what we happen to have. But that makes no difference.
Some might see this line from Marcus as pessimistic, whereas others see it as optimistic. It’s really just truth. We’re all here and we’re all going to leave this earth eventually, so let’s not concern ourselves with petty differences in the meantime. We have too much to do.
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
As for me, I would choose being sick over living in luxury, for being sick only harms the body, whereas luxury destroys both the body and the soul, causing weakness and incapacity in the body, and lack of control and cowardice in the soul. What’s more, luxury breeds injustice because it also breeds greediness.
—Musonius Rufus, Lectures, 20.95.14-17
Stories about lottery winners tend to share one lesson: suddenly coming into a great deal of money is a curse, not a blessing. Just a few years after they get their big check, many lottery winners are actually in worse financial shape. They’ve lost friends, they’ve gotten divorced. Their whole lives have been turned into a nightmare as a result of their obscenely good fortune.
It’s like that Metallica lyric (fittingly from a song called “No Leaf Clover”): “Then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel / Is just a freight train coming your way.”
And yet the most common response from a cancer survivor, the person who went through the thing we all dread and fear? “It was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
Funny how that works out, isn’t it?
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
Whenever you experience the pangs of losing something, don’t treat it like a part of yourself but as a breakable glass, so when it falls you will remember that and won’t be troubled. So too, whenever you kiss your child, sibling, or friend, don’t layer on top of the experience all the things you might wish, but hold them back and stop them, just as those who ride behind triumphant generals remind them they are mortal. In the same way, remind yourself that your precious one isn’t one of your possessions, but something given for now, not forever …”
—Epictetus, Discourses, 3.24.84-86a
At a Roman triumph, the majority of the public would have their eyes glued to the victorious general at the front—one of the most coveted spots during Roman times. Only a few would notice the aide in the back, right behind the commander, whispering into his ear, “Remember, thou art mortal.” What a reminder to hear at the peak of glory and victory!
In our own lives, we can train to be that whisper. When there is something we prize—or someone that we love—we can whisper to ourselves that it is fragile, mortal, and not truly ours. No matter how strong or invincible something feels, it never is. We must remind ourselves that it can break, can die, can leave us.
Loss is one of our deepest fears. Ignorance and pretending don’t make things any better. They just mean the loss will be all the more jarring when it occurs.
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
In short, you must remember this—that if you hold anything dear outside of your own reasoned choice, you will have destroyed your capacity for choice.
—Epictetus, Discourses, 4.4.23
According to Anthony de Mello, “There is one thing and only one thing that causes unhappiness. The name of that thing is Attachment.” Attachments to an image you have of a person, attachments to wealth and status, attachments to a certain place or time, attachments to a job or to a lifestyle. All of those things are dangerous for one reason: they are outside of our reasoned choice. How long we keep them is not in our control.
As Epictetus realized some two thousand years before de Mello, our attachments are what make it so hard to accept change. Once we have them, we don’t want to let go. We become slaves to maintaining the status quo. We are like the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland—running faster and faster to stay in the same place.
But everything is in a constant state of change. We have certain things for a while and then lose them. The only permanent thing is prohairesis, our capacity for reasoned choice. The things we are attached to can come and go, our choice is resilient and adaptable. The sooner we become aware of this the better. The easier it will be to accept and adapt to what does happen.
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
Fortune falls heavily on those for whom she’s unexpected. The one always on the lookout easily endures.
—Seneca, On Consolation To Helvia, 5.3
There is a story of a Zen master who had a beautiful prized cup. The master would repeat to himself, “The glass is already broken.” He enjoyed the cup. He used it. He showed it off to visitors. But in his mind, it was already broken. And so one day, when it actually did break, he simply said, “Of course.”
This is how the Stoics think too. There is supposedly a true story about Epictetus and a lamp. He never locked his house, and so his expensive lamp was stolen. When Epictetus replaced it, he replaced it with a cheaper one so he could be less attached to it if it were stolen again.
Devastation—that feeling that we’re absolutely crushed and shocked by an event—is a factor of how unlikely we considered that event in the first place. No one is wrecked by the fact that it’s snowing in the winter, because we’ve accepted (and even anticipated) this turn of events. What about the occurrences that surprise us? We might not be so shocked if we took the time to consider their possibility.
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
A good isn’t increased by the addition of time, but if one is wise for even a moment, they will be no less happy than the person who exercises virtue for all time and happily passes their life in it.
—Chrysippus Quoted By Plutarch In Moralia: “Against The Stoics On Common Conceptions,” 1062 (LOEB, P.682)
Perhaps wisdom and happiness are like winning a medal in the Olympics. It doesn’t matter whether you won a hundred years ago or ten minutes ago, or whether you won just once or in multiple events. It doesn’t matter whether someone beats your time or score down the road, and it doesn’t matter whether you never compete again. You’ll always be a medalist, and you’ll always know what it feels like. No one can take that away—and it would be impossible to feel more of that feeling.
The Juilliard-trained actor Even Handler, who not only survived acute myeloid leukemia but also severe depression, has talked about his decision to take antidepressants, which he did for a deliberately brief time. He took them because he wanted to know what true, normal happiness felt like. Once he did, he knew he would stop. He could go back to the struggle like everyone else. He had the ideal for a moment and that was enough.
Perhaps today will be the day when we experience happiness or wisdom. Don’t try to grab that moment and hold on to it with all your might. It’s not under your control how long it lasts. Enjoy it, recognize it, remember it. Having it for a moment is the same as having it forever.
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
If you’ve seen the present, you’ve seen all things, from time immemorial into all of eternity. For everything that happens is related and the same.
—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 6.37
The events that will transpire today are the same as the things that have always occurred. People living and dying, animals living and dying, clouds rolling in and rolling out, air sucked in and sucked out, as it has for aeons. This moment right now, to paraphrase Emerson, is a quotation of the moments that have come before and will come ever after.
This idea is expressed nowhere more beautifully than in the Christianity hymn Gloria Patri. “As it was in the beginning, and now, and always, and to the ages of ages.” This thought is not supposed to be depressing or uplifting. It’s just a fact. However, it can have a calming, centering effect. No need to get excited, no need to wait on pins and needles. If you haven’t seen this before, someone else has. That can be a relief.
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
