For any challenge we should hold three thoughts at our command:
“Lead on God and Destiny,
To that Goal fixed for me long ago.
I will follow and not stumble; even if my will
is weak I will soldier on.”
—Cleanthes
Whoever embraces necessity count as wise, skilled in divine matters.
—Euripieds
If it pleases the gods, so be it. They may well kill me, but they can’t hurt me.
—Plato’s Crito And Apology
—Epictetus, Enchiridion, 53
These three quotes compiled by Epictetus show us—in wisdom across history—the themes of tolerance, flexibility, and, ultimately, acceptance. Cleanthes and Euripides evoke destiny and fate as concepts that help ease acceptance. When one has a belief in a greater or higher power (be it God or gods), then there is no such thing as an event going contrary to plan.
Even if you don’t believe in a deity, you can take some comfort in the various laws of the universe or even the circle of life. What happens to us as individuals can seem random or upsetting or cruel or inexplicable, when in fact these events make perfect sense when our perspective is zoomed out, even just slightly.
Let’s practice this perspective today. Pretend that each event—whether desired or unexpected—was willed to happen, willed specifically for you. You wouldn’t fight that, would you?
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
Our rational nature moves freely forward in its impressions when it:
1) accepts nothing false or uncertain;
2) directs its impulses only to acts for the common good;
3) limits its desires and aversions only to what’s in its own power;
4) embraces everything nature assigns it.
—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 8.7
If you notice, Marcus repeatedly reminds himself what Stoicism is. These bullet points are helpful to those of us reading thousands of years later, but really they were intended to be helpful to him. Maybe that day he had accepted a bad impression or had acted selfishly. Maybe he had pinned his hopes on something outside his control or complained and fought against something that had happened. Or maybe it had just been awhile since he’d thought about these things and wanted a reminder.
Whatever his case was, or whatever ours is today, let’s align our minds along these four critical habits:
Accept only what is true.
Work for the common good.
Match our needs and wants with what is in our control.
Embrace what nature has in store for us.
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
When philosophy is wielded with arrogance and stubbornly, it is the cause for the ruin of many. Let philosophy scrape off your own faults, rather than be a way to rail against the faults of others.
—Seneca, Moral Letters, 103.4b-5a
Remember, the proper direction of philosophy—of all the things we’re doing here—is focused inward. To make ourselves better and to leave other people to that task for themselves and their own journey. Our faults are in our control, and so we turn to philosophy to help scrape them off like barnacles from the hull of a ship. Other people’s faults? Not so much. That’s for them to do.
Leave other people to their faults. Nothing in Stoic philosophy empowers you to judge them—only to accept them. Especially when we have so many of our own.
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
Hecato says, “cease to hope and you will cease to fear.” … The primary cause of both these ills is that instead of adapting ourselves to present circumstances we send out thoughts too far ahead.
—Seneca, Moral Letters, 5.7b-8
Hope is generally regarded as good. Fear is generally regarded as bad. To a Stoic like Hecato (known as Hecato of Rhodes), they are the same—both are projections into the future about things we do not control. Both are the enemy of this present moment that you are actually in. Both mean you’re living a life in opposition to amor fati.
It’s not about overcoming our fears but understanding that both hope and fear contain a dangerous amount of want and worry in them. And, sadly, the want is what causes the worry.
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
Meditate often on the swiftness with which all that exists and is coming into being is swept by us and carried away. For substance is like a river’s unending flow, its activities continually changing and causes infinitely shifting so that almost nothing at all stands still.
—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 5.23
Marcus borrows this wonderful metaphor from Heraclitus, who said, “No man steps in the same river twice.” Because the river has changed, and so has the man.
Life is in a constant state of change. And so are we. To get upset by things is to wrongly assume that they will last. To kick ourselves or blame others is grabbing at the wind. To resent change is to wrongly assume that you have a choice in the matter.
Everything is change. Embrace that. Flow with it.
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
He was sent to prison. But the observation “he has suffered evil,” is an addition coming from you.
—Epictetus, Discourses, 3.8.5-6a
This is classic Stoic thinking, as you’ve gathered by now. An event itself is objective. How we describe it—that it was unfair, or it’s a great calamity, or that they did it on purpose—is on us.
Malcolm X (then Malcolm Little) went into prison a criminal, but he left as an educated, religious, and motivated man who would help in the struggle for civil rights. Did he suffer an evil? Or did he choose to make his experience a positive one?
Acceptance isn’t passive. It’s the first step in an active process toward self-improvement.
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
Don’t allow yourself to be heard any longer griping about public life, not even with your own ears!
—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 8.9
Not only do even the most fortunate of us complain, it often seems like the more fortunate we are, the more time we have to do so. Marcus Aurelius was a reluctant chief executive—just as you might be a reluctant accountant, kid’s soccer coach, or lawyer. Or perhaps you generally like your job, but you could do without a few of its attendant responsibilities. Where does that thinking get you? Nowhere, other than in a negative state of mind.
It calls to mind a motto of British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli: “Never complain, never explain.” He said this because, like Marcus, he knew that the burdens of responsibility were immense. It’s so easy to complain about this or that, or to try to make excuses and justifications for the things you’ve done. But that doesn’t accomplish anything—and it never lightens the load.
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
If we judge as good and evil only the things in the power of our own choice, then there is no room left for blaming gods or being hostile to others.
—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 6.41
A sign on President Harry Truman‘s desk read, THE BUCK STOPS HERE. As president, with more power and control than pretty much anyone else, he knew that, good or bad, there wasn’t anyone he could blame for stuff other than himself. There was no one to pass the buck to. The chain ended there, in the Oval Office.
As the president of our own lives—and knowing that our powers begin and end with our reasoned choice—we would do well to internalize this same attitude. We don’t control things outside that sphere, but we do control our attitudes and our responses to those events—and that’s plenty. It’s enough that we go into each and every day knowing that there is no one to pass the buck to. It ends with us.
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
