First practice not letting people know who you are—keep your philosophy to yourself for a bit. In just the manner that fruit is produced—the seed buried for a season, hidden, growing gradually so it may come to fully maturity. But if the grain sprouts before the stalk is fully developed, it will never ripen… That is the kind of plant you are, displaying fruit too soon, and the winter will kill you.
—Epictetus, Discourses, 4.8.35b-37

After all you’ve read, it might be tempting to think: This stuff is great. I get it. I’m a Stoic. But it’s not that easy. Just because you agree with the philosophy doesn’t mean the roots have fully taken hold in your mind.

Fooling with books so you can sound smart or have an intimidating library is like tending a garden to impress your neighbors. Growing one to feed a family? That’s a pure and profitable use of your time. The seeds of Stoicism are long underground. Do the work required to nurture and tend to them. So that they—and you—are prepared and sturdy for the hard winters of life.

* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman

Try praying differently, and see what happens: Instead of asking for “a way to sleep with her,” try asking for “a way to stop desiring to sleep with her.” Instead of “a way to get rid of him,” try asking for “a way to not crave his demise.” Instead of “a way to not lose my child,” try asking for “a way to lose my fear of it.”
—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 9.40.(6)

Prayer has a religious connotation, but in life we all find ourselves hoping and asking for things. In a tough situation, we might silently ask for help; or, after a tough break, for a second chance from above; during a sports game, we might sit on the edge of our seat wishing for some outcome. “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” we say. “Please …” Even if it is to no one in particular, we’re still praying. Yet it’s so revealing in these moments, when we’re privately, powerfully yearning for something, just how nakedly selfish our requests usually are.

We want divine intervention so that our lives will magically be easier. But what about asking for fortitude and strength so you can do what you need to do? What if you sought clarity on what you do control, what is already within your power? You might find your prayers have already been answered.

* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman

No, it is events that give rise to fear—when another has power over them or can prevent them, that person becomes able to inspire fear. How is the fortress destroyed? Not by iron or fire, but by judgments … here is where we must begin, and it is from this front that we must seize the fortress and throw out the tyrants.
—Epictetus, Discourses, 4.1.85-86;87a

The Stoics give us a marvelous concept: the Inner Citadel. It is this fortress, they believed, that protects our soul. Though we might be physically vulnerable, though we might be at the mercy of fate in many ways, our inner domain is impenetrable. As Marcus Aurelius put it (repeatedly, in fact), “stuff cannot touch the soul.”

But history teaches that impenetrable fortresses can still be breached, if betrayed from the inside. The citizens inside the walls—if they fall prey to fear or greed or avarice—can open the gates and let the enemy in. This is what many of us do when we lose our nerve and give in to fear.

You’ve been granted a strong fortress. Don’t betray it.

* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman

Zeno always said that nothing was more unbecoming than putting on airs, especially with the young.
—Diogenes Laertius, Lives Of The Eminent Philosophers, 7.1.22

Isocrates‘s famous letter to Demonicus (which later became the inspiration for Polonius’s “To thine own self to true” speech) holds a similar warning to Zeno. Writing to the young man, Isocrates advises: “Be affable in your relations with those who approach you, and never haughty; for the pride of the arrogant even slaves can hardly endure.”

One of the most common tropes in art—from ancient literature to popular movies—is the brash and overconfident young man who has to be taken down a peg by an older, wiser man. It’s a cliche because it’s a fact of life: people tend to get ahead of themselves, thinking they’ve got it all figured out and are better than those that don’t. It becomes so unpleasant to put up with that someone has to drop some knowledge on them.

But this is an entirely avoidable confrontation. If the bubble is never inflated, it won’t need to be popped. Overconfidence is a great weakness and a liability. But if you are already humble, no one will need to humble you—and the world is much less likely to have nasty surprises in store for you. If you stay down to earth, no one will need to bring you—oftentimes crushingly so—back down.

* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman

Let us get used to dining out without the crowds, to being a slave to fewer slaves, to getting clothes only for their real purpose, and to living in more modest quarters.
—Seneca, On Tranquility Of Mind, 9.3b

The writer Stefan Zweig—known for his Stoic-esque wisdom—was at one point one of the bestselling authors in the world, only to have his life destroyed by the rise of Hitler. It’s a sad yet timeless rhythm of history: politicians are run out of office for taking a stand we later recognize as courageous. Countless hardworking and prosperous couples have their money stolen by financial crooks. Someone is accused of a crime but not vindicated until years later.

At any moment we may be toppled for our perch and made to do with less—less money, less recognition, less access, less resources. Even the “less-es” that come with age: less mobility, less energy, less freedom. But we can prepare for that, in some way, by familiarizing ourselves with what that might feel like.

One way to protect yourself from the swings of fate—and from the emotional vertigo that can result—is by living within your means now. So today, we can try to get used to having and surviving on less so that if we are ever forced to have less, it would not be so bad.

* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman

Here’s a lesson to test your mind’s mettle: take part of a week in which you have only the most meager and cheap food, dress scantly in shabby clothes, and ask yourself if this is really the worst that you feared. It is when times are good that you should gird yourself for tougher times ahead, for when Fortune is kind the soul can build defenses against her ravages. So it is that soldiers practice maneuvers in peacetime, erecting bunkers with no enemies in sight and exhausting themselves under no attack so that when it comes they won’t grow tired.
—Seneca, Moral Letters, 18.5-6

What if you spent one day a month experiencing the effects of poverty, hunger, complete isolation, or any other thing you might fear? After the initial culture shock, it would start to feel normal and no longer quite so scary.

There are plenty of misfortunes one can practice, plenty of problems one can solve in advance. Pretend your hot water has been turned off. Pretend your wallet has been stolen. Pretend your cushy mattress was far away and that you have to sleep on the floor, or that your car was repossessed and you have to walk everywhere. Pretend you lost your job and need to find a new one. Again, don’t just think about these things, but live them. And do it now, while things are good. As Seneca reminds us: “It is precisely in times of immunity from care that the soul should toughen itself beforehand for occasions of greater stress…. If you would not have a man flinch when the crisis comes, train him before it comes.”

* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman

But there is no reason to live and no limit to our miseries if we let our fears predominate.
—Seneca, Moral Letters, 13.12b

In the early days of what would become known as the Great Depression, a new president named Franklin Delano Roosevelt was sworn in and gave his first inaugural address. As the last president to hold office before the Twentieth Amendment was ratified, FDR wasn’t able to take office until March—meaning that the country had been without strong leadership for months. Panic was in the air, banks were failing, and people were scared.

You’ve probably heard the “nothing to fear but fear itself” sound bite that FDR gave in that famous speech, but the full line is worth reading because it applies to many difficult things we face in life:

“Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”

The Stoics knew that fear was to be feared because of the miseries it creates. The things we fear pale in comparison to the damage we do to ourselves and others when we unthinkingly scramble to avoid them. An economic depression is bad; a panic is worse. A tough situation isn’t helped by terror—it only makes things harder. And that’s why we must resist it and reject it if we wish to turn this situation around.

* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman