Consider who you are. Above all, a human being, carrying no greater power than your own reasoned choice, which oversees all other things, and is free from any other master.
—Epictetus, Discourses, 2.10.1

The psychologist Viktor Frankl spent three years imprisoned in various concentration camps, including Auschwitz. His family and his wife had been killed, his life’s work destroyed, his freedom taken from him. He quite literally had nothing left. Yet, as he discovered after much thought, he still retained one thing: the ability to determine what this suffering meant. Not even the Nazis could take that from him.

Further, Frankl realized that he could actually find positives in his situation. Here was an opportunity to continue testing and exploring his psychological theories (and perhaps revise them). He could still be of service to others. He even took some solace in the fact that his loved ones were spared the pain and misery that he faced daily in that camp.

Your hidden power is your ability to use reason and make choices, however limited or small. Think about the areas of your life where you are under duress or weighed down by obligation. What are the choices available to you, day after day? You might be surprised at how many there actually are. Are you taking advantage? Are you finding the positives?

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

You can bind up my leg, but not even Zeus has the power to break my freedom of choice.
—Epictetus, Discourses, 1.1.23

It was said that Epictetus walked with a permanent limp as a result of being chained up as a slave. Two thousand years later, James Stockdale also had his legs chained in irons (and his arms bound behind his back and pulled from the ceiling, repeatedly wrenching them from their sockets). Future senator John McCain was in that same prison, subjected to much of the same abuse. Because his father was famous, McCain was repeatedly offered by his captors a chance to abandon his men and be sent home early. He too held tightly to his freedom of choice, declining to submit to that temptation even though it meant a loss of the physical freedom he must have ached for.

None of these men broke. No one could make them sacrifice their principles. That’s the thing—someone can throw you in chains, but they don’t have the power to change who you are. Even under the worst torture and cruelties that humans can inflict on one another, our power over our own mind and our power to make our own decisions can’t be broken—only relinquished.

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

Remember, then, if you deem what is by nature slavish to be free, and what is not your own to be yours, you will be shackled and miserable, blaming both gods and other people. But if you deem as your own only what is yours, and what belongs to others as truly not yours, then no one will ever be able to coerce or to stop you, you will find no one to blame or accuse, you will do nothing against your will, you will have no enemy, no one will harm you, because no harm can affect you.
—Epictetus, Enchiridion, 1.3

After Captain James Stockdale was shot down over Vietnam, he endured seven and a half years in various prison camps. He was subjected to brutal torture but always struggled to resist. Once, when his captors intended to force him to appear in a propaganda video, he purposely and severely injured himself to make that impossible.

When Stockdale’s plane was hit, he told himself that he was “entering the world of Epictetus.” He didn’t mean that he was attending a philosophy seminar. He knew what he was to force when he crash-landed. He knew it wouldn’t be easy to survive.

Interviewed by Jim Collins for the business classic Good to Great, Stockdale explained there was one group that had the most trouble in the prison. “It was the optimists,” he said, “… the ones who said, ‘We’re going to be out by Christmas.’ And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they’d say, ‘We’re going to be out by Easter.’ And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart.”

But Stockdale persevered and did make it out. He quenched his desires and focused exclusively on what he did control: himself.

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

I judge you unfortunate because you have never lived through misfortune. You have passed through life without an opponent—no one can ever know what you are capable of, not even you.
—Seneca, On Providence, 4.3

Most people who have gone through difficult periods in their life come to later wear those experiences as badges of honor. “Those were the days,” they might say, even though now they live in much better circumstances. “To be young and hungry again,” another might say wistfully. “It was the best thing that ever happened to me,” or “I wouldn’t change a thing about it.” As tough as those periods were, they were ultimately formative experiences. They made those people who they are.

There’s another benefit of so-called misfortune. Having experienced and survived it, we walk away with a better understanding of our own capacity and inner strength. Passing a trial by fire is empowering because you know that in the future you can survive similar adversity. “What does not kill me makes me stronger.” Nietzsche said.

So today if things look like they might take a bad turn or your luck might change, why worry? This might be one of those formative experiences you will be grateful for later.

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

We must undergo a hard winter training and not rush into things for which we haven’t prepared.
—Epictetus, Discourses, 1.2.32

Before the advent of modern warfare, armies typically disbanded during the winter. War was not the total war as we understand it today, but more like a series of raids punctuated by the rare decisive battle.

When Epictetus say we ought to go through “hard winter training”—the Greek word is cheimaskesai—he was disputing the notion that there is such a thing as part-time soldiering (or part-time anything for that matter). In order to achieve victory, one must dedicate every second and every resource into preparation and training. LeBron James doesn’t take a summer break—he uses it to work on other aspects of his game. The U.S. military trains its soldiers day and night when not at war, in preparation for when they have to go to war; when they do go to war, they fight until it’s over.

The same is true for us. We can’t do this life thing halfheartedly. There’s no time off. There aren’t even weekends. We are always preparing for what life might throw at us—and when it does, we’re ready and don’t stop until we’ve handled it.

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

Men, the philosopher’s lecture-hall is a hospital—you shouldn’t walk out of it feeling pleasure, but pain, for you aren’t well when you enter it.
—Epictetus, Discourses, 3.23.30

Have you ever been to physical therapy or rehab? No matter what the name implies or how many people you see lying about, getting massages, it’s not a fun place to be. It turns out that healing hurts. The trained experts know exactly where to exert pressure and what to subject to stress so that they can strengthen where the patient is weak and help stimulate the areas that have atrophied.

Stoic philosophy is a lot like that. Some observations or exercises will touch one of your pressure points. It’s nothing personal. It’s supposed to hurt. That’s how you’ll develop the will to endure and persevere through life’s many difficulties.

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

The rational soul is stronger than any kind of fortune—from its own share it guides its affairs here or there, and is itself the cause of a happy or miserable life.
—Seneca, Moral Letter, 98.2b

Cato the Younger had enough money to dress in fine clothing. Yet he often walked around Rome barefoot, indifferent to assumptions people made about him as he passed. He could have indulged in the finest food. He chose instead to eat simple fare. Whether it was raining or intensely hot, he went bareheaded by choice.

Why not indulge in some easy relief? Because Cato was training his soul to be strong and resilient. Specifically, he was learning indifference: an attitude of “let come what may” that would serve him well in the trenches with the army, in the Forum and the Senate, and in his life as a father and statesman.

His training prepared him for any conditions, any kind of luck. If we undergo our own training and preparations, we might find ourselves similarly strengthened.

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