Therefore, explain why a wise person shouldn’t get drunk—not with words, but by the facts of its ugliness and offensiveness. It’s most easy to prove that so-called pleasures, when they go beyond proper measure, are but punishments.
—Seneca, Moral Letters, 83.27
Is there a less effective technique to persuading people to do something than haranguing them? Is there anything that turns people off more than abstract notions? That’s why the Stoics don’t say, “Stop doing this, it’s a sin.” Instead they say, “Don’t do this because it will make you miserable.” They don’t say, “Pleasure isn’t pleasurable.” They say, “Endless pleasure becomes its own form of punishment.” Their methods of persuasion hew the line in The 48 Laws of Power: “Appeal to People’s Self-Interest Never to Their Mercy or Gratitude.”
If you find yourself trying to persuade someone to change or do something differently, remember what an effective lever self-interest is. It’s not that this or that is bad, it’s that it is in their best interest to do it a different way. And show them—don’t moralize.
And what happens when you apply this way of thinking to your own behavior?
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
It is essential for you to remember that the attention you give to any action should be in due proportion to its worth, for then you won’t tire and give up, if you aren’t busying yourself with lesser things beyond what should be allowed.
—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 4.32b
In 1997, a psychotherapist named Richard Carlson published a book called Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff… and It’s All Small Stuff. It quickly became one of the fastest-selling books of all time and spent years on the bestseller lists, ultimately selling millions of copies in many languages.
Whether you read the book or not, Carlson’s pithy articulation of this timeless idea is worth remembering. Even Cornelius Fronto, Marcus Aurelius‘s rhetoric teacher, would have thought it a superior way of expressing the wisdom his student attempted in the quote above. They both say the same thing: don’t spend your time (the most valuable and least renewable of all your resources) on the things that don’t matter. What about the things that don’t matter but you’re absolutely obligated to do? Well, spend as little time and worry on them as possible.
If you give things more time and energy than they deserve, they’re no longer lesser things. You’ve made them important by the life you’ve spent on them. And sadly, you’ve made the important things—your family, your health, your true commitments—less so as a result of what you’ve stolen from them.
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
It’s ruinous for the soul to be anxious about the future and miserable in advance of misery, engulfed by anxiety that the things it desires might remain its own until the very end. For such a soul will never be at rest—by longing for things to come it will lose the ability to enjoy present things.
—Seneca, Moral Letters, 98.5b-6a
The way we nervously worry about some looming bad news is strange if you think about it. By definition, the waiting means it hasn’t happened yet, so that feeling bad in advance is totally voluntary. But that’s what we do: chewing our nails, feeling sick to our stomachs, rudely brushing aside the people around us. Why? Because something bad might occur soon.
The pragmatist, the person of action, is too busy to waste time on such silliness. The pragmatist can’t worry about every possible outcome in advance. Think about it. Best case scenario—if the news turns out to be better than expected, all this time was wasted with needless fear. Worst case scenario—we were miserable for extra time, by choice.
And what better use could you make of that time? A day that could be your last—you want to spend it in worry? In what other area could you make some progress while others might be sitting on the edges of their seat, passively awaiting some fate?
Let the news come when it does. Be too busy working to care.
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
Inwardly, we ought to be different in every respect, but our outward dress should blend in with the crowd.
—Seneca, Moral Letters, 5.2
Diogenes the Cynic was a controversial philosopher who wandered the streets like a homeless person. A few thousand years later, his utterances still make us think. But if most of us had seen him at the time, we’d have thought: Who is that crazy guy?
It’s tempting to take philosophy to extremes, but who does that serve? In fact, rejection of the basics of society alienates other people, even threatens them. More important, outward transformation—in our clothes, in our cars, in our grooming—might feel important but is superficial compared with the inward change. That’s the change that only we know about.
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
It is said that if you would have peace of mind, busy yourself with little. But wouldn’t a better saying be do what you must and as required of a rational being created for public life? For this brings not only the peace of mind of doing few things, but the greater peace of doing them well. Since the vast majority of our words and actions are unnecessary, corralling them will create an abundance of leisure and tranquility. As a result, we shouldn’t forget at each moment to ask, is this one of the unnecessary things? But we must corral not only unnecessary actions but unnecessary thoughts, too, so needless acts don’t tag along after them.
—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 4.24
The Stoics were not monks. They didn’t retreat to the sanctuary of a monastery or a temple. They were politicians, businessmen, soldiers, artists. They practiced their philosophy amid the busyness of life—just as you are attempting to do.
The key to accomplishing that is to ruthlessly expunge the inessential from our lives. What vanity obligates us to do, what greed signs us up for, what will discipline adds to our plate, what a lack of courage prevents us from saying no to. All of this we must cut, cut, cut.
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
A good person is invincible, for they don’t rush into contests in which they aren’t the strongest. If you want their property, take it—take also their staff, profession, and body. But you will never compel what they set out for, nor trap them in what they would avoid. For the only contest the good person enters is that of their own reasoned choice. How can such a person not be invincible?
—Epictetus, Discourses, 3.6.5-7
One of the most fundamental principles of martial arts is that strength should not go against strength. That is: don’t try to beat your opponent where they are strongest. But that’s exactly what we do when we try to undertake some impossible task we haven’t bothered to think through. Or we let someone put us on the spot. Or we say yes to everything that comes our way.
Some people think that “choosing your battles” is weak or calculating. How could reducing the amount of times we fail or minimizing the number of needless injuries inflicted upon us be weak? How is that a bad thing? As the saying goes, discretion is the better part of valor. The Stoics call it reasoned choice. That means be reasonable! Think hard before choosing, and make yourself unbeatable.
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
For nothing outside my reasoned choice can hinder or harm it—my reasoned choice alone can do this to itself. If we would lean this way whenever we fail, and would blame only ourselves and remember that nothing but opinion is the cause of a troubled mind and uneasiness, then by God, I swear we would be making progress.
—Epictetus, Discourses, 3.19.2-3
Today, see if you can go without blaming a single person or single thing. Someone messes up your instructions—it’s on you for expecting anything different. Someone says something rude—it’s your sensitivity that interpreted their remark this way. Your stock portfolio takes a big loss—what did you expect making such a big bet? Why are you checking the market day to day anyway?
Whatever it is, however bad it may be, see whether you can make it a whole day laying it all on your reasoned choice. If you can’t make it for a day, see if you can make it for an hour. If not for an hour, then for ten minutes.
Start where you need to. Even one minute without playing the blame game is progress in the art of living.
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
Just as the nature of rational things has given to each person their rational powers, so it also gives us this power—just as nature turns to its own purpose any obstacle or any opposition, sets its place in the destined order, and co-opts it, so every rational person can convert any obstacle into the raw material for their own purpose.
—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 8.35
At five feet three inches tall, Muggsy Bogues was the shortest player ever to play professional basketball. Throughout his career, he was snickered at, underestimated, and counted out.
But Bogues succeeded by turning his height into the very thing that made him nationally known. Some people looked at his size as a curse, but he saw it as a blessing. He found the advantages contained within it. In fact, on the court small size has many advantages: speed and quickness, the ability to steal the ball from unsuspecting (and significantly taller) players, to say nothing of the fact that players just plain underestimated him.
Could this approach not be useful in your life? What things do you think have been holding you back that, in fact, can be a hidden source of strength?
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
