If then it’s not that the things you pursue or avoid are coming at you, but rather that you in a sense are seeking them out, at least try to keep your judgment of them steady, and they too will remain calm and you won’t be seen chasing after or fleeing from them.
—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 11.11
There is a maxim that Navy SEALs pass from officer to officer, man to man. In the midst of chaos, even in the fog of war, their battle-tested advice is this: “Calm is contagious.”
Especially when that calm is coming from the man or woman in charge. If the men begin to lose their wits, if the group is unsure of what to do next, it’s the leader’s job to do one thing: instill calm—not by force but by example.
That’s who you want to be, whatever your line of work: the casual, relaxed person in every situation who tells everyone else to take a breath and not to worry. Because you’ve got this. Don’t be the agitator, the paranoid, the worrier, or the irrational. Be the calm, not the liability.
It will catch on.
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
Don’t let your reflection on the whole sweep of life crush you. Don’t fill your mind with all the bad things that might still happen. Stay focused on the present situation and ask yourself why it’s so unbearable and can’t be survived.
—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 8.36
When you look back at some of the most impressive, even scary, things that you’ve done or endured, how were they possible? How were you able to see past the danger or the poor odds? As Marcus described, you were too busy with the details to let the whole sweep of the situation crush you. In fact, you probably didn’t even think about it at the time.
A character in Chuck Palahniuk‘s novel Lullaby says, “The trick to forgetting the big picture is to look at everything close up.” Sometimes grasping the big picture is important, and the Stoics have helped us with that before. A lot of times, though, it’s counterproductive and overwhelming to be thinking of everything that lies ahead. So by focusing exclusively on the present, we’re able to avoid or remove those intimidating or negative thoughts from our frame of view.
A man walking a tightrope tries not to think about how high up he is. An undefeated team tries not to think about their perfect winning streak. Like us, they’re better off putting one foot in front of the other and considering everything else to be extraneous.
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
Let Fate find us prepared and active. Here is the great soul—the one who surrenders to Fate. The opposite is the weak and degenerate one, who struggles with and has a poor regard for the order of the world, and seeks to correct the faults of the gods rather than their own.
—Seneca, Moral Letters, 107.12
Whatever happens today, let it find us prepared and active: ready for problems, ready for difficulties, ready for people to behave in disappointing or confusing ways, ready to accept and make it work for us. Let’s not wish we could turn back time or remake the universe according to our preference. Not when it would be far better and far easier to remake ourselves.
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
Fortune doesn’t have the long reach we suppose, she can only lay siege to those who hold her tight. So, let’s step back from her as much as possible.
—Seneca, Moral Letters, 82.5b-6
Machiavelli, who supposedly admired Seneca, says in The Prince that “fortune is a woman, and it is necessary, in order to keep her down, to beat her and struggle with her.” Even for the sixteenth century, it’s pretty horrifying imagery. But for a ruthless and endlessly ambitious ruler, it was par for the course. Is that the nasty lifestyle you’re after?
Now compare that view with Seneca’s. Not only is he saying that the more you struggle with fortune, the more vulnerable you are to it, but he’s also saying that the better path to security is in the “impregnable wall” of philosophy. “Philosophy,” he says, helps us tame the “mad frenzy of our greed and tamps down the fury of our fears.”
In sports or war, the metaphor here would be the choice between a strategy of endless, exhausting offense and a strategy of resilient, flexible defense. Which will you play? What kind of person are you?
Only you can answer that question. But you would be remiss not to consider the ultimate end of most of the princes in Machiavelli’s book—and how few of them died happily in bed, surrounded by their loved ones.
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
Don’t be ashamed of needing help. You have a duty to fulfill just like a soldier on the wall of battle. So what if you are injured and can’t climb up without another soldier’s help?
—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 7.7
No one ever said you were born with all the tools you’d need to solve every problem you’d face in life. In fact, as a newborn you were practically helpless. Someone helped you then, and you came to understand that you could ask for that help. It was how you knew you were loved.
Well, you are still loved. You can ask anyone for help. You don’t have to face everything on your own.
If you need help, comrade, just ask.
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
To the youngster talking nonsense Zeno said, “The reason why we have two ears and only one mouth is so we might listen more and talk less.”
—Diogenes Laertius, Lives Of Eminent Philosophers, 7.1.23
Why do the wise have so few problems compared with the rest of us? There are a few simple reasons.
First, the wise seem to manage expectations as much as possible. They rarely expect what isn’t possible in the first place.
Second, the wise always consider both the best and worst case scenarios. They don’t just think about what they wish to happen, but also what very realistically can happen if things were to suddenly turn.
Third, the wise act with a reverse clause—meaning that they not only consider what might go wrong, but they are prepared for that to be exactly what they want to happen—it is an opportunity for excellence and virtue.
And if you follow it today, you too will find that nothing surprises you or happens contrary to your expectations.
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
Every event has two handles—one by which it can be carried, and one by which it can’t. If your brother does you wrong, don’t grab it by his wronging, because this is the handle incapable of lifting it. Instead, use the other—that he is your brother, that you were raised together, and then you will have hold of the handle that carries.
—Epictetus, Enchiridion, 43
The famous journalist William Seabrook suffered from such debilitating alcoholism that in 1933 he committed himself to an insane asylum, which was then the only place to get treatment for addiction. In his memoir, Asylum, he tells the story of the struggle to turn his life around inside the facility. At first, he stuck to his addict way of thinking—and as a result, he was an outsider, constantly getting in trouble and rebelling against the staff. He made almost no progress and was on the verge of being asked to leave.
Then one day this very quote from Epictetus—about everything having two handles—occurred to him. “I took hold now by the other handle,” he related later, “and carried on.” He actually began to have a good time there. He focused on his recovery with real enthusiasm. “I suddenly found it wonderful, strange, and beautiful, to be sober…. It was as if a veil, or scum, or film had been stripped from all things visual and auditory.” It’s an experience shared by many addicts when they finally stop doing things their way and actually open themselves to the perspectives and wisdom and lessons of those who have gone before them.
There is no promise that trying things this way—of grabbing the different handle—will have such momentous results for you. But why continue to lift by the handle that hasn’t worked?
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
Don’t you know life is like a military campaign? One must serve on watch, another in reconnaissance, another on the front line…. So it is for us—each person’s life is a kind of battle, and a long and varied one too. You must keep watch like a soldier and do everything commanded…. You have been stationed in a key post, not some lowly place, and not for a short time but for life.
—Epictetus, Discourses, 3.24.31-36
The writer Robert Greene often uses the phrase “As in war, so in life.” It’s an aphorism worth keeping close, because our life is a battle both literally and figuratively. As a species, we fight to survive on a planet indifferent to our survival. As individuals, we fight to survive among a species whose population numbers in the billions. Even inside our own bodies, diverse bacteria battle it out. Vivere est militare. (To live is to fight.)
Today, you’ll be fighting for your goal, fighting against impulses, fighting to be the person you want to be. So what are the attributes necessary to win these many wars?
