The diseases of the rational soul are long-standing and hardened vices, such as greed and ambition—they have put the soul in a straitjacket and have begun to be permanent evils inside it. To put it briefly, this sickness is an unrelenting distortion of judgment, so things that are only mildly desirable are vigorously sought after.
—Seneca, Moral Letters, 75.11

In the financial disaster of the late 2000s, hundreds of smart, rational people lost trillions of dollars’ worth of wealth. How could such smart people have been so foolish? These people knew the system, knew how the markets were supposed to work, and had managed billions, if not trillions, of dollars. And yet, almost to a person, they were wrong—and wrong to the tune of global market havoc.

It’s not hard to look at that situation and understand that greed was some part of the problem. Greed was what led people to create complex markets that no one understood in the hope of making a quick buck. Greed caused other people to make trades on strange pools of debt. Greed prevented anyone from calling out this situation for what it was—a house of cards just waiting for the slightest breeze to knock it all down.

It doesn’t do you much good to criticize those folks after the fact. It’s better to look at how greed and vices might be having a similar effect in your own life. What lapses in judgment might your vices be causing you? What “sicknesses” might you have?

And how can your rational mind step in and regulate them?

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

What is it then to be properly educated? It is learning to apply our natural preconceptions to the right things according to Nature, and beyond that to separate the things that lie within our power from those that don’t.
—Epictetus, Discourses, 1.22.9-10a

A degree on a wall means you’re educated as much as shoes on your feet mean you’re walking. It’s a start, but hardly sufficient. Otherwise, how could so many “educated” people make unreasonable decisions? Or miss so many obvious things? Partly it’s because they forget that they ought to focus only on that which lies within their power to control. A surviving fragment from the philosopher Heraclitus expresses that reality:

“Many who have learned
from Hesiod the countless names
of gods and monsters
never understand
that night and day are one.”

Just as you can walk plenty well without shoes, you don’t need to step into a classroom to understand the basic, fundamental reality of nature and of our proper role in it. Begin with awareness and reflection. Not just once, but every single second of every single day.

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

People seek retreats for themselves in the country, by the sea, or in the mountains. You are very much in the habit of yearning for those same things. But this is entirely the trait of a base person, when you can, at any moment, find such a retreat in yourself. For nowhere can you find a more peaceful and less busy retreat than in your own soul—especially if on close inspection it is filled with ease, which I say is nothing more than being well-ordered. Treat yourself often to this retreat and be renewed.
—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 4.3.1

Do you have a vacation coming up? Are you looking forward to the weekend so you can have some peace and quiet? Maybe, you think, after things settle down or after I get this over with. But how often has that ever actually worked?

The Zen meditation teacher Jon Kabat-Zinn coined a famous expression: “Wherever you go, there you are.” We can find a retreat at any time by looking inward. We can sit with our eyes closed and feel our breath go in and out. We can turn on some music and tune out the world. We can turn off technology or shut off those rampant thoughts in our head. That will provide us peace. Nothing else.

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

I may wish to be free from torture, but if the time comes for me to endure it, I’ll wish to bear it courageously with bravery and honor. Wouldn’t I prefer not to fall into war? But if war does befall me, I’ll wish to carry nobly the wounds, starvation, and other necessities of war. Neither am I so crazy as to desire illness, but if I must suffer illness, I’ll wish to do nothing rash or dishonorable. The point is not to wish for these adversities, but for the virtue that makes adversities bearable.
—Seneca, Moral Letters, 67.4

President James Garfield was a great man—raised in humble circumstances, self-educated, and eventually a Civil War hero—whose presidency was cut short by an assassin’s bullet. In his brief time in office, he faced a bitterly divided country as well as a bitterly and internally divided Republican Party. During one fight, which challenged the very authority of his office, he stood firm, telling the adviser: “Of course I deprecate war, but if it is brought to my door the bringer will find me at home.”

That’s what Seneca is saying here. We’d be crazy to want to face difficulty in life. But we’d be equally crazy to pretend that it isn’t going to happen. Which is why when it knocks on our door—as it very well may this morning—let’s make sure we’re prepared to answer. Not the way we are when a surprise visitor comes late at night, but the way we are when we’re waiting for an important guest: dressed, in the right head space, ready to go.

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

For there are two rules to keep at the ready—that there is nothing good or bad outside my own reasoned choice, and that we shouldn’t try to lead events but to follow them.
—Epictetus, Discourses, 3.10.18

In the mid-twentieth century, there was an Indian Jesuit priest named Anthony de Mello. Born in Bombay when it was still under British control, de Mello was an amalgam of many different cultures and perspectives: East, West; he even trained as a psychotherapist. It’s interesting when one sees timeless wisdom develop across schools, across epochs and ideas. Here is a quote from de Mello’s book, The Way to Love, that sounds almost exactly like Epictetus:

“The cause of my irritation is not in this person but in me.”

Remember, each individual has a choice. You are always the one in control. The cause of irritation—or our notion that something is bad—that comes from us, from our labels or our expectations. Just as easily, we can change those labels; we can change our entitlement and decide to accept and love what’s happening around us. And this wisdom has been repeated and independently discovered in every century and every country since time began.

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

Today I escaped from the crush of circumstances, or better put, I threw them out, for the crush wasn’t from outside me but in my own assumptions.
—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 9.13

On tough days we might say, “My work is overwhelming,” or “My boss is really frustrating.” If only we could understand that this is impossible. Someone can’t frustrate you, work can’t overwhelm you—these are external objects, and they have no access to your mind. Those emotions you feel, as real as they are, come from the inside, not the outside.

The Stoics use the word hypolepsis, which means “taking up”—of perceptions, thoughts, and judgments by our mind. What we assume, what we willingly generate in our mind, that’s on us. We can’t blame other people for making us feel stressed or frustrated any more than we can blame them for our jealousy. The cause is within us. They’re just the target.

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

You are not your body and hair-style, but your capacity for choosing well. If your choices are beautiful, so too will you be.
—Epictetus, Discourses, 3.1.39b-40a

It’s that line in the movie Fight Club: “You are not your job, you’re not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet.” Obviously your friend Epictetus never saw that movie or read the book—but apparently the consumerism of the 1990s existed in ancient Rome too.

It’s easy to confuse the image we present to the world for who we actually are, especially when media messaging deliberately blurs that distinction.

You might look beautiful today, but if that was the result of vain obsession in the mirror this morning, the Stoics would ask, are you actually beautiful? A body built from hard work is admirable. A body built to impress gym rats is not.

That’s what the Stoics urge us to consider. Not how things appear, but what effort, activity, and choices they are a result of.

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