“In Meditations, Marcus [Aurelius] talks about how he had a good day because he escaped anxiety. Then, he actually corrects himself, he goes ‘Actually, no, I didn’t escape it, I discarded it because it was within me.’ He’s realizing that he is the common variable in all the situations that cause him anxiety, just as you are. Anxiety is within us. We want to work on [controlling] it and thinking about it so it doesn’t rule our lives — or ruin our lives.”
Ryan Holiday
“John D. Rockefeller would take regular breaks from his notoriously demanding schedule to mill about in his garden—it was his personal escape. Find your “garden” and go there often. Practice stillness, flex the solitude muscle. Be bored for at least 15 minutes per day. It’s an unlock for creativity and mindfulness.”
Sahil Bloom
“It takes discipline not to insist on doing everything yourself. Especially when you know how to do many of those things well. Especially when you have high standards about how they should be done. Even if you enjoy doing them—whether that’s mowing your own lawn, writing your speeches, making your own schedule, or answering your own phone. Often, the best way to manage the load is to share the load. Woe is the person who wears themselves out on trivial matters and then, when the big moments come, is out of energy. Woe is the person (and the people around them) who is so mentally exhausted and strung out because they’ve taken everything upon themselves that now, when things go wrong, there’s no slack or cushion to absorb the additional stress.”
Ryan Holiday, Discipline Is Destiny (Page 193)
“Is it a little discouraging that we never seem to ‘arrive’? That our standards rise just out of reach of our abilities? Absolutely not! We move the goalposts so the game doesn’t get boring and, more important, so it never ends. Ultimately, this brings us more pleasure and more satisfaction. We reach heights we’d never have been able to see otherwise. Do you want to be rotting or ripening? Are you getting better? Because if you’re not… then you’re probably getting worse.”
Ryan Holiday, Discipline Is Destiny (Page 189)
“Socrates didn’t know much. There wasn’t much he held for certain. But he was sure, he said, that ‘we cannot remain as we are.’ It doesn’t matter who you are. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done. Nobody is as good as they could be. Nobody is perfect. Everybody can improve. There are few self-fulfilling prophecies more important or more dangerous than this. If you think you have room to grow, you do and you will. If you think you’re as good as you can be… you’re right. You won’t get any better.”
Ryan Holiday, Discipline Is Destiny (Page 187)
“Ambition, which overthrows governments and private fortunes, which feeds on blood and crimes, ambition… is, like all inordinate passions, a violent and unthinking fever that ceases only when life ceases—like a conflagration which, fanned by a pitiless wind, ends only after all has been consumed.”
Napoleon, via Discipline Is Destiny (Page 175)
