“It may well rain tomorrow, but that doesn’t mean you have to get wet in advance. You can enjoy the sunshine today, while still bringing in your furniture just in case.”
Ryan Holiday, Daily Stoic Blog
”Seneca notes how much time we waste in life. It may well be that we are wasting much of that time and energy thinking about things as unfulfilling and unproductive as being on time. Being punctual is important, yes. But more critical is making time for the things that really matter… and then being on time for those.“
Ryan Holiday
“What if instead of being concerned, you were just aware? What if instead of talking about behavioral issues, you just talked about behaviors? How about instead banning curse words from your house, you banned negative self-talk, maybe negative talk entirely? Instead of complaining about their use of slang or improper English, you tried to limit complaining itself? What if instead of trying to find a nice way to point out that another kid is playing better than yours, you just dropped comparison altogether?”
Ryan Holiday, Daily Stoic Blog
“Philosophy is the essential, centering pursuit. It challenges us. It requires work and reflection and self-criticism. It requires that we hold ourselves to certain standards and that we hold ourselves to account when we fail to. It’s the real work, not the busy work. Philosophy is what birthed you, raised you, and continues to re-make you as life goes on. Don’t let some momentum in your other pursuits fool you into thinking you no longer need it. It’s home. Make sure you’re paying the proper respects. Make sure you’re going back often, so that today’s rhythm does not become tomorrow’s rut.”
Ryan Holiday, Daily Stoic Blog
”Circumstances are never going to give you what you need. You’re going to have to take them. No one is going to give you time to study philosophy, you have to take it. You have to make the time. Externals are never going to restore what is essentially an internal issue. You need that break now…and you must get it by stepping away, not literally but figuratively. Stop fooling yourself. Stop expecting someone or someplace to restore you. The only person who can only do it is you. And the right time for it is not later, but now.”
Ryan Holiday, Daily Stoic Blog
“A Stoic is not a scold. Nor are they a tyrant. We are strict with ourselves, tolerant with others. Our discipline is our discipline, as it should be. Our own struggles should keep us busy enough that we shouldn’t even consider getting up in other people’s business to fix theirs. Instead let’s meet others where they are, accept and love them as they are. Because anything else is outside our control.”
Ryan Holiday, Daily Stoic Blog
“Human beings have been doing the same things for eons. And the wisest minds who ever lived wrote down the best of what they figured out. If you want to stay informed, if you want to learn how to prepare for an uncertain future—forget about breaking news articles, forget about refreshing your twitter feed, forget about the arguing talking heads on CNN. Instead, drink deeply from the great texts of history. Learn from the distant past, from the wisest minds who ever lived. Search very old books to find your best new ideas.”
Ryan Holiday, Daily Stoic Blog
“You might think that the Stoics were these unfeeling people…But that’s actually not true at all…Marcus Aurelius said that he learned from one of his mentors to be free of passions but full of love. If you want to feel good, if you want to be loved by other people, it’s about what you put out in the world…Because ultimately that’s what you control. If you want to feel better, don’t go expecting other people to validate you or to give you what you want. Give what you want. Marcus says if you want to feel good, do good. See everyone you meet, as Seneca said, as an opportunity to practice kindness. And the rest will take care of itself.”
Ryan Holiday
“Let’s stop lying to ourselves, saying ‘it will all be better in the future,’ because the present isn’t the problem. None of the external things are. It’s our emotions at the root of discomfort. They are within us. They are our responsibility to work on.”
Ryan Holiday, Daily Stoic Blog
“We must study the past yet not take it as a perfect map of the terrain ahead. Hang both reminders on your wall: history is the same thing happening again and again AND things that have never happened before happen all the time. And then once they happen…they can happen again and again.”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic Blog
“We have to focus on what we can learn from other people. We have to focus on what is special and unique about them instead of zeroing in on the ways they are not as good as us. We have to be forgiving and patient, kind and appreciative. We have to engage with what they bring to the table, not lament the things they take from it. Then we have to work to make those people around us better…not write them off as hopeless and broken.”
Ryan Holiday, Daily Stoic Blog
“Fortune is not out to get you. Life is not picking on you. This is just what’s happening, period. It happens to involve you…but it does not revolve around you.“
Ryan Holiday, Daily Stoic Blog
“We will not take personally a slight or a screw-up we have been guilty of ourselves—because we remember that when we did it, it was not personal or even intentional. When we recall how dumb we were when we were young, we won’t be so quick to judge the generation coming after us. When we consider all the current beliefs we will be judged for by that generation, perhaps we can be a little more tolerant of the older generation in front of us. We’ve all messed up. We will all continue to mess up. Does it really benefit us—is it really fair—to go around condemning people for mistakes we’ve made ourselves? For going astray as we have gone astray? No. It doesn’t.”
Ryan Holiday, Daily Stoic Blog
“All the things you’re worried about potentially happening in the future are in fact happening right now somewhere in the world. All the things you’re not sure you could handle… people have been handling since the beginning of time. Nothing new looms, only reruns of what you’ve already experienced or read about in the annals of history.”
Ryan Holiday, Daily Stoic Blog
“We think that perfecting the outward version of ourselves that the world sees will bring us the inner peace we want. But Socrates and the Stoics knew it was the other way around. It’s the inner work that is more likely to bring us the outward success. And more importantly, that the inner work was an end unto itself.”
Ryan Holiday, Daily Stoic Blog
“Our circumstances can be unfair, unjust, unexpected. Yet? This doesn’t absolve us of needing to figure out how to navigate them, make good use of them. Seneca could not change the fact of his exile…but he could transform it. The same is true for us. Whatever life hands us or a tyrant hands down for us, we have to make it right. We have to create justice and progress and good from it. It’s unfair, but it is fate. We can turn this misfortune into a better future. It is the only way forward.”
Ryan Holiday, Daily Stoic Blog
“The potential of future suffering is not a reason to suffer now. On the contrary, it’s a reason to be present now. To be good now. To love and live, now. That future may come…and you’ll meet it. If there’s something you can do to prevent it, do it. But hopelessness and despair and dread and anger? They do nothing for nobody–least of all you.”
Ryan Holiday, Daily Stoic Blog
“No one is perfect. We all have bad days. It’s okay to feel a little discouraged. But to give up? To not even try? That is criminal. ‘Disgraceful,’ Marcus Aurelius would say, ‘for the soul to give up when the body is still going strong.’ All of us have fallen short in the last year…and the years before that. We broke our resolutions. We made the same mistakes again and again. We were ‘jarred, unavoidably, by circumstances,’ as Marcus said. But now it’s time to pick ourselves up and try again. We have to keep going. We can’t give up. Because the alternative is unthinkable.”
Ryan Holiday, Daily Stoic Blog
“Either don’t blame anyone…or blame yourself. For whatever happens. For everything that happens. Those are the options.”
Ryan Holiday, Daily Stoic Blog
“Almost no difference is made by the individual who decides to do the right thing, to do an act of kindness, to insist on the truth when a falsehood is easier, to be a good parent, to care about the quality of their work. Is that a reason to be a liar, a cheat, an asshole, a bad parent, or a poor craftsman? Of course not. And imagine what the world would look like if everyone insisted it was?”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic Blog