If you’re wondering why you’re not happy, why things are always hard, try this thought experiment from the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius
We can imagine that Marcus Aurelius was a busy man, perhaps the busiest man in the world. He had 14 children. He was living through a pandemic. He had a nagging stomach ailment. He was taking philosophy classes.
Oh, and he was the emperor of Rome. His domain stretched some 2.2 million square miles and included some 120 million people for whom he was both responsible for and in charge of.
How did he manage it all? How did he get it all done? Without losing his mind? Without falling behind?
We know that one question played a huge role.
A list for anyone struggling to see beyond this pandemic moment
Over the past year, we’ve all been tested. Many of us have failed.
The pandemic made some of us callous. It infected others with conspiracy theories. Too many of us gave into apathy and chaos, losing all sense of structure (and spending who knows how many hours watching Netflix). Now, with the pandemic in the home stretch, but still with us, we have to get serious. We have to get serious about the tried and tested way to wisdom: reading.
Books are an investment in yourself — one that can come in many forms: novels, nonfiction, how-to, poetry, classics, biographies…
Stress is part of life. But suffering because of stress? To the Stoics, that was a choice.
“It’s normal to feel pain in your hands and feet, if you’re using your feet as feet and your hands as hands. And for a human being to feel stress is normal — if he’s living a normal human life. And if it’s normal, how can it be bad?” — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 6.33
Life has always been hard. Even in the ancient world, there were children to raise, debts to pay, and terrible bosses. People got sick. They committed to too much.
Stress was a fact of life. But suffering because of stress? …
Ryan Holiday’s favorite lessons on success, relationships, and being a good human
In his essay On the Happy Life, the philosopher Seneca makes an extended list of rules for living a good life. It’s everyone’s wish to live better, he says, but we are often in the dark on how to do so.
Except… we’re not. At least, we don’t have to be. So many people have struggled in the dark before us, and their experiences and lessons have created light. Living a good life starts with learning from one another.
With that in mind, here are 100 rules that have helped me live the life I want. Some have come from…
Ryan Holiday’s recommendations for a better understanding of the year ahead
I will say this about 2020: It provided plenty of inspiration to read more. Every month, it seemed, there was a new or deepening crisis in a subject that became vital to learn more about: leadership, pandemics, civil rights, elections. It was one of those years that sent you to, well, I would say “the bookstore,” but you know.
Actually doing the reading, of course, was a different story. I read a lot in 2020. But I know a lot of people who couldn’t, who found their focus too shot and their mental energy too drained to actually make it…
As history tells us, there’s no such thing
We’ve all heard it at some point this year, and have probably even said it: “When things go back to normal… ”
I found myself having such a thought this very morning as I took my sons for our daily walk. It’s understandable, of course. Life right now feels very strange. A pandemic has disrupted our lives. The country seems more polarized than ever. There’s little sign that the economy will rebound soon.
But any student of history knows that 2020 is hardly abnormal.
A hundred years ago, we had a pandemic — the Spanish flu — in the middle…
Seven tactics from the ancient world that have stood the test of time
The Roman-era Stoic philosopher Seneca once joked that the one thing fools all have in common is that they are always getting ready to live but never actually do.
That was 20 centuries ago. For tens of thousands of years, people have been procrastinating just like you do today: They put things off, delayed, made excuses, and wished their deadlines would disappear. And just as it does with you, this caused them anxiety, made them piss off their colleagues and families, and, worst of all, wasted time.
Fortunately, unlike our ancient counterparts, we have ages of wisdom to help us…
I still believe in the values you instilled in me. Do you?
Hey Dad,
Our relationship is strained.
It feels like it has been for a while. For the last four years, there has been an elephant in the room — I’d joke and call it an orange elephant, but I’m nervous that might end this earnest conversation before it even begins.
Have I changed? I mean, yes, of course I have. I’ve gotten older. I’ve had two children. I’ve tried to read and learn as much as possible, just as you taught me.
In fact, that’s sort of the weirdest thing. I don’t think I’ve changed much. I still believe, deep…
If you can’t find your way forward, try looking back — way back to 161 AD
The reign of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius was defined by a pandemic, civil unrest, interminable wars, cultural decadence, and income inequality.
As he would observe in Meditations, people have always been people, and life has always been life. The more things change, the more they stay the same. How true we’ve found this to be.
I’ve spent more than a decade writing about the Stoic philosophy, most recently with my book Lives of the Stoics and my research is filled with unique characters from unique backgrounds — from slaves to generals, lawyers to writers, artists to doctors. Despite all…
Everyone from the Stoics to the Buddhists knew the importance of this essential virtue
Perhaps it takes something as tumultuous as our current world to clarify what that word stillness means. When we hear it, we know the importance of it, intuitively and instinctively: The quiet. The gratitude. The ability to step back and reflect. Being steady while everything spins around you. Acting without frenzy. Hearing only what needs to be heard.
As Rome was being scourged by plague and war, the emperor and Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius wrote about being “like the rock that the waves keep crashing over,” the one that “stands unmoved and the raging of the sea falls still around…
Ryan Holiday
Bestselling author of ‘Conspiracy,’ ‘Ego is the Enemy’ & ‘The Obstacle Is The Way’ http://amzn.to/24qKRWR
