Ryan Holiday

The Stoics spent so much effort trying to limit their attachments to various comforts.

They worked hard at not needing the newest or fanciest or most expensive new luxury.

They understood that it was not only ungrateful – it was a quest that only ever ended in disappointment.

"Persist and resist". Persist in your efforts. Resist giving into distraction, discouragement, and disorder. - Epictetus

you must reclaim the ability to abstain because within it is your clarity and self-control.

We will learn that though we think big, we must act and live small in order to accomplish what we seek. Because we will be action and education focused, and forgo validation and status, our ambition will not be grandiose but iterative — one foot in front of the other, learning and growing and putting in the time.

Greatness comes from humble beginnings; it comes from grunt work. It means you’re the least important person in the room — until you change that with results.

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.

Stop wasting your time on these 6 things:

1. Worrying about other people’s opinions
2. Judging other people
3. Putting things off to the future
4. Holding onto the past
5. Arguing with reality
6. Thinking you are going to live forever

5 Habits That Are Killing Your Productivity:

1. You don’t wake up early (Marcus Aurelius)
2. You focus on what’s outside your control (Epictetus)
3. You don’t know how to say “no” (Seneca)
4. You’re in the wrong crowd (Marcus Aurelius)
5. You think you’ll live forever (Seneca)

The essence of greatness is the perception that virtue is enough. — RALPH WALDO EMERSON

To each,” Winston Churchill would say, “there comes in their lifetime a special moment when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a very special thing, unique to them and fitted to their talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds them unprepared or unqualified for that which could have been their finest hour.

Focus on the moment, not the monsters that may or may not be up ahead.

All of humanity’s problems,” Blaise Pascal said in 1654, “stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.

In life our first job is this, to divide and distinguish things into two categories: externals I cannot control, but the choices I make with regard to them I do control. Where will I find good and bad? In me, in my choices. — EPICTETUS

I will keep constant watch over myself and — most usefully — will put each day up for review. For this is what makes us evil — that none of us looks back upon our own lives. We reflect upon only that which we are about to do. And yet our plans for the future descend from the past.” — SENECA, MORAL LETTERS, 83.2

One might say that the ability to evaluate one’s own ability is the most important skill of all. Without it, improvement is impossible. And certainly ego makes it difficult every step of the way. It is certainly more pleasurable to focus on our talents and strengths, but where does that get us? Arrogance and self-absorption inhibit growth. So does fantasy and “vision.