Ryan Holiday

Failure shows us the way — by showing us what isn’t the way.

Every obstacle is an opportunity to get better.

Each time, you’ll learn something. Each time, you’ll develop strength, wisdom, and perspective. Each time, a little more of the competition falls away. Until all that is left is you: the best version of you.

We are a product of our teachers and our mentors. There would be no Plato without Socrates. There would be no Aristotle without Plato. There would be no Marcus Aurelius without Rusticus or Epictetus or Antoninus.

Remember: No one is having less fun than an overextended, overcommitted person with debtors at their door.

You cannot have your news instantly and have it done well. You cannot have your news reduced to 140 characters or less without losing large parts of it. You cannot manipulate the news but not expect it to be manipulated against you. You cannot have your news for free; you can only obscure the costs. If as a culture we can learn this lesson, and if we can learn to love the hard work, we will save ourselves much trouble and collateral damage. We must remember: There is no easy way.

3 Things You Need To Stop Doing From The Stoics

1. Stop following the mob (Chrysippus)
2. Stop avoiding discomfort (Seneca)
3. Stop taking things personally (Marcus Aurelius)

Everything is change. Embrace that. Flow with it.

In an age of images and entertainment, in an age of instant emotional gratification, we neither seek nor want honesty or reality. Reality is complicated. Reality is boring. We are incapable or unwilling to handle its confusion.

In failure or adversity, it’s so easy to hate. Hate defers blame. It makes someone else responsible. It’s a distraction too; we don’t do much else when we’re busy getting revenge or investigating the wrongs that have supposedly been done to us.

You have to go deep. If your goal is to get not just smarter or more knowledgeable, but wiser, you cannot be content to learn in half measures.

A person that thinks all the time has nothing to think about except thoughts.

Were you to live three thousand years, or even a countless multiple of that, keep in mind that no one ever loses a life other than the one they are living, and no one ever lives a life other than the one they are losing. The longest and the shortest life, then, amount to the same, for the present moment lasts the same for all and is all anyone possesses. No one can lose either the past or the future, for how can someone be deprived of what’s not theirs?” — MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 2.14

And that’s what is so insidious about talk. Anyone can talk about himself or herself. Even a child knows how to gossip and chatter. Most people are decent at hype and sales. So what is scarce and rare? Silence. The ability to deliberately keep yourself out of the conversation and subsist without its validation. Silence is the respite of the confident and the strong.

The obstacle in the path becomes the path. Never forget, within every obstacle is an opportunity to improve our condition.