"37 Lessons From The Birthplace Of Stoicism"
by Ryan Holiday
"On a fateful day in the fourth century BC, the Phoenician merchant Zeno lost everything. While traveling through the Mediterranean Sea with a cargo full of Tyrian purple dye, his ship wrecked upon the rocks, his cargo lost to the sea. He washed up in Athens. We’re not sure what caused the wreck, but it devastated him financially, physically, emotionally. It could have been the end of his story - the loss could have driven him to drink or suicide, or a quiet ordinary life in the service of others. Instead, it set in motion the creation of Stoicism, one of the greatest intellectual and spiritual movements in history. “I made a prosperous voyage,” Zeno later joked, “when I suffered a shipwreck.” Indeed, we were all richer for it.
Why am I telling you this? Because I’m in Greece right now with my family for our summer vacation–the birthplace of Stoicism. We didn’t just fly into Athens and take a couple of tours, but decided instead to really cover quite a bit of geography on the trip (2,500km or so by car and boat between Athens, Olympia, Ithaca, Delphi, Patras, Thermopylae, Mt. Olympus, Marathon, Cape Sounio, among others) and I’ve had the wonderful experience of bringing to life Stoic lessons and stories that I’ve been studying, reading, and talking about for decades.
And as I'm stomping around in the places where it all began, I thought I’d riff on some of my favorite lessons and ideas from Stoicism. I was first introduced to this philosophy two decades ago and have since written thirteen books, sent out well over 3,000 Daily Stoic emails, and hosted 500+ Daily Stoic Podcast interviews. I’ve picked up some pretty good lessons along the way. Here are some of my favorites:
[*] “The chief task in life," Epictetus said, “is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own...” That's the fundamental premise of Stoicism, also known as the “dichotomy of control”. If we can focus on making clear what parts of our day are within our control and what parts are not, we will not only be happier, we will have a distinct advantage over other people who fail to do so.
[*] As I wound up the Sacred Way to the Temple of Apollo last week, it occurred to me that I was literally following in Zeno’s footsteps, the footsteps he would have taken when he visited the Oracle at Delphi and received a life-changing prophecy: “To live the best life,” the Oracle told Zeno, “you should have conversations with the dead.” What does that mean? Zeno wasn’t sure…until he made a realization that you may have made yourself: Reading is the way to communicate with the dead. Reading doesn’t just change us, it opens us up to live multiple lives, to absorb the experiences of generations of people. It allows us to gain cost-free knowledge that someone else gained through pain and suffering.
[*] It's fascinating to me that Epictetus – a Greek slave – ends up intersecting (and interacting) with FOUR different Roman emperors: Nero, Domitian, Hadrian, and Marcus Aurelius. And do you know who was most influenced by Epictetus? Whose life was most radically changed by his lectures? Marcus Aurelius. So it's unfortunate Epictetus isn't more widely known and read - because when he is, he changes lives. And that’s why we’re dedicating a whole month to Epictetus over at The Daily Stoic. In an effort to make his work more accessible, we created a brand new guide called "How To Read Epictetus." It’s part book club, part deep dive into the life, lessons, and legacy of this incredible teacher. So if you want to understand why Epictetus is your favorite philosopher’s favorite philosopher (as he was for Marcus Aurelius), then join me and thousands of other Stoics over at dailystoic.com/epictetuscourse today.
[*] Epictetus reminds us that “it’s impossible to learn that which you think you already know.” To the Stoics, particularly Zeno, conceit was the primary impediment to wisdom. Because when you’ve always got answers, opinions and ready-made solutions, what you’re not doing is learning.
[*] A wise man, Chrysippus said, can make use of whatever comes his way but is in want of nothing. “On the other hand,” he said, “nothing is needed by the fool for he does not understand how to use anything but he is in want of everything.” There is perhaps no better definition of a Stoic: to have but not want, to enjoy without needing.
[*] It’s strange how often Stoicism is associated today with “having no emotions,” because all the Stoics are explicit in how natural it is to have emotions, in deed and word. A Stoic feels. We only have a dozen or so surviving anecdotes about Marcus Aurelius, and THREE of them have him crying. He cried when his favorite tutor passed away, he cried in court over deaths from the Antonine Plague. Stoicism isn’t a tool to help you stuff down your emotions, it’s a tool to help you better process and deal with them.
[*] People will piss you off in this life. That’s a given. But before you get upset, stop yourself. “Until you know their reasons,” Epictetus once said, “how do you know whether they have acted wrongly?” That moron who cut you off on the highway, what if he’s speeding to the hospital? The person who spoke rudely might have a broken heart. The Stoics remind us to be empathetic. Almost no one does wrong on purpose, Socrates said. Maybe they just don’t know any better.
[*] In my favorite novel, "The Moviegoer" by Walker Percy (who loved Stoicism and wrote about it often), the wisest character in the book, Aunt Emily, says there’s “one thing I believe and I believe it with every fiber of my being. A man must live by his lights and do what little he can and do it as best he can. In this world goodness is destined to be defeated. But a man must go down fighting. That is victory. To do anything less is to be less than a man.” That captures Stoicism to me. The Stoics didn’t always win, but they always showed themselves as worthy of winning. Cato’s fight against Caesar was a losing battle. He could have folded, he could have fled, but he didn’t. He gave everything to protect the ideals Rome was founded on, a cause he believed was just. He didn’t succeed, but he did the next best thing: He gave his best.
[*] The ancients didn’t have the advantage of looking down from an airplane to see the world from a 30,000-foot view. They never saw their home in a satellite image. Still, at least twice in Meditations, Marcus speaks of taking “Plato’s view." “To see them from above,” he writes, “the thousands of animal herds, the rituals, the voyages on calm or stormy seas, the different ways we come into the world, share it with one another and leave it.” For him the exercise was theoretical - the tallest mountain in Italy is about 15,000 feet and as far as we know, he never climbed it. But what he got from this exercise was humility, a better understanding of how small and interconnected we are.
[*] In one of his most famous letters to Lucilius, Seneca gives a pretty simple prescription for the good life. “Each day,” he wrote, “acquire something that will fortify you against poverty, against death, indeed against other misfortunes.” One gain per day. That’s it. One quote, one prescription, one story. “Well-being,” Zeno said, “is attained by little and little, and nevertheless is no little thing itself.”
[*] “He who is everywhere,” Seneca says, “is nowhere.” If you want to be great at whatever it is you’re doing, you have to make some choices about what you say yes to and what you say no to. "Most of what we say and do is not essential,” Marcus Aurelius reminds us. “If you can eliminate it, you’ll have more time, and more tranquility. Ask yourself at every moment, ‘Is this necessary?'”
[*] There is a wonderful quote from Epictetus that I think of every time I see someone get terribly offended or outraged about something. I try to think about it when I get upset myself. “If someone succeeds in provoking you,” he said, “realize that your mind is complicit in the provocation.” Whatever the other person did is on them. Whatever your reaction is to their remark or action, that’s on you. Don’t let them bait you or make you upset. Focus on managing your own behavior. Let them poke and provoke as much as they like. Don’t be complicit in the offense.
[*] Courage. Justice. Temperance. Wisdom. They are the most essential virtues in Stoicism, what Marcus called the “touchstones of goodness.” “If, at some point in your life,” Marcus Aurelius wrote, “you should come across anything better than justice, truth, self-control, courage - it must be an extraordinary thing indeed.”
[*] "If your choices are beautiful,” Epictetus said, “so too will you be." It’s simple and it’s true: you are what your choices make you. Nothing more and nothing less.
[*] It’s a strange paradox. The people who are most successful in life, who accomplish the most, who dominate their professions - they don’t care that much about winning. They don’t care about outcomes. As Marcus Aurelius said, it’s insane to tie your well-being to things outside of your control. Success, mastery, sanity, Marcus writes, comes from tying your wellbeing, “to your own actions.”
[*] It’s possible, Marcus Aurelius said, to not have an opinion. Do you need to have an opinion about the scandal of the moment - is it changing anything? Do you need to have an opinion about the way your kid does their hair? So what if that person is a vegetarian? “These things are not asking to be judged by you,” Marcus writes. “Leave them alone.” Especially because these opinions often make us miserable! “It’s not things that upset us,” Epictetus says, “it’s our opinions about things.” The fewer opinions you have, especially about other people and things outside your control, the happier you will be. Of course, this is not to say that we shouldn’t have any opinions at all, but that we should save our judgments for what matters - right and wrong, justice and injustice, what is moral and what is not.
[*] The occupations of the Stoics could not be more different. Seneca was a playwright, a wealthy landowner, and a political advisor. Epictetus was a former slave who became a philosophy teacher. Marcus Aurelius would have loved to be a philosopher, but instead found himself wearing the purple cloak of the emperor. Zeno was a prosperous merchant. Cato was a Senator. Cleanthes was a water carrier. Once asked by a king why he still drew water, Cleanthes replied, “Is drawing water all I do? What? Do I not dig? What? Do I not water the garden? Or undertake any other labor for the love of philosophy?” What matters to the Stoics is not what job you have but how you do it. Anything you do well is noble, no matter how humble.
[*] The now-famous passage from Marcus Aurelius is that the impediment to action advances action, that what stands in the way becomes the way (which is also the passage that inspired my book "The Obstacle is the Way)". But do you know what he was talking about specifically? He was talking about difficult people! He was saying that frustrating, infuriating, thoughtless people are opportunities to practice excellence and virtue - be it forgiveness, patience, self-control, or cheerfulness. But it’s not just with difficult people. That’s what I’ve come to see as the essence of Stoicism: every situation is a chance to practice virtue. So when I find myself in situations big and small, positive or negative, I try to see each of them as an opportunity for me to be the best I’m capable of being in that moment.
[*] Every event has two handles, Epictetus said: “one by which it can be carried, and one by which it can’t. If your brother does you wrong, don’t grab it by his wronging, because this is the handle incapable of lifting it. Instead, use the other - that he is your brother, that you were raised together, and then you will have hold of the handle that carries.” This applies to everything. When bad news comes, do I grab the handle of despair or the handle of action? When I’m slighted, do I grab the handle of grievance or the handle of grace? When things feel uncertain, do I grab the handle of fear or the handle of preparation? I don’t get to choose what happens. But I do get to choose how I respond. And if I want to carry the weight of whatever comes next, I have to grab the handle that’s strong enough to hold.
[*] “The things you think about determine the quality of your mind,” Marcus writes in Meditations. “Your soul takes the color of your thoughts.” If you see the world as a negative, horrible place, you’re right. If you look for shittiness, you will see shittiness. If you believe that you were screwed, you’re right. But if you look for beauty in the mundane, you’ll see it. If you look for evidence of goodness in people, you’ll find it. If you decide to see the agency and power you do have over your life, well, you’ll find you have quite a bit.
[*] Over the years, the Stoics have completely reoriented my definition of wealth. Of course, not having what you need to survive is insufficient. But what about people who have a lot…but are insatiable? Who are plagued by envy and comparison? Both Marcus Aurelius and Seneca talk about rich people who are not content with what they have and are thus quite poor. But feeling like you have ‘enough’ – that’s rich no matter what your income is.
[*] This was a breakthrough I had during the pandemic. Suddenly, I had a lot less to worry about. I wasn’t doing the things that, in the past, I told myself were the causes of my anxiety. I wasn’t hopping on a plane. I wasn’t battling traffic to get somewhere on time. I wasn’t preparing for this talk or that one. So you’d think that my anxiety would have gone way down. But it didn’t. And what I realized is that anxiety has nothing to do with any of these things. The airport isn’t the one to blame. I am! Marcus Aurelius talks about this in "Meditations." “Today I escaped from anxiety,” he says. “Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions - not outside.” It’s a little frustrating, but it’s also freeing. Because it means you can stop it! You can choose to discard it.
[*] One of the most relatable moments in Meditations is the argument Marcus Aurelius has with himself in the opening of book 5. It’s clearly an argument he’s had with himself many times, on many mornings - as have many of us: He knows he has to get out of bed, but so desperately wants to remain under the warm covers. It’s relatable…but it’s also impressive. Marcus didn’t actually have to get out of bed. He didn’t really have to do anything. The emperor had all sorts of prerogatives, and here Marcus was insisting that he rise early and get to work. Why? Because Marcus knew that winning the morning was key to winning the day and winning at life. By pushing himself to do something uncomfortable and tough, by insisting on doing what he said he knew he was born to do and what he loved to do, Marcus was beginning a process that would lead to a successful day.
[*] The Stoics kept themselves in fighting shape, they liked to say, not for appearance’s sake, but because they understood life itself was a kind of battle. They did hard things. They sought out opportunities to push their physical limitations. Socrates was admired for his ability to endure cold weather. Marcus Aurelius was a wrestler. Cleanthes was a boxer. Chrysippus was a runner. This wasn’t separate from their philosophy practice, it was their philosophy practice. “We treat the body rigorously,” Seneca said, “so that it will not be disobedient to the mind.”
[*] This was Marcus’ simple recipe for productivity and for happiness. “If you seek tranquility,” he said, “do less.” And then he clarifies. Not nothing. Less. Do only what’s essential. “Which brings a double satisfaction: to do less, better.”
[*] Just because someone spends a lot of time reading, Epictetus said, doesn’t mean they’re smart. Great readers don’t just think about quantity, they think about quality. They read books that challenge their thinking. They read books that help them improve as human beings, not just as professionals. They, as Epictetus said, make sure that their “efforts aim at improving the mind.” Because then and only then would he call you “hard-working.” Then and only then would he give you the title “reader.”
[*] The Stoics come down pretty hard on procrastinating. It's "the biggest waste of life," Seneca wrote. "It snatches away each day and denies us the present by promising the future." To procrastinate is to be entitled. It is arrogant. It assumes there will be a later. Stop putting stuff off. Do it now.
[*] Marcus talked about a strange contradiction: we are generally selfish people, yet, more than ourselves, we value other people’s opinions about us. “It never ceases to amaze me,” he wrote, “we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own.” The fundamental Stoic principle is that we focus only on the things that are within our control. Other people’s opinions are not within our control. Don’t spend any time worrying about what other people think.
[*] The Stoics often quote the poet Heraclitus, who said that character is fate. What he meant was: Character decides everything. It determines who we are/what we do. Develop good character and all will be well. Fail to, and nothing will.
[*] It’s called self-discipline. It’s called self-improvement. Your standards are for you. Marcus said philosophy is about being strict with yourself and forgiving of other people. That’s not only the kind way to be, it’s the only effective way to be.
[*] Marcus reminded himself: “Don’t await the perfection of Plato’s Republic.” Because if you do, that’s all you’ll do…wait. That’s one of the ironies about perfectionism: it rarely begets perfection - only disappointment, frustration, and, of course, procrastination. So instead, Marcus said, “be satisfied with even the smallest progress.” You’re never going to be perfect—there is no such thing. You’re human. Instead, aim for progress, even the smallest amount.
[*] Seneca said we have to “choose someone whose way of life as well as words have won your approval. Be always pointing him out to yourself either as your guardian or as your model.” Choose someone who you want to be like, and then constantly ask yourself: what would they do in this situation? In Seneca’s last moment, when Nero comes to kill him, it’s Cato that he channels. It’s where he gets his strength. Even though Seneca had fallen short of his writings in a lot of ways, in the moment it mattered most, he drew on Cato and became as great as philosophy could have ever hoped for him to be.
[*] Some days, Marcus wrote, the crowd cheers and worships you. Other days, they hate you and hit you. They’ll build you up, and then tear you down. That’s just the way it goes. The key, Marcus said, is to assent to all of it. Accept the good stuff without arrogance, he writes in "Meditations." Let the bad stuff go with indifference. Neither success nor failure says anything about you.
[*] Seneca said that the key distinction between the Stoics and the Epicureans is that the Epicureans only got involved in politics and public life if they had to. The Stoic, he says, gets involved unless something prevents you. Sometimes I get pushback from people when I talk about anything political with The Daily Stoic. “Why pick a side?” they ask. “You're going to piss off your audience.” The reason I pick a side is that you have to pick a side. That's what the Stoic virtue of justice is about. Stoicism says we have to be active - we have to participate in politics, we have to try to make the world a better place, we have to serve the common good where we can. You can’t run away from these things. It has to be a battle you’re actively engaged in - in the world, in your job, in the community, in your neighborhood, in your country, in the time and place that you live.
[*] The reality is: we will fall short. We all will. The important thing is that we pick ourselves back up when we do. “When jarred, unavoidably, by circumstances,” Marcus Aurelius wrote, “revert at once to yourself, and don’t lose the rhythm more than you can help. You’ll have a better grasp of the harmony if you keep on going back to it.” You’re going to have an impulse to give in, your temper is going to get the best of you. Ambition might lead you astray. But you always have the ability to realize that that is not who you want to be, that is not what you were put here to do, that is not who your philosophy wants you to be.
[*] A Stoic is strong. A Stoic is brave. They carry the load for themselves and others. But they also ask for help. Because sometimes that’s the strongest and bravest thing to do. “Don’t be ashamed to need help,” Marcus Aurelius wrote. “Like a soldier storming a wall, you have a mission to accomplish. And if you’ve been wounded and you need a comrade to pull you up? So what?” If you need a minute, ask. If you need a helping hand, ask. If you need a favor, ask. If you need therapy, go.
[*] I spoke at a biohacking conference a few weeks ago where the stated purpose was all about living well into your hundreds. I teased them a little. Why? I said. So you can spend more time on your phone? So you can accumulate more stuff? So you can check more boxes off your to-do list? Marcus Aurelius would’ve asked, as he did in Meditations,“You’re afraid of death because you won’t be able to do this anymore?” We all think we need to, deserve to, live forever. But death is real. Memento Mori. None of us has unlimited time. Which is why we have to get serious now. We have to live and be well now."
