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According to the Stoics, the circle of control contains just one thing: YOUR MIND.
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Ryan Holiday |
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The image of the Zen philosopher is the monk up in the green, quiet hills, or in a beautiful temple on some rocky cliff. The Stoics are the antithesis of this idea. Instead, they are the man in the marketplace, the senator in the Forum, the brave wife waiting for her soldier to return from battle, the sculptor busy in her studio. Still, the Stoic is equally at peace.
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Ryan Holiday |
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From Rusticus ... I learned to read carefully and not be satisfied with a rough understanding of the whole, and not to agree too quickly with those who have a lot to say about something." --MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 1.7.3"
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Ryan Holiday |
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approach each task as if it is your last, giving up every distraction, emotional subversion of reason, and all drama, vanity, and complaint over your fair share. You can see how mastery over a few things makes it possible to live an abundant and devout life--for, if you keep watch over these things, the gods won't ask for more." --MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 2.5" --
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Ryan Holiday |
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Do I need this thing? What will happen if I do not get it? Can I make do without it?
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Ryan Holiday |
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Ask yourself: Is that really worth it? Is it really that pleasurable? Consider that when you crave something or contemplate indulging in a "harmless" vice."
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Ryan Holiday |
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The little compulsions and drives we have not only chip away at our freedom and sovereignty, they cloud our clarity. We think we're in control--but are we really?
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Ryan Holiday |
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What is the fruit of these teachings? Only the most beautiful and proper harvest of the truly educated--tranquility, fearlessness, and freedom. We should not trust the masses who say only the free can be educated, but rather the lovers of wisdom who say that only the educated are free." --EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 2.1.21-23a"
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Ryan Holiday |
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We will learn that though we think big, we must act and live small in order to accomplish what we seek." Ryan Holiday, Ego is the Enemy, pg 22"
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Ryan Holiday |
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When it comes to money, where we feel our clear interest, we have an entire art where the tester uses many means to discover the worth . . . just as we give great attention to judging things that might steer us badly. But when it comes to our own ruling principle, we yawn and doze off, accepting any appearance that flashes by without counting the cost." --EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 1.20.8; 11"
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Ryan Holiday |
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In the meantime, cling tooth and nail to the following rule: not to give in to adversity, not to trust prosperity, and always take full note of fortune's habit of behaving just as she pleases. --SENECA
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Ryan Holiday |
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CLARIFY YOUR INTENTIONS "Let all your efforts be directed to something, let it keep that end in view. It's not activity that disturbs people, but false conceptions of things that drive them mad." --SENECA, ON TRANQUILITY OF MIND, 12.5"
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Ryan Holiday |
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reclaim the ability to abstain because within it is your clarity and self-control.
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Ryan Holiday |
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Eventually, all of us will pass away and slowly be forgotten. We should enjoy this brief time we have on earth--not be enslaved to emotions that make us miserable and dissatisfied.
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Ryan Holiday |
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If you want to be steady, if you want clarity, proper judgment is the best way.
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Ryan Holiday |
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Epictetus is reminding you that serenity and stability are results of your choices and judgment, not your environment.
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Ryan Holiday |
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The single most important practice in Stoic philosophy is differentiating between what we can change and what we can't. What we have influence over and what we do not.
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Ryan Holiday |
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The good things in life cost what they cost. The unnecessary things are not worth it at any price. The key is being aware of the difference.
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Ryan Holiday |
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Are we doing things for the right reasons? Or do we act because we haven't stopped to think? Or do we believe that we have to do something?
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Ryan Holiday |
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To quote Fight Club again, "We buy things we don't need, to impress people we don't like."
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Ryan Holiday |
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The more things we desire and the more we have to do to earn or attain those achievements, the less we actually enjoy our lives--and the less free we are.
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Ryan Holiday |
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NEVER DO ANYTHING OUT OF HABIT "So in the majority of other things, we address circumstances not in accordance with the right assumptions, but mostly by following wretched habit. Since all that I've said is the case, the person in training must seek to rise above, so as to stop seeking out pleasure and steering away from pain; to stop clinging to living and abhorring death; and in the case of property and money, to stop valuing receiving ov..
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Ryan Holiday |
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It's time to sit down and think about what's truly important to you and then take steps to forsake the rest. Without this, success will not be pleasurable, or nearly as complete as it could be. Or worse, it won't last.
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Ryan Holiday |
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Let's pass over to the really rich--how often the occasions they look just like the poor! When they travel abroad they must restrict their baggage, and when haste is necessary, they dismiss their entourage. And those who are in the army, how few of their possessions they get to keep ..." --SENECA, ON CONSOLATION TO HELVIA, 12.1.b-2"
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Ryan Holiday |
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We can channel this, too. We needn't scramble like we're so often inclined to do when some difficult task sits in front of us. Remember the first time you saw a complicated algebra equation? It was a jumble of symbols and unknowns. But then you stopped, took a deep breath, and broke it down. You isolated the variables, solved for them, and all that was left was the answer.
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Ryan Holiday |
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It's important to connect the so-called temptation with its actual effects. Once you understand that indulging might actually be worse than resisting, the urge begins to lose its appeal. In this way, self-control becomes the real pleasure, and the temptation becomes the regret.
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Ryan Holiday |
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Ask yourself the following first thing in the morning: What am I lacking in attaining freedom from passion? What for tranquility? What am I? A mere body, estate-holder, or reputation? None of these things. What, then? A rational being. What then is demanded of me? Meditate on your actions. How did I steer away from serenity? What did I do that was unfriendly, unsocial, or uncaring? What did I fail to do in all these things?" --EPICTETUS, DI..
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Ryan Holiday |
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Who then is invincible? The one who cannot be upset by anything outside their reasoned choice." --EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 1.18.21"
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Ryan Holiday |
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Erase the false impressions from your mind by constantly saying to yourself, I have it in my soul to keep out any evil, desire or any kind of disturbance--instead, seeing the true nature of things, I will give them only their due. Always remember this power that nature gave you." --MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 8.29"
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Ryan Holiday |
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Many are harmed by fear itself, and many may have come to their fate while dreading fate." --SENECA, OEDIPUS, 992"
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Ryan Holiday |
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Choose not to be harmed--and you won't feel harmed.
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Ryan Holiday |
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We must be sure to act with deliberation, boldness, and persistence. Those are the attributes of right and effective action.
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Ryan Holiday |
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Self-control is a difficult thing, no question. Which is why a popular trick from dieting might be helpful. Some diets allow a "cheat day"--one day per week in which dieters can eat anything and everything they want. Indeed, they're encouraged to write a list during the week of all the foods they craved so they can enjoy them all at once as a treat (the thinking being that if you're eating healthy six out of seven days, you're still ahead)...
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Ryan Holiday |
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Ego is stolen. Confidence is earned
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Ryan Holiday |
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The cucumber is bitter? Then throw it out. There are brambles in the path? Then go around. That's all you need to know. -- MARCUS AURELIUS
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Ryan Holiday |
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You cry, I'm suffering severe pain! Are you then relieved from feeling it, if you bear it in an unmanly way?" --SENECA, MORAL LETTERS, 78.17"
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Ryan Holiday |
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A podium and a prison is each a place, one high and the other low, but in either place your freedom of choice can be maintained if you so wish." --EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 2.6.25"
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Ryan Holiday |
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The next time someone gets upset near you--crying, yelling, breaking something, being pointed or cruel--watch how quickly this statement will stop them cold: "I hope this is making you feel better."
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Ryan Holiday |
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Don't return to philosophy as a task-master, but as patients seek out relief in a treatment of sore eyes, or a dressing for a burn, or from an ointment. Regarding it this way, you'll obey reason without putting it on display and rest easy in its care." --MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 5.9"
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Ryan Holiday |
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physically loose and mentally tight.
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Ryan Holiday |
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It is quite impossible to unite happiness with a yearning for what we don't have. Happiness has all that it wants, and resembling the well-fed, there shouldn't be hunger or thirst." --EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 3.24.17"
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Ryan Holiday |
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Your principles can't be extinguished unless you snuff out the thoughts that feed them, for it's continually in your power to reignite new ones.... It's possible to start living again! See things anew as you once did--that is how to restart life!" --MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 7.2"
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Ryan Holiday |
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We have the power to hold no opinion about a thing and to not let it upset our state of mind--for things have no natural power to shape our judgments." --MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 6.52"
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Ryan Holiday |
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The philosophy asserts that virtue (meaning, chiefly, the four cardinal virtues of self-control, courage, justice, and wisdom) is happiness, and it is our perceptions of things--rather than the things themselves--that cause most of our trouble. Stoicism teaches that we can't control or rely on anything outside what Epictetus called our "reasoned choice"--our ability to use our reason to choose how we categorize, respond, and reorient oursel..
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Ryan Holiday |