Just TWO DAYS left to get your reset. I know 2026 has gotten off to a rough start for many of us. Join me and thousands of others in resetting this year with our 2026 Daily Stoic Spring Forward Challenge.
Look around. People are rushing everywhere. Rushing through traffic. Rushing to get their kids to bed. Rushing through work to get to the weekend. No time to talk. No time to sit. There is too much to do. There is somewhere to go, the faster the better.
Even in ancient Rome, it was the same. People rushing to get their mail, rushing to the next round of games in the Colosseum, rushing to their next big accomplishment. Or at least that’s what they thought…
Seneca makes the point, however, that what we are really rushing towards—with deliberate speed—is death.
That’s what he means when he says that we get death wrong. Death is not some distant thing in the future, not some one-time thing that looms ahead. Instead, death is something happening to you right now. It’s happening as you read your email, it’s happening as you procrastinate that task on your to-do list, and it’s happening still more as you sit down to that coffee meeting you rushed to, even though you didn’t want to have it in the first place.
You’ll never get to live what has been lived again. So why are you rushing? Why are you thinking about the future at the expense of the present?
Why aren’t you showing up to the right here and now?
There’s still a chance to reset. No season reminds us of the possibility of rebirth, of the possibility for life to start anew, than Spring. It’s the time to reassess, to reset, to refocus. A time to plant the seeds of better habits and routines—so that you can reap more meaningful relationships and success and contentment.
And that’s exactly why we created The Daily Stoic Spring Forward Challenge, updated and refreshed for the unique challenges of 2026. Imagine if you got your year back on course. How much of a difference would that make by the end of the month? By the end of the year? Don’t write off the next nine months because the year got off to a rough start. Reclaim it. It’s yours. Now’s the time to get it back on track.
We start in just TWO DAYS, on March 20th. We’d love to see you in there.
Each morning for 10 days, starting on the first day of Spring (THIS FRIDAY, March 20th), you’ll receive a different Stoic-inspired challenge: an actionable exercise or method that you can put to use in your life right away to rid yourself of the physical and mental clutter holding you back from your goals.
You’ll learn how to tackle:
Digital distractions—inputs that constantly pull us away from what matters
Commitment overload—saying “yes” to everything and spreading ourselves too thin
Making amends—cleaning the slate and mending your important relationships
Mental baggage—unfinished business, unspoken apologies, and unacknowledged truths
Plus, you’ll be invited to attend TWO LIVE Q&A CALLS with Ryan Holiday, where you’ll get a rare opportunity to discuss the challenges and ask him your questions.
In addition, you’ll receive:
10 days of challenges built around the most effective Stoic principles
“I got so much out of the course. I needed the reset. Decluttering areas, knocking inessentials off my calendar and decluttering the mind takes a lot of discipline but is doable with daily practice.” – Lee Ann R.
“This challenge offered me an opportunity to make amends with the negative things that have happened to me in my life. I’ve been able to embrace my situation and found this challenge very therapeutic.” – Yannick
“This was a great opportunity to look inwards. Everyone in the community has been so kind, and helpful.” – Steve
“I’m seeing opportunities to put these challenges into practice everywhere.” – Daniel S.
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The Diet That Is Making You Miserable
A few weeks back, I was down near Phoenix and swung out to talk to the Chicago Cubs and the Arizona Diamondbacks who were in the middle of Spring Training.
These are elite athletes. Preparing for the talk, I was thinking about just how hard it is to do what these professional baseball players do. Hitting a baseball almost defies physics. The amount of time you have between when you decide to swing and when the b
A few weeks back, I was down near Phoenix and swung out to talk to the Chicago Cubs and the Arizona Diamondbacks who were in the middle of Spring Training.
These are elite athletes. Preparing for the talk, I was thinking about just how hard it is to do what these professional baseball players do. Hitting a baseball almost defies physics. The amount of time you have between when you decide to swing and when the ball crosses the plate is almost nothing. It is nearly physically impossible. That’s why so few people can actually do it. And even the people who can do it can only do it maybe three or four out of ten times. It is one of the hardest things in sports.
But it struck me, as I was sitting in the cafeteria after, helping myself to a prepared, perfectly portioned, macro-balanced plate of eggs with turkey bacon and fresh fruit, and chatting with some of the players, that while they spend enormous amounts of time thinking about their diet and nutrition and they have some of the best people in the world helping them optimize what they put in their bodies, they think a lot less about what goes into their brains.
In fact, many of them—like the rest of us—are injecting straight garbage on a daily basis.
We are, after all, flooded with more information than entire civilizations could have produced, let alone imagined.
The key practice in the modern world is not how to consume all of it, but how do we decide what not to consume? How do we stay informed about what’s happening without overwhelming ourselves with distractions? How do we manage our information diet with the same discipline that we would put towards our actual diet? Because just as what we put in our bodies matters, what we put—or fail to put—in our minds matters too.
Presidents of the United States face this problem most acutely. The president famously gets what is known as the Presidential Daily Briefing, typically three pages of top-secret information about international developments and concerns, delivered, as the name implies, daily, with in-person explanations and summaries. The best presidents listen intently, ask questions, and then apply what they’ve learned to their day-to-day decisions.
But we live in a world where the President doesn’t read this carefully curated document assembled by intelligence agencies and experts, and instead prefers to get his news from social media…and not just any social media network but one made up of his biggest, more ideologically zealous fans. If this bubble were not enough, there are also reports that he employs a special assistant whose job it is every day to bring him printed-out positive articles about himself to keep his spirits up.
Elon Musk is another example of how what you consume can warp you. He went from reading rocket manuals and reasoning from first principles to obsessively refreshing his Twitter feed. A man who could pay for a daily briefing rivaling even the most powerful heads of state instead mainlines information from trolls and pundits and conspiracy theorists.
This mirrors the problem we all face. We have access to the kind of information that emperors could have only dreamed of. This is real power, but as always, power corrupts and disorients and distracts. We have more information than emperors could have dreamed of. We are also subjected to moremisinformation than they could have conceived of in their worst nightmare.
Audio. Video. Text. It comes at us at incomprehensible speeds.
It takes discipline and wisdom to manage your information diet properly, to be a discerning and selective conduit for everything that’s coming at you.
Almost certainly, your information diet has too much real-time information in it. The news. The feeds. The notifications. Almost certainly, you would be better off if you read more books. If you focused on information with a longer half-life.
Personally, I prefer a steady diet of books about history and human nature (here’s a list of timely books I put together for 2026). They’re not all fun and sunshine—there’s plenty of darkness, too—but I learn far more from that than from endless scrolling. I’m deliberate about which chats and texts I participate in and who I spend time with. In programming, there’s a saying: “garbage in, garbage out.” I try to let in the opposite of garbage, because that leads to the opposite of garbage out.
“The art of not reading is a very important one,” Schopenhauer said of avoiding popular rubbish. It’s not how much you know, but that you know the right things. It’s not that you read, it’s what and how you read. “Do not be eager to know everything,” Democritus reminded himself in the fifth century BC, “lest you become ignorant of everything.”
Go straight to the source when you can. Check sources always.
Choose quality over quantity.
Find experts you can trust. Verify them first.
Favor information that has staying power over what is “developing” or “just in.” Try to get the big picture. Try to make connections between what’s happening now and what has happened before.
Seek out things that challenge you. Hear what the other side has to say.
Pay attention to where misery, negativity, dysfunction, and chaos sneak into your life. Ask yourself, when was the last time X or Instagram left you feeling informed. Reddit? Cable news in an airport? If it isn’t leaving you calmer or wiser, maybe it’s time to cut it off at the source.
You don’t have to be uninformed—just be intentional about what you consume and who you engage with.
The best hitters in baseball will tell you that what separates the good from the great, at the highest level, is plate discipline. It’s the ability to lay off pitches. To not swing the bat. To be discerning.
That skill applies here too. The feeds. All the hot takes. The notifications. The group chats. The breaking news. Most of it is designed to get a reaction out of you, not to make you wiser or better informed. You need to cultivate the discipline to lay off the junk. To not take in everything thrown on your plate. To discern what’s worth your time and what’s designed to get a rise out of you. To swing only at the right pitches.
Because you are what you eat. And what you read, what you watch, what you let into your information diet.
The best minds never stop learning — that's not a coincidence. Learning a language is one of the most tangible ways to put that principle into practice. It challenges how you think, expands how you connect, and builds the kind of quiet confidence that comes from doing hard things consistently.
With Babbel, expert-designed lessons focus on real conversational skills you can build in just minutes a day. No shortcuts. Just steady, deliberate progress — the kind that compounds over time.
Join me, starting TOMORROW, for your spring reset in our 2026 Daily Stoic Spring Forward Challenge. This is your last chance to sign up in time to be included in our two LIVE Q&A calls hosted by me, Ryan Holiday. See you in there!
Winter has a way of lulling us into bad habits and stagnation. We burrow deep into our comfortable routines. We’ve found a favorite spot on the couch, our go-to delivery meals, our perfectly temperature-controlled environments. We hide beneath jackets and sweats. We master the art of avoiding the cold, the wind, all the discomfort of the outside world.
They call it a velvet rut—soft and pleasant, but still a rut. And yes, for months of dark mornings and early sunsets, trudging through slush and scraping ice off windshields, it’s perfectly reasonable to seek shelter in these ways.
But you can’t stay this way forever! Just as seedlings must break through soil, we must break through our comfortable patterns. Nature doesn’t stay dormant forever—and neither should we.
“Stop wandering about!” Marcus Aurelius said to himself, perhaps on the eve of a new season just like this one. “Get busy with life’s purpose,” he commanded, “toss aside empty hopes, get active in your own rescue—if you care for yourself at all—and do it while you can.”
Here at Daily Stoic, we believe in moving with the seasons. We believe in facing the winds of change head-on.
And that’s what I’m going to be doing starting tomorrow, with thousands of other Daily Stoic readers all over the world, in the Daily Stoic Spring Forward Challenge. It’s 10 days of actionable, Stoic-inspired challenges to help you reset your life and refocus on what’s important to you.
We’ll do two live Q&A calls together as well, where you’ll get a chance to ask me your questions and we’ll discuss the challenges.
No matter how your year started, no matter what life has thrown at you, no matter how hopeless the world feels right now, spring is the time to do this—to refresh, to get back on track, to renew our motivation and get after it.
Every morning for the next ten days, join us—thousands of other people just like you, trying to be a little bit better. To clean out the stuff that’s getting in the way. I’d love to see you in there. You can sign up right now at dailystoic.com/spring.
We start TOMORROW, so don’t miss this chance. Let’s go.
You’ll gain practical tools to:
Clear your space and your mind
Create better systems for yourself
Accomplish what you’ve been putting off
Refocus on what’s important to you
Abandon what drains you
Reclaim valuable time for yourself
You’ll learn how to tackle:
Digital distractions—inputs that constantly pull us away from what matters
Commitment overload—saying “yes” to everything and spreading ourselves too thin
Making amends—cleaning the slate and mending your important relationships
Mental baggage—unfinished business, unspoken apologies, and unacknowledged truths
Break free. Renew your sense of clarity. Refocus on what’s important. Reset your life after your winter rut. Challenge yourself.
Head over to dailystoic.com/spring to join us now! We get started in less than 24 hours.
***
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You could do it when things get warmer. You could do it when winter is officially over. You could do it when things calm down at work. You could do it after things get settled. You could wait for permission, for an excuse, for help.
Or…or you could do it now.
You could stop putting off what you have been procrastinating. You could tackle what you know needs to be tackled. You could clean up what is screaming to be cleaned up.
As seasons change, as the clocks move forward, as new growth appears on the trees, there is room for other forms of renewal. This is the time, the Stoics would say. Right now is the time. Otherwise, we are, as Seneca said, the fool who is always getting ready. Epictetus, for his part, laid down a similar challenge: "How long are you going to wait before you demand the best for yourself?"
Everyone knows there are things we need to reset—to improve, to be better, to live better, think better. But maybe life has gotten in the way. Maybe you’ve tried but haven’t followed through. Maybe you’ve put it off, telling yourself that there will be a better time to do it.
But if not now, when?
It’s time to stop putting it off until later, waiting for it to just happen. Because it won’t. Someone has to take control.
That someone is you.
Forget the excuses you’ve made. Forget how rough the last couple of months have been. That’s what’s lovely about the idea of spring’s renewal. It wipes clean the winter we’ve just had. It’s a new ballgame. We’re only a few months into the year and we get a chance to start fresh.
That’s what we’re doing starting TODAY in the 2026 Daily Stoic 10-Day Spring Forward Challenge. It’s designed to help you refresh your commitment to your self-improvement, refocus on what’s most important to you, and renew your motivation. After a winter like the one we just went through, we all need a little push. We all need a little hope and a little momentum to get us going again—towards making every minute count and becoming the version of ourselves we know we can be.
It's not too late. Even though you may have procrastinated about signing up, you can still get your reset, right now. Take control.
Only a handful of hours remain to join us. Let’s get after it.
You’ll get 10 updated challenges designed to set up life-changing habits for 2026 and beyond.
Plus, you’ll be invited to TWO LIVE Q&A CALLS hosted by me, Ryan Holiday, where you’ll get an opportunity to ask me your questions and discuss the challenges.
Spring forward with me and thousands of Stoics from across the globe learning to live a life full of clarity and purpose.
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The pain you feel is a timeless pain, a common pain … You can find a way to connect with others, people who have been through this, too—or are going through it—because again, you’re not alone.
Over on his Daily Stoic YouTube channel, Ryan shares Stoic advice that’s useful for all of us parents—how to improve our focus.
You’ve got a lot going on in your personal life. You’ve got a lot going on in your professional life. You pick up your phone and you’re getting hit from every direction … we’re all extremely busy but it doesn’t feel like we’re getting anything done.
Amazing parenting books to read over spring break.
***
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The 2026 Spring Forward Challenge has already begun—but there’s still time to join us and get your invites to the LIVE Q&A calls. Head to dailystoic.com/spring now to sign up!
PASSAGE OF THE WEEK:
There was nothing you could have done to prevent this or that bad break. But here you are. Facing it. That's life. Stuff happens. Then what?
Read: Stoop and Build ‘Em Up
YOUTUBE TAKEAWAY OF THE WEEK:
If You Want to Accomplish Something Big, Watch This Stoic Advic
The 2026 Spring Forward Challenge has already begun—but there’s still time to join us and get your invites to the LIVE Q&A calls. Head to dailystoic.com/spring now to sign up!
PASSAGE OF THE WEEK:
There was nothing you could have done to prevent this or that bad break. But here you are. Facing it. That's life. Stuff happens. Then what?
The more you control, the worse you lead. In this conversation, Ryan talks with leadership expert Daniel Coyle about why the best teams aren’t run like machines, why connection matters more than control, and what Marcus Aurelius can teach us about leadership that endures.
Support the podcast and go deeper into Stoicism by subscribing to The Daily Stoic Premium—unlock ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content coming soon at dailystoic.com/premium
WHAT RYAN HOLIDAY IS READING:
Get beyond love and grief: exist for the good of man.
It’s NOT TOO LATE if you want to reset with our 2026 Daily Stoic Spring Forward Challenge! We started yesterday, but this is the LAST CALL to join us and catch up in time.
SIGN UP NOW
Winter has a way of lulling us into bad habits and stagnation. We burrow deep into our comfortable routines. We’ve found a favorite spot on the couch, our go-to delivery meals, our perfectly temperature-controlled environments. We hide beneath jackets and sweats. We master the
It’s NOT TOO LATE if you want to reset with our 2026 Daily Stoic Spring Forward Challenge! We started yesterday, but this is the LAST CALL to join us and catch up in time.
Winter has a way of lulling us into bad habits and stagnation. We burrow deep into our comfortable routines. We’ve found a favorite spot on the couch, our go-to delivery meals, our perfectly temperature-controlled environments. We hide beneath jackets and sweats. We master the art of avoiding the cold, the wind, all the discomfort of the outside world.
They call it a velvet rut—soft and pleasant, but still a rut. And yes, for months of dark mornings and early sunsets, trudging through slush and scraping ice off windshields, it’s perfectly reasonable to seek shelter in these ways.
But you can’t stay this way forever! Just as seedlings must break through soil, we must break through our comfortable patterns. Nature doesn’t stay dormant forever—and neither should we.
“Stop wandering about!” Marcus Aurelius said to himself, perhaps on the eve of a new season just like this one. “Get busy with life’s purpose,” he commanded, “toss aside empty hopes, get active in your own rescue—if you care for yourself at all—and do it while you can.”
Here at Daily Stoic, we believe in moving with the seasons. We believe in facing the winds of change head-on.
And that’s what I’m doing NOW (we started yesterday, but you can still join us if you act now!), with thousands of other Daily Stoic readers all over the world, in the Daily Stoic Spring Forward Challenge. It’s 10 days of actionable, Stoic-inspired challenges to help you reset your life and refocus on what’s important to you.
We’ll do two live Q&A calls together as well, where you’ll get a chance to ask me your questions and we’ll discuss the challenges.
No matter how your year started, no matter what life has thrown at you, no matter how hopeless the world feels right now, spring is the time to do this—to refresh, to get back on track, to renew our motivation and get after it.
Every morning for the next ten days, join us—thousands of other people just like you, trying to be a little bit better. To clean out the stuff that’s getting in the way. I’d love to see you in there. You can sign up right now at dailystoic.com/spring.
We’ve already started, but there’s still time to jump in, so DON’T MISS THIS SECOND CHANCE. Let’s get after it!
You’ll gain practical tools to:
Clear your space and your mind
Create better systems for yourself
Accomplish what you’ve been putting off
Refocus on what’s important to you
Abandon what drains you
Reclaim valuable time for yourself
You’ll learn how to tackle:
Digital distractions—inputs that constantly pull us away from what matters
Commitment overload—saying “yes” to everything and spreading ourselves too thin
Making amends—cleaning the slate and mending your important relationships
Mental baggage—unfinished business, unspoken apologies, and unacknowledged truths
Break free. Renew your sense of clarity. Refocus on what’s important. Reset your life after your winter rut. Challenge yourself.
Unsubscribe (this is from everything) | Update your profile 906 Main Street #274, Bastrop, Texas 78602 | info@dailystoic.com is not a monitored email
After everything that’s happened in the last few years, including the world-changing pandemic that started six years ago this month (six years), we’re tired. After everything that’s happened in your life, after everything that’s gone wrong the last couple weeks, you think to yourself, “I can’t handle one more thing going wrong.”
Certainly, Marcus Aurelius would have related to the sentiment. Floods. Plagues. Wars. A troubled son.
After everything that’s happened in the last few years, including the world-changing pandemic that started six years ago this month (six years), we’re tired. After everything that’s happened in your life, after everything that’s gone wrong the last couple weeks, you think to yourself, “I can’t handle one more thing going wrong.”
Certainly, Marcus Aurelius would have related to the sentiment. Floods. Plagues. Wars. A troubled son. Personal health issues.
But the thing is, life doesn’t care. It has no time for your questions. It pays no mind to your limits.
“I don’t think I’m up for this,” the novelist John Gregory Dunne said to his wife as they left the hospital after rushing to check on their daughter, who had just been admitted. He was down about his career. He wasn’t feeling great about his own health. He was sick about his only child. He was worried it would be a long and hard road out for all of them. Joan Didion, his steely, stoic wife, responded with something we can imagine Marcus Aurelius reminding himself of in Meditations (premium leather edition here): “You don’t get a choice.”
Fortune behaves as she pleases, the Stoics said. Life disposes. It decides. The only thing we get a choice in is how we respond.
The BBC caught scam call center workers on hidden cameras as they laughed at the people they were tricking.
One worker bragged about making $250k from victims. The disturbing truth? Scammers don’t pick phone numbers at random. They buy your data from brokers.
Once your data is out there, it’s not just calls. It’s phishing, impersonation, and identity theft. That’s why you need Incogni: They delete your info from the web, monitor and follow up automatically, and continue to erase data as new risks appear.
Look, if it was easy, it wouldn’t be much in the way of a philosophical insight. If anyone could do it, and do it without much effort, it wouldn’t be very impressive.
Nietzsche said that his formula for human greatness was “Amor Fati.” “That one wants nothing to be different,” he said as a prescription, “not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it… but love it.&rd
Look, if it was easy, it wouldn’t be much in the way of a philosophical insight. If anyone could do it, and do it without much effort, it wouldn’t be very impressive.
Nietzsche said that his formula for human greatness was “Amor Fati.” “That one wants nothing to be different,” he said as a prescription, “not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it… but love it.”
Greatness is not easily in reach—by definition. Loving what has happened? Sure, it’s easy to love what is fun and wonderful. It is hard to accept the inconveniences of life—traffic, jerks, an AirPod dropped down a sewer grate—let alone the tragedies. How can you love a prolonged illness, an economic crash, a pandemic, a brutal violent act, a public humiliation, the loss of a dear friend or family member?
The answer is: Only through incredibly difficult work. It takes practice. It takes reflection. It takes perspective. It takes time.
Amor Fati is a challenge. That’s the whole point. It’s something you’re supposed to wrestle with, struggle with, asking yourself “Could that possibly even apply here?” It’s a formula for greatness because it demands greatness. It is out of reach for most of us—out of easy reach, anyway. We have to grow to grab hold of it, and in the end, it’s that growth that is probably the only redeeming part of the entire experience.
P.S. Our Amor Fati medallion serves as a tangible reminder to not just accept, but to love your fate—including the struggles that make you stronger. Reach for this medallion when you’re feeling like life has thrown more at you than you can handle, and remember: your challenges aren’t just costs, they’re investments in who you’re becoming.
A Centuries-Old Practice That Builds Strength Without Beating Up Your Body
What if just 9 minutes a day could make you stronger, steadier, and slimmer by April—without punishing workouts or extreme diets? Rooted in a centuries-old practice, Tai Chi yoga blends gentle movement, breath, and mindfulness into slow, purposeful steps that support the body’s natural systems.
After 40, intense exercise can increase injury risk and stress hormones, but this low-impact routine promotes sustainable fat loss and real energy gains. Even complete beginners can see measurable progress in weeks.
This is your chance to join me for a conversation about the ways ancient Stoic philosophy can help us to find wisdom, courage, justice, and discipline today.
Whether you’re looking for a blueprint for discipline, a strategy for stillness, or a map for resilience in these turbulent times, I’ll share these tools with you and take your questions live.
You’re already part of our dedicated community of nearly a million Daily Stoic readers all over the world—collectively the largest group of Stoics in history. Let’s get this community together for a live evening dedicated to Stoic wisdom. Join me for an in-depth conversation about philosophy, insights into my Stoic Virtues book series, and a rare opportunity to shop signed books, Daily Stoic medallions, and more from the Daily Stoic collection.
I don’t often get the chance to speak publicly, so tickets will go fast—reserve yours today.
VIP Package includes:
Meet & Greet with me, Ryan Holiday, before the show
Ryan Holiday is one of the world’s bestselling living philosophers. His books, including The Obstacle Is the Way, Stillness Is the Key, and The Daily Stoic, have sold over 10 million copies. As host of The Daily Stoic podcast, Ryan has become the modern voice for ancient ideas that help people live better lives. His work has directly influenced some of the biggest names in business, tech, culture, and professional athletics.
Do you think everyone understood why Cato was so alarmed about Caesar? Do you think everyone understood why Thrasea or Agrippinus refused to bend the knee to Nero? Or why Rutilius Rufus made a legal martyr of himself when corrupt interests brought him up on false charges?
Of course they didn’t. In fact, Rutilius’ friends begged him to defend himself. Cato and Thrasea and Agrippinus were seen as obstinate, alarmist, even annoying.
People are busy. People are mi
Do you think everyone understood why Cato was so alarmed about Caesar? Do you think everyone understood why Thrasea or Agrippinus refused to bend the knee to Nero? Or why Rutilius Rufus made a legal martyr of himself when corrupt interests brought him up on false charges?
Of course they didn’t. In fact, Rutilius’ friends begged him to defend himself. Cato and Thrasea and Agrippinus were seen as obstinate, alarmist, even annoying.
People are busy. People are misinformed. People have skewed priorities and conflicts of interest. They’re not always going to understand. They’re not always going to get it.
Whether it’s politics or business or personal, you can’t expect everyone to see it like you do. Honestly, if they did, it would probably mean you’re heading in the wrong direction. That’s what Chrysippus said anyway—that if he wanted to follow a mob, he wouldn’t have become a philosopher.
Stoicism isn’t about being appreciated. It’s not about fitting in. It’s about doing what’s right. It’s about saying what needs to be said. It’s about being who you feel you need to be.
So if you’re waiting for your friends to understand you, if you’re holding back until you get approval from family members or colleagues, if you think your entire audience will get on board…you’re waiting for something that may never come.
Do what you believe is right. Do what you believe is just. The rest isn’t up to you.
5 Years of Lessons From Running My Own Bookstore
My wife and I were sitting at a cafe in Bastrop, Texas, looking across Main Street at an empty historic storefront.
“You know what would be amazing there?" she said. “A bookstore.”
We started construction on The Painted Porch the first week of March 2020.
Somehow, we didn’t lose all our money. It didn’t blow up our marriage. It’s actually been a great experience an
My wife and I were sitting at a cafe in Bastrop, Texas, looking across Main Street at an empty historic storefront.
“You know what would be amazing there?" she said. “A bookstore.”
We started construction on The Painted Porch the first week of March 2020.
Somehow, we didn’t lose all our money. It didn’t blow up our marriage. It’s actually been a great experience and, even more surprising, a pretty good business too.
Five years in, I’ve learned a lot—about business, about books, about myself. Here are some of those lessons:
Crazy can be a competitive advantage. Opening a physical bookstore in 2020 seemed crazy. Not just to me—everyone said so. Retail was shifting online, books were becoming digital, the pandemic was raging, bookstores were closing—not opening. But that’s exactly why it worked. It was crazy because no one else was doing it. It stands out. It’s different.
Look for disconfirmation. As I was thinking about doing the bookstore, I asked a lot of people why I shouldn’t do it. Not that I was looking to be talked out of it. I was asking so I could hear the concerns, the objections, the risks I hadn't considered. Every one of them raised something I hadn’t thought of and then was then able to address before opening.
Take some risk off the table. Most big, cool, intimidating things in life comes with a certain amount of risk. But just because you take a big risk doesn’t mean there aren’t ways to take risk off the table. A great piece of advice I got from Allison Hill, who owns Vroman’s and Book Soup in Los Angeles, was to make the bookstore a multipurpose space. The Painted Porch is of course not just a bookstore—it’s my office, my employees' office, the place where we record podcasts and film YouTube videos. So if nobody comes in and buys books, we're not necessarily losing money. Multi-use allows you to do more than you ordinarily would—across the board.
Think of it as an experiment. When I was kicking around the idea, Tim Ferriss told me to think of it as an experiment. Try it for two years, he said, and if you hate it at the end or it’s failing, then walk away. This piece of advice was so freeing. It gave me an out—which allowed me to bravely dive in. Because I wasn't betting my whole life on something, just a contained time commitment. Thinking of every venture, every project as an experiment is a great way to go through life. It lowers the stakes. It minimizes the downside. It lets you take a shot on something that otherwise might be way too intimidating.
Don’t trust conventional wisdom. One of the things I did while I was kicking around the idea is I looked up how expensive it is to start a bookstore. Search results said it was hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars—way more expensive than I was interested in. But then I wanted to question whether that number was real. So then I went and looked up how expensive it was to start an ecommerce business—something like Daily Stoic. Search results said it was hundreds of thousands of dollars more than I’d spent to start Daily Stoic. That was really helpful—to learn, oh, these people don’t really know what they’re talking about. Or that there’s a cheaper way, a different way to do it. You don’t have to do it the way that everyone else does it.
Be okay with mediocrity at first. A problem with having really high standards or when you expect a lot of yourself is that it can be hard to start something new. It’s hard to be comfortable with something that’s kind of crappy or mediocre or not all the way there. But there’s a reason most tech start ups think in terms of a minimum viable product. There’s a great Hemingway line—we actually have a shirt with it, and I have a print of it on my wall—it’s one of my all-time favorite quotes: the first draft of everything is shit. I love how The Painted Porch is now, but it took years to get it to where it is. It’s been a continual process of improvement and growth and making changes.
Doing interesting things usually pays off. When I was starting out as a writer, an author gave me a piece of advice I’ve never forgotten: If you want to be a great writer, go live an interesting life. He was right. Great art is fueled by great experiences—or, if not “great” experiences, at least interesting ones. That was in the back of my mind with the bookstore. Even if it failed, I knew the experience of trying to open a small business in rural Texas during a pandemic would be filled with stories. And it has been. I’ve drawn on it constantly—in my writing, my talks, in conversations with people on the podcast. So when you have the choice between the safe, boring path and the interesting one, take the interesting one. It always pays off.
Have a unique proposition. Most bookstores carry thousands of titles. The best one in Austin, BookPeople, stocks over 100,000. We carry about 1,000. It was one of the best decisions we made. We only carry books we love. Not only did this make it cheaper and easier to run the bookstore, it makes us stand out. If people want a specific book, they go to a certain trillion-dollar e-commerce behemoth. If people want to discover new books and have a unique experience, they come to us. We are the only bookstore in the world with our selection.
Create spectacles. Before we opened the store, I was in Bucharest, Romania for a talk. My host took me into a local bookstore that had an enormous globe hanging from the ceiling. I watched as customer after customer came in to take pictures beneath it, before checking out with books. This inspired our now infamous book tower, which I designed to be built on top of an old, broken fireplace. It’s 20 feet tall and made of some 2,000 books, 4,000 nails, and 40 gallons of glue. It was not cheap. It was not easy. But it’s probably one of the single best marketing decisions we made. Invariably, almost every customer that comes in takes a picture of it—plenty more come in because they heard about it and wanted to see it.
The positive externalities are the best part. I’ve gotten a lot out of the bookstore. I’ve learned a lot…about business, about books, about what I’m capable of. Sales have been strong. But the most rewarding part has been what it’s done for other people. Putting books we love out in the world. Creating a gathering place for the people in our community. Building something that makes our small town a little better, a little richer, a little more interesting than it was before.
Beware of mission creep. Our original plan was that we’d have only a couple hundred books, only my absolute favorite books. But I'm always reading and discovering new favorites. So the temptation to add and add and add is always there. In the military, they call this mission creep—a gradual broadening of objectives as a mission progresses. If you are setting out on a project, it’s something to be aware of.
For everything you add, take something away. There’s a great story of Mark Parker who, just after he became CEO of Nike, called Steve Jobs for advice. Is there anything Nike should do differently? Parker asked. “Just one thing,” Jobs said. “Nike makes some of the best products in the world. Products that you lust after. But you also make a lot of crap. Just get rid of the crappy stuff and focus on the good stuff.” “He was absolutely right,” Parker said. “We had to edit.” Because we’ve always done it this way, is not a good reason. Or in our case, because we’ve always carried this book, is not a good reason. We have to edit.
Have the discipline to not scale. At least once a week, someone asks if we're going to open a second location. And at least three struggling bookstores have reached out about us acquiring them. The answer is a polite no. "Do Not Go Past The Mark You Aimed For" is one of the most important laws in The 48 Laws of Power. Know when you’ve won. Know what enough is. Know your limits.
Behind mountains are more mountains. That’s a Haitian proverb I love. My wife suggested opening the bookstore in the fall of 2019. Then COVID delayed us a year. Then we didn't feel right opening for another year. Then a freak storm and some political incompetence shut down the power grid—burst pipes, busted roof. Then a global supply chain crisis made books hard to get. There’s the day-to-day stuff too: employees get sick, the internet goes out, shipments arrive damaged, a toilet leaks, the door won’t shut properly all of a sudden. But that’s how it goes. With most things in life, you don’t overcome one obstacle, you don’t get through the first, second, or third year of your business, and then suddenly you're magically done with obstacles. No, it’s one damn thing after another. Expect it. Work through it. Keep going.
Learn from the cats. When we were thinking about opening a bookstore, I bought a course from a bookstore consultant. I talked to friends. I talked to bookstore owners while on a book tour. I got a lot of advice, gathered best practices, and learned what worked for others. And yet, the single most popular thing about The Painted Porch is something that never came up…the cats. In 2021, we took a family road trip to Cerro Gordo, the ghost town Brent Underwood has been restoring—my kids are obsessed with his YouTube videos—and came home with two cats who have lived at the bookstore ever since. They’re literally the most popular thing about the store. As one Yelp reviewer put it: “Nice collection of books, clean, very comfy atmosphere, but I’m not going to lie to the great people of Bastrop…I come for the cats.” Lol. So yes, do your research. Yes, learn from others. But keep in mind, some of the best parts of any project are things you can’t possibly predetermine.
Don’t overlook simple solutions. There’s a tendency—especially when you care a lot about something—to overthink it. To assume everything has to be big, polished, expensive, professional. But great ideas can be cheap and easy too. One of my favorite bookstores in the world, Gertrude & Alice in Bondi Beach, puts sticky notes inside their books. Just little handwritten notes from employees about why they liked this or that book. No fancy plaques. No expensive signage. We started doing it at The Painted Porch too. It’s fun, it’s human, and customers love it.
Do things only you can do. Something that’s happened with Daily Stoic over the years is as it has grown, so has the number of copycats. And so we're constantly asking, what can only we do? With the bookstore, we're lucky to have authors constantly passing through to record the podcast. While they're here, they sign books. Sometimes we do live events with them. Those books, those experiences—you can't get them anywhere else. With AI tools making it easier and easier to copy and replicate and reproduce, it’s more important than ever to find and focus on the things only you can do.
Zoom out. When we were doing a small construction project at the bookstore recently, we moved an old antique bar and found some paint on the wall, covered in plaster. Carefully scraping it away, we found a date: January 16, 1922. What was happening in the world that day? Who were the people who stood there and supervised it being painted? What kind of business was in this space a hundred years ago? How many others have come and gone since? It was a humbling reminder: we're not the first people to try something in this building, and we won't be the last. Every project, every place, every person is part of something much bigger—something that started long before us and will continue long after.
If you’re successful, your people should be successful. Nothing feels better than distributing profits or raises to the team. If you don’t take pleasure in that, you're doing it wrong, prioritizing the wrong things.
If you’ve always wanted to do it…do it. This has happened to me more than once. When my wife and I moved to a farm, I couldn't believe how many people said, “I’ve always wanted to do that.” Same with opening the bookstore. People hear you have a small-town bookstore and they light up—“I’ve always wanted to do that.” Casey Neistat has a great line: “The right time is right now.” If you’ve always wanted to do something, do it. Stop romanticizing it. Stop overthinking it. Try it. Do it small. Do it your way. But do it.
There are many ways to measure success. One of the first things people want to know is how the bookstore is doing, whether it’s a success. I like to joke, my wife and I are still together, so yes, that’s a big win. We survived. We kept ourselves together despite it all.
The real answer is that early on, we asked ourselves, what does success look like? And we decided that success was going to be: becoming more community minded, becoming more responsible, becoming better organized, having more fun, making a positive contribution.
With any project or endeavor, there are many ways to measure success. Has it made you a better person? Has it made your community better? Did it challenge you in ways you needed to be challenged? What metrics actually matter to you? Remembering why you did something—and how you defined success at the start—helps you calibrate your decisions along the way.
Career advice is full of slogans; almost none of it is based on evidence. Much of it is actively harmful, and as a result, many people are squandering their impact.
80,000 Hours is the first book to look at what the data actually says about having a fulfilling and impactful career. It covers why "follow your passion" gets things backwards, which skills will increase in value in the age of AI, and why the highest-impact work is in areas most people have never considered.
Nobody likes waiting. Nobody likes it when somebody else’s turn takes longer than you feel it should.
But you know what? That’s just how it goes.
The late ’40s and ’50s were rough for a young James Stockdale, as they were for many young military officers. Due to the rapid expansion and contraction of the armed forces after WWII, there was an enormous glut of senior officers that became known as “the hump.” It took years for these people
Nobody likes waiting. Nobody likes it when somebody else’s turn takes longer than you feel it should.
But you know what? That’s just how it goes.
The late ’40s and ’50s were rough for a young James Stockdale, as they were for many young military officers. Due to the rapid expansion and contraction of the armed forces after WWII, there was an enormous glut of senior officers that became known as “the hump.” It took years for these people to retire and make advancement possible for younger officers. This was frustrating, demoralizing, and difficult. Especially for people like Stockdale who were ambitious, ready to lead, ready for their turn.
But again, that’s life. It’s Marcus Aurelius having to wait twenty years for Antoninus to pass the throne to him. It’s the professors and executives who are hanging on to their jobs longer and longer, making it hard for new graduates to get those opportunities.
It takes longer than you think or want. It just does. And as we have said, this will require from you the virtue of patience. First, to resist the temptation to rush ahead or force things. Second, to learn while you are waiting.
Stockdale didn’t know what the waiting was preparing him for. Marcus Aurelius didn’t either. Neither do you.
But almost everything worthwhile—like wisdom, leadership, mastery, opportunity—takes far more time than we expect, than we want. The timeline is longer. The apprenticeship is longer. The climb is longer.
It won’t be easy. But who ever said it would be?
P.S. We share ideas like these for parents over at the Daily Dad (because parenting isn’t easy, either—but we can get better at it by applying Stoic virtues and being part of a supportive community of parents).
If you’re a parent and would like daily advice and meditations on raising kids—or know a parent who might benefit from it—sign up for our free Daily Dad email newsletter at dailydad.com.
Career advice is full of slogans; almost none of it is based on evidence. Much of it is actively harmful, and as a result, many people are squandering their impact.
80,000 Hours is the first book to look at what the data actually says about having a fulfilling and impactful career. It covers why “follow your passion” gets things backwards, which skills will increase in value in the age of AI, and why the highest-impact work is in areas most people have never considered.
Join Ryan Holiday for Daily Stoic LIVE, coming this summer and fall to cities across the US, Australia, and New Zealand.
Head to dailystoiclive.com to learn more and get your tickets today!
Get Your Tickets
***
They worked hard for it. They took it seriously. They liked it. They didn’t want to lose it.
Who would? Who would want to lose their position? Their identity? Their career or their home?
But when Helvidius was threatened with removal from the Senate
They worked hard for it. They took it seriously. They liked it. They didn’t want to lose it.
Who would? Who would want to lose their position? Their identity? Their career or their home?
But when Helvidius was threatened with removal from the Senate by the emperor Vespasian, he refused to refrain from his criticism. Rutilius was willing to be exiled. So was Agrippinus. They were not willing to trade their self-respect for maintaining their access. They understood there were fates worse in life than being cut off—in fact, they would rather be cut off from Rome than cut off from their values.
Courage is not an easy thing. It is not free. It is not without risk or sacrifice. That’s the whole point. If it weren’t, there would be nothing to be afraid of, nothing for fear to whisper in our ear about. Courage is about triumphing over that doubt—it is fighting to do what’s right, to remain consistent with what philosophy demands of us.
We are living, right now, in a world where leaders are not doing this and we are experiencing the consequences. Apparently there is not enough shame in the world to get them to change.
But what about us? Where is our bravery? Where will we draw the line? What will we put on the line?
What habit can help improve your parenting, clear your mind, and change your life? Find out over on Ryan Holiday’s YouTube channel.
It is a philosophical practice. It’s one the ancient Stoics practiced, it’s one that parents have practiced for thousands of years, it’s one that’s helpful to physicists and artists and creators, entrepreneurs and priests and poets alike.
Thank you for being a Daily Dad reader! If any of our newsletters have helped you to become a better parent, please spread the word or forward these emails to other parents.
Join Ryan Holiday for Daily Stoic LIVE, coming this summer and fall to cities across the US, Australia, and New Zealand. Learn more and get your tickets at dailystoiclive.com!
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PASSAGE OF THE WEEK:
But almost everything worthwhile—like wisdom, leadership, mastery, opportunity—takes far more time than we expect, than we want.
Read: It Takes Much Longer Than You Think (or Want)
YOUTUBE TAKEAWAY OF THE WEEK:
The Stoic Reason to Turn Down 17 Million Dolla
Join Ryan Holiday for Daily Stoic LIVE, coming this summer and fall to cities across the US, Australia, and New Zealand. Learn more and get your tickets at dailystoiclive.com!
This week on the Daily Stoic YouTube channel, find out what the Stoics believed about the cost of personal values.
There’s an expression: “It’s not a principle unless it costs you money.” So imagine having a principle you care so deeply about that you’re willing to forgo $17,000,000.
What are you missing by only seeing the world through one philosophy? In this masterclass, bestselling author and Harvard professor Arthur Brooks joins Ryan to break down the biggest schools of thought and reveal how they fit together in a way most people never see.
Support the podcast and go deeper into Stoicism by subscribing to The Daily Stoic Premium—unlock ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content coming soon at dailystoic.com/premium
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It is always better to admire the best among our foes rather than the worst among our friends.
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Maybe it could have been avoided. Maybe it wasn’t fair. Maybe it happened to you.
You got screwed over. You got humiliated. You were robbed of something you worked hard for. You screwed up big time. And now you’re in the middle of a scandal. You’re at rock bottom. Deserved or not, preventable or not, you’re at the mercy of fate, of the market, of a mob.
The author John Fante (whose incredible novel Ask the Dust is a classic—grab it here from
Maybe it could have been avoided. Maybe it wasn’t fair. Maybe it happened to you.
You got screwed over. You got humiliated. You were robbed of something you worked hard for. You screwed up big time. And now you’re in the middle of a scandal. You’re at rock bottom. Deserved or not, preventable or not, you’re at the mercy of fate, of the market, of a mob.
The author John Fante (whose incredible novel Ask the Dust is a classic—grab it here from The Painted Porch) had a number of bad breaks in his career. It just didn’t go the way he wanted it to go. That could have made him angry. It could have turned him into a drunk or a deadbeat. It didn’t. “I think the one thing that a writer must avoid is bitterness,” John Fante told a journalist in 1979. “I think it’s the one fault that can destroy him. It can shrivel him up...I’ve fought it all my life.”
It was that fight that his son admired most about his father, who soldiered on as a writer (and was eventually rediscovered and rightly celebrated). “I’m not naïve enough to think good work always wins out in the end,” his son James Fante explained. “There are plenty of painters who died in Auschwitz. I don’t necessarily think there is justice in the world, it’s that [my father] had the strength of character not to let it break him.”
Injustices will befall us. Certainly, they befall the Stoics. Seneca was exiled, so was Epictetus. Others had their property confiscated, others still were executed. Think of James Stockdale and how the public treated him after that disastrous vice presidential debate in 1992. What matters is how we endure and bear these moments, whether our strength of character allows them to break us or not. What matters is if we stay good despite bad things happening to us, whether we let them steal our decency, our joy, even our sense of humor.
We don’t control those big external events. We do control how we remain inside.
P.S. This is one of the main tenets of Stoicism, and it’s why the philosophy is so practical for us today. Keep these timeless principles close at hand with our beautiful leatherbound edition ofThe Daily Stoic book—just as the Stoics’ teachings have endured throughout the centuries, this edition is designed to last.
The Examined Life Is Worth Living. Let Someone Help You Examine It.
Marcus Aurelius kept a journal. Epictetus reflected on what was within his control. The Stoics knew self-knowledge wasn’t a luxury—it was the foundation of a well-lived life.
But even the most disciplined mind has blind spots. Thoughts we can’t untangle. Patterns we see but struggle to change. That’s not weakness—it’s human. And it’s where a good therapist can help.
BetterHelp makes it easy to begin. Complete a short questionnaire and get matched with a licensed therapist, often within 24 hours. Talk by phone, video, or chat anytime.
Daily Stoic LIVE with Ryan Holiday is coming this summer and fall to the US, Australia, and New Zealand.
Get your tickets today at dailystoiclive.com!
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We’re busy. We’re tired. We have so much to do. We had dreams once, sure, but they slowly deflated. The mortgage, the kids, the job, checking our phones, scrolling, watching TV, the hopeless stories on the news—that’s how we fill our days. It’s a slow downward spiral tha
We’re busy. We’re tired. We have so much to do. We had dreams once, sure, but they slowly deflated. The mortgage, the kids, the job, checking our phones, scrolling, watching TV, the hopeless stories on the news—that’s how we fill our days. It’s a slow downward spiral that Bruce Springsteen sang about in “Racing in the Street:”
Some guys they just give up living And start dying little by little, piece by piece
If you’re not that guy, you at least know him or her. They’re a mainstay of the modern world. Overworked, overtired, and under-appreciated. Social media is to blame, right? The capitalist pigs are responsible, yeah? It’s because of the 24-hour news cycle.
Certainly none of those things help, but the truth is that this is a timeless problem. It goes back much further than Bruce or even this century. Because Seneca spoke about those guys, too. “How much time has been lost to groundless anguish,” he writes, “greedy desire, the charms of society; how little is left to you from your own store of time.” Wake up, he says. Stop sleepwalking. Stop giving away what you can never get back. That’s from his essay On the Shortness of Life (copies available at The Painted Porch), in which he tried to get the reader—as Bruce Springsteen does in his best songs—to “realize that you're dying before your time."
We only get one life. Once time ticks by, it never comes back. Yes, each of us will die. That’s a fact. But for the moment, we’re alive. Which is why we have to live. Which is why we have to protect our time, our dreams, our spirit. We can’t give it up piece by piece. We can’t start dying before our time.
It was never meant to be seen by prying eyes. It certainly wasn’t meant to be published as a book. It was written in an antiquated, foreign language, full of ancient philosophy that, until recently, few had ever heard of. And the man doing the writing lived a life unimaginably different and distant from yours.
Then why bother reading a book like that? How could it possibly affect or improve your life?
Yet it is this book that Frederick the Great reportedly
It was never meant to be seen by prying eyes. It certainly wasn’t meant to be published as a book. It was written in an antiquated, foreign language, full of ancient philosophy that, until recently, few had ever heard of. And the man doing the writing lived a life unimaginably different and distant from yours.
Then why bother reading a book like that? How could it possibly affect or improve your life?
Yet it is this book that Frederick the Great reportedly rode into battle with in his saddlebags, as did four-star General James Mattis, who carried it with him on deployments throughout the Middle East. It is this book that American presidents have read and raved about. It is this book that Robert Louis Stevenson, the great novelist, described as unlike any other. It is this book that Beatrice Webb, who helped to found the London School of Economics and created the concept of collective bargaining, called her “manual of devotion.” That actors and musicians and entrepreneurs are still reading today.
So why has Meditations by Marcus Aurelius endured and influenced across so many centuries? And what makes its ancient wisdom still relevant to the modern problems we face today?
Because in Meditations, Marcus attempts to answer those questions we all ask› ourselves at some point: What is the good life and how do I live it? How do I stop running from pain and misfortune and start dealing with my problems? How do I learn to treat other people better when they can be so petty, miserable, and annoying—and how do I learn to treat myself better, too?
Marcus answers these questions with great clarity and wisdom in Meditations. In fact, he gives us an entire “design for living,” writes Gregory Hays in his translation of the book. Marcus gives us a set of rules and guidelines to live our lives by, practical exercises that made him a better person and can make you one, too.
That's why people have read Meditations for the last two thousand years. That’s why it’s a favorite of presidents and prisoners, men and women, soldiers and activists, entrepreneurs and everyday people.
Just as Heraclitus says you can never step in the same river twice—because the river has changed and you have also changed—Meditations isn’t a book you read just once and understand. Because while it's easy to read, it’s the work of a lifetime to explore its vast depths. That’s what we’ve been working so hard to do here at Daily Stoic over the last decade—trying to make the wisdom of this enduring book more accessible and approachable to everyone.
We’ve spent thousands of hours with Marcus’s writings and the work of experts on Stoic philosophy to understand how we can use this wisdom to improve our lives and the lives of those around us.
That’s exactly why we created How To Read Meditations: A Daily Stoic Digital Guide, built for anyone who wants to go beyond reading Marcus’s words and actually live them. In 11 modules, you’ll go deeper into the text and learn takeaways you can apply to your life right away. It’s the companion we wish we’d had when we first started—part masterclass, part daily practice—designed to turn timeless wisdom into real change. And now, for Meditations Month, happening throughout the month of April to celebrate Marcus Aurelius's birthday (April 26th), we’re inviting you to work through it with us, alongside thousands of others around the world who are committed to living their lives with more intention and purpose.
Here’s the best way to get started: purchase the leatherbound edition of Meditations—a beautiful, heirloom-quality version of the book—and you’ll receive the digital guide, completely free. That includes all 11 modules, AND an invitation to aLIVE Q&A with Ryan Holiday, where he’ll take your questions on all things Meditations, Stoicism, and how to apply these ideas to your life right now, in today’s world.
Head here now to grab your Meditations book and guide bundle. Start living your life with more courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom by deepening your understanding of one of the most enduring books on life ever written. We’ll see you in there!
There’s nothing wrong with success. There’s nothing wrong with power. There’s nothing wrong with living a nice life, with achievement or admiration.
Certainly many Stoics did precisely that. Seneca. Cato. Marcus Aurelius. They were important and well-known. They were admired. They were influential. But you know what? They should have shrugged all that off. They appreciate the success, but it wasn’t something they coveted. It may have impre
There’s nothing wrong with success. There’s nothing wrong with power. There’s nothing wrong with living a nice life, with achievement or admiration.
Certainly many Stoics did precisely that. Seneca. Cato. Marcus Aurelius. They were important and well-known. They were admired. They were influential. But you know what? They should have shrugged all that off. They appreciate the success, but it wasn’t something they coveted. It may have impressed others, but it wasn’t how they defined themselves.
“The main thing, Binx,” Walter Wade says after receiving the most significant social honor in New Orleans in Walker Percy’s Stoicism-adjacent novel, The Moviegoer, “is to be humble, to make Golden Fleece and be humble about it.” It might have meant a lot to others, he was saying, but it didn’t mean anything to him.
That’s how we might assume Marcus Aurelius felt about a lot of what was thrown at him. In fact, one of the lines in Meditations (get the "How to Read Meditations" digital guide FREE when you purchase a leatherbound copy of Meditations this month only!) suggests as much, where he says he measures himself not by how many honors he’s received, but by how many he’s turned down. He didn’t make “Golden Fleece,” but did remind himself that the purple cloak of the emperor was nothing more than an ordinary one “dyed with shellfish blood.” Clearly, he still tried. Clearly, he was still active in the world. He just measured himself by his humility, by his indifference, more than he did by his achievement or status.
So must we. We can still try to climb the ladder of success. We can be powerful. We can live a nice life. The main thing is though, if you do this, be humble even so—humble even if you have achieved an impressive amount, even if you have done many impressive things.
P.S. April is Meditations Month here at Daily Stoic! This month only, get the How To Read Meditations (A Daily Stoic Digital Guide) for FREE when you buy our premium leatherbound edition of Meditations, unlocking access to the private community for Meditations discussion and an invitation to a LIVE Q&A call with Ryan Holiday when you purchase before April 26th. This is a rare opportunity to ask him your questions and go deep into the text that’s shaped his life more than any other—don't miss it!
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