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.
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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.
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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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