I think all the exercises have a lot of implications for how to make you a better, more honest, virtuous person. This is what I plan to do, but I’m also ready for things to go terribly wrong, and this is how I’m going to handle the plans going awry.”

Complain at home, but do your job when you’re doing your job.” Or Seneca, who writes this letter where he goes through this exercise where he says “I’m going on a trip. So, you know, Marcus Aurelius reminds himself not to be stained by the robes that he wear, which is a way of saying, “Don’t let it go to your head.” Or, he’s talking about never being overhead complaining in court. So whether it’s Marcus Aurelius or Seneca, their writings are reminders of the problems that you tend to bump into. So I think that, when you look at the exercises, you see all sorts of things that are supposed to be reminders or solutions to the problems that a person like that faces. Not college professors, but people who are leading soldiers into battle, running a government, representing the people, that sort of thing. And so, I see Stoicism as being adapted for people who do stuff in the world. Leaders, generals, politicians, you know? For most of the later Stoics, the focus was very much of ethics or operating principles. So, what I like about Stoicism is that, historically, it was the philosophy for men (and, I’m saying men because it was only men then) of action. Do you agree that its focus is entirely practical? When I first read straight from the source though, it struck me that Stoicism is much more like a collection of practices and exercises than a traditional philosophy. What jumps out to me about Stoicism is that while it’s become popular in a sense, it seems like the mainstream only sees the same couple of thoughts continuously reemerging, as if these were the core principles of the philosophy. Ryan Holiday, author of The Obstacle is the Way (May, 2014)

The obstacle is the way stoicism