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Blog postIn his letters, Seneca writes about the habit of finding one thing each day that makes you smarter, wiser, better. One nugget. One quote. One little prescription. One little piece of advice. And that’s how most of Seneca’s letters close: Here’s a lesson, he says. Here’s one thing.
Obviously that’s the logic behind the daily emails I write (Daily Stoic and Daily Dad) but it’s also the way I try to live. Every time I listen to a podcast or record one myself, I try to grab at least one l -
Blog postToday, I turn 35 years old. This feels incredibly weird to me because I vividly remember writing a version of this article on my 25th birthday, on the eve of the release of what would be my first book. But that is the nature of life, as you get older, long periods of time—like the famous Hemingway line—slowly and then all at once, feel like short periods of time. And so here I am, entering the second half of my thirties, reflecting on what I’ve learned.
In those ten years, I wro -
Blog postOne of the pleasures of re-reading a book, re-watching a film, re-visiting a place, is that you always discover something new. The Stoics were fond of the idea—which comes from Heraclitus—that we never step in the same river twice. I have found this to be true when it comes to Marcus Aurelius, a man I have written about and studied now for nearly a decade and a half. Each time I read his writing, each time I talk about him, each time I visit a museum or place he lived, I understand him a litt
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Blog postReading is a good thing. A good thing too many people don’t do enough of (or any of it all…) So obviously doing lots of it is good, right? This is why people try to figure out how to speed read (a scam, I say!). This is why they show off their huge libraries (guilty!). This is why they listen to audiobooks at 2x or 3x speed.
“Less is more? Quality over quantity? Not with books!”
But not all reading is created equal. As Epictetus said, “I cannot call somebody ‘hard- -
Blog postWhen I was 18 years old, I was a research assistant to Robert Greene. My job was to find stories he could use in his writing. Nearly seventeen years later, I still use so much of what Robert taught me about finding great stories in researching for my own writing. But the gift has been less in how it has helped me professionally, and more in how it has helped me personally.
As I would learn much later, Robert was teaching me how to find what the ancient Greeks called a chreia: “a -
Blog postSome people take pride in how little they sleep. It’s proof of their hard work, their dedication, their determination.
Me?
I’m prouder of the exact opposite.
Despite producing over a dozen books, writing my daily emails for Daily Stoic and Daily Dad, reading books to recommend to my Reading List Email each month, opening and operating The Painted Porch Book Shop, and spending lots of time with my wife and kids—I’ve never pulled an all-nighter. My writing pace is not fu -
Blog postI’ve done some crazy things in my life, but as I’ve said, the absolute craziest was deciding to open a bookstore. Running a small business is always difficult, running a small business during a pandemic is damn near impossible but a small town book store in rural Texas?
But here we are, a year later, not just still standing but doing great!
We’ve learned a lot…about business, about books, and about ourselves.
I made a YouTube video about the experienc -
Blog postAll the data about taking cold showers is bullshit to me.
Sure, some research says that they can reduce anxiety, improve your immune system, increase metabolism to assist in weight loss, reduce the number of days you call out sick from work, and potentially even improve cancer survival.
But I don’t care about any of that.
The reason I interrupt my warm showers by cranking the knob to the side is far more simple, in fact it’s nearly tautological. I do it to -
Blog postLife is about choices.
How we choose to see things. What we choose to say. What we choose to think.
We choose what kind of person we are going to be.
It all comes down to choices.
And Stoicism, it could be said, is a philosophy about how to make better choices. This is what we see in a book like Meditations. We see Marcus Aurelius journaling, working to get better at choosing. Choosing the right things to value, the right things to think, the right things -
Blog postThe piece below is about banned books, which I feel so strongly about that I’ve decided to give away free physical copies of banned books. If you come by The Painted Porch today from 2-6pm or on February 19 from 10am-2pm, we’ll be giving away free copies of books such as Fahrenheit 451, Lawn Boy, and Out of Darkness.
The tragic irony of many books we are assigned in school is that we are far too young to understand what they really mean.
Like many public school kids, I w
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Diario para estoicos: 366 reflexiones sobre la sabiduría, la perseverancia y el arte de vivir (Spanish Edition)
Oct 28, 2020
by
Ryan Holiday
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