Which Of These Are You? | What's In Your Way Is The Way

0:00Ryan Holiday: Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world.

0:14Ryan Holiday: Which of these are you? He had every reason to feel threatened. He had every reason to think of his own interests first. He had every reason not to care so much about this kid that he'd been stuck with. But we know that Antoninus didn't see Marcus Aurelius that way. Instead, he took the role that Hadrian had given him, which was to prepare the next generation of leadership. And he took it seriously. He mentored Marcus. He taught Marcus. He loved Marcus as if he was his son. Again, he could have intrigued against him. He could have undermined him. He could have tried to replace him with someone he was related to.

0:49Ryan Holiday: Instead, Antoninus was generous and patient and selfless. And he helped Marcus succeed. What about you? Are you going to be that kind of leader? or are you going to give in to insecurity and selfishness and closed-mindedness? We all face some version of this choice. Are we going to be an enemy or an encourager? Will we help or hinder? Will we support or stab in the back? Will we open doors or close them? And in the end, our legacy will be defined by this choice, as will our character. True leaders create other leaders. Great people bring out greatness in others. They take their responsibility seriously and selflessly.

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3:38Ryan Holiday: What's in your way is the way. Obstacles are a fact of life. Even the most powerful and lucky of us are not exempt from this reality, but we have a superpower at our hands through Stoic philosophy in that our purposes, our intentions, our attitudes can adapt to any conditions to find a way forward. The Stoics talk about acting with a reserve clause that allows us to reconsider and set a new course of action if needed. And Marcus Aurelius tells us that any obstacle can actually become raw material for a new purpose. So that's what you should think about today and this week. How might the obstacles you're facing reveal a new path?

4:23Ryan Holiday: And this is from the Daily Stoic Journal, 366 days of writing and reflection on the art of living. Every week we have a sort of a daily meditation. We've got three quotes from Marcus Aurelius along these lines today. While it's true that someone can impede our actions, they can't impede our intentions or our attitudes. which have the power of being conditional and adaptable. For the mind adapts and converts any obstacle to its actions into a means of achieving it. And that which is the obstacle to action is turned to advance action. The obstacle on the path becomes the way. That's Meditations 520.

5:01Ryan Holiday: Marcus also says in 835, Just as nature turns to its own purpose, any obstacle or any opposition sets its place in the destined order and co-ops it, so every rational person can convert any obstacle into the raw material for their own purpose. And then Meditations 8.32, so clearly he thinks about this a lot. He says, you must build up your life action by action and be content if each one achieves its goal as far as possible. And no one can keep you from this. But there will be some external obstacle, perhaps, he says, but no obstacle to acting with justice, self-control, and wisdom. But what if some area of my action is thwarted?

5:43Ryan Holiday: Will gladly accept the obstacle for what it is and shift your attention to what is given, and another action will immediately take its place, one that better fits the life you are building. As you know, this is what I built the obstacle as the way around, these ideas. But let me read you Gregory Hayes' translation in that same line, 520, because it's obviously been so instrumental to me, and I think Hayes does it quite well also. So he says, and it's interesting, he's clearly referring Marcus to a specific kind of obstacle, difficult people. In a sense, people are our proper occupation. This is Meditations 520.

6:21Ryan Holiday: Our job is to do them good and put up with them. But when they obstruct our proper tasks, they become irrelevant to us, like the sun, wind, or animals. Our actions may be impeded by them, but there can be no impeding our intentions or our dispositions, because we can accommodate and adapt. The mind adapts and converts to its own purposes the obstacle to our acting. The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way. Let's look at the Robin Waterfield translation of the same line. All right, here's 520. From one point of view, nothing is more proper to me than a human being, insofar as it's my job to do people good and tolerate them.

7:05Ryan Holiday: But insofar as some people threaten my proper work, I count a human being as just another indifferent, no less than the sun or the wind or a wild animal. These things may impede some of my activities, but they can't impede my impulses or my state of mind, because I have powers of reservation and adaptation. The mind can adapt and alter every impediment to action to serve its purpose. Something that might have hindered a task contributes to it instead, and something that was an obstacle on the road helps you on your way. And then here's Waterfield's note. He says, again, Marcus stresses the independence of the mind and the possibility of seeing the world in a positive light.

7:43Ryan Holiday: So it doesn't matter which translation you read, the message is the same. Stuff happens, stuff gets in our way, but it presents us the opportunity to do something different. So in this sense, the obstacle is the way. It's not that, you know, life erects this wall in front of you and the way is through that wall. It's that when the door shuts, a window opens. It's that when you wanted everything to go well and then someone screws it up, now it's a chance to practice patience. Now it's a chance to practice forgiveness. Now it's a chance to start over. Now it's a chance to extricate yourself from this toxic relationship, whatever it is, right?

8:26Ryan Holiday: What Marcus is saying is that everything that happens in life, every obstacle, as maddening and frustrating and as painful as they might be, they are opportunities to practice a different virtue, that virtue is always the way and that nothing stops us from being able to do that. I just love that passage so much. If I had the time, I'd grab the Pierre Hadeau chapter on this very idea, which also helped inspire the obstacles away. He talks about sort of the art of turning obstacles upside down. To me, this is a central practice in Stoicism. It's why I've got it tattooed on my arm. It's why I wrote a book about it.

9:01Ryan Holiday: It's why we talk about it so much. This idea of amor fati, we accept, and then we use what's happened to our advantage. That's the essence of Stoicism. I hope that inspires you a little bit today. People are our proper occupation. We tolerate them. We put up with them. And all the obstacles they roll into our way, all the problems they cause us, are actually not problems, but opportunities to practice. the very virtues of courage, temperance, justice, and wisdom. That's what we're doing here. Talk soon.

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