It’s there: in your pocket. On the desk. In the cup holder of the car.

You want to use it. Just grab it and alleviate the boredom or discomfort. Might as well check the headlines instead of struggling to type words on a blank screen. And why stay in this tense argument with your spouse when you can see what’s new on Instagram? “Hey, sorry buddy, I can’t play dinosaurs right now — I have to answer this email.”

That’s what our phones have become. An instant escape, and a constant burden. I remember when I got my first BlackBerry. It was an exciting and surprisingly moving moment. Not because of the technology, but because of what it meant: Someone at my job thought I was important enough to need one of these.

Over the years, though, that pride has worn off. My phone, once a source of liberation — I could check my email without having to go home, which meant I could spend more time out doing things — eventually became a weight that tied me down. Instead of making me better at my job, it started preventing what Cal Newport calls “deep work” — focused, dedicated, creative time. Instead of helping me have fun, it was making me miserable.

So recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about how to use it less. About how to get the benefits from the technology without all the downsides.

If that’s what you’re looking for, too, these strategies might help you. Some of them are easy. Others are tougher, and you’ll probably think some of them are nuts. Maybe they are. But they work.

Turn off all alerts

My lock screen is almost always blank. It’s not because nothing is happening or nobody needs me. It’s because I went into the general settings on my phone and turned off all alerts by default, with the exception of texts and alarms for literal emergencies. (In Texas, we have flash floods and tornadoes.) Even once I unlock my phone, I don’t see any red circles showing me how many messages or notifications I have. I don’t need Strava to tell me I need to check Strava. I definitely don’t allow anything to make noise or buzz me. (I turned off vibrate for texts as well.) No alerts means fewer things to check and a lot less FOMO.

Decide how you’re going to be reachable

One of the best decisions I made a few years ago was to limit how people can get in touch with me. Some people have email, text, phone calls, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Messenger, Twitter and Instagram DMs, LinkedIn messages, Slack, Telegram, and God knows what else. No wonder they’re overwhelmed.

I basically limit myself to three: You can text, email, or call me. Email is day-to-day work stuff, texts are for friends and family, and when my phone rings, it’s usually something important from either one of those groups. I no longer feel the need to check 20 different apps and inboxes 50 times a day, because I know everything that actually matters will come in through one of those three channels.

Sleep with your phone in the other room

Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska is known for giving his young staffers old-school alarm clocks — not because he wants to make sure they’re on time for work, but so they don’t have an excuse to sleep with their phone on the nightstand. If you have an alarm that’s not your clock app, your phone can go in the other room, and if your phone is in the other room, you can’t check it at night.

This means you won’t know if you get a text message or an email. It means you won’t be tempted to scroll through social. It means you’ll have to lie there with your own thoughts, read a book, or maybe even go to sleep at a reasonable time.

Start phone-free mornings

About six months ago, I was invited to a challenge on the habit-building app Spar to not touch my phone for at least 10 minutes after I woke up. I’d been sleeping with it in the other room for years, but I still usually grabbed it first thing in the morning.

The challenge came with a powerful incentive — each time I failed, I’d have to pay $10. But the real draw was that it meant I could focus on being present with my son in my first waking moments. Soon, I started challenging myself to stretch 10 minutes into 30, then 45, then an hour. Now some mornings, if I am writing, I might not touch my phone until lunch. On those days, I’m happier and more productive.

Get a smartwatch

I’m not a big fan of the “solve a device problem with another device” logic, but in this case, it’s really worked. Having a watch that connects to my phone — but that I don’t use as a phone — has substantially reduced the amount of time I spend on my phone, and helped me curb the desire to always have it near me. The only alerts I allow on my watch are calendar reminders and phone calls, which keeps me at least somewhat tethered to my work life. I can reject calls from my wrist, too, without having to go into my pocket.

Get AirPods, too

Not having a physical cord tethering me to my phone makes a huge difference. I want to listen to music. I don’t want to be tempted by my email. I want to talk to this person on the phone. I don’t want to be scrolling at the same time.

Get rid of social apps

I am old enough to remember the days when you checked Facebook and Twitter on your computer instead of carrying the apps around on your body 24 hours a day. That world was slightly less awful than the one we’re in today. Twitter used to be fun. Facebook used to have photos of people’s lunches. Now they’re both filled with constant arguing.

The decision to remove social media from my phone radically reduced the role these apps played in my life. Twitter is fine as a social diversion from time to time. As a thing you can access every time a thought pops in your head? Not so much.

Don’t use your phone for entertainment at all

Why do cellphone companies strike deals with Netflix? Why did AT&T buy DirecTV? Because they want to turn your phone into your television. They want you to mainline data and entertainment. This is good for them, but not good for you. When I’m on a plane, I don’t pull up my phone and watch movies; I read books. When I want to watch TV, I have to sit down on the couch and use a remote.

While we’re on the subject, delete your games, too. Really smart psychologists, designers, and marketers have figured out how to make them as addictive and immersive as possible, and cutting them out is one easy way to use your phone less. My phone is for communication, not entertainment, and maintaining this distinction helps subordinate its role in my life.

Carry two devices

Chris “Drama” Pfaff, founder of the clothing brand Young & Reckless, once told me he carries two phones: one for work and one for fun. The fun one — the one with all his social media and other apps he likes — stays in the car while he’s at work. People laugh at him when he has to walk down to the garage to send a message, but it works. If you can afford it, this strategy is a good one.

Don’t sync your computer and phone

If your phone is a distraction machine, your computer should be a tool for focus — and the more you keep them separate, the better. The last thing I want is my computer to start ringing. What the hell do I need texts on my desktop for? The more you can minimize interruptions, the better.

Print your tickets at the airport

When I fly somewhere, the first thing I do is print my ticket at the self-check-in monitors. Why? First off, the bar code thing never works and I hate people who hold up the line trying to position their phone properly. Second, and more importantly, I don’t want to give myself an excuse to keep my phone at hand — the piece of paper in my pocket tells me everything I need to fly, and now I can zip my phone into my backpack and not check it. A minor reduction in phone time, sure, but I’ll take it where I can get it.

Use child protection settings

You know you can block certain sites on your phone, right? So if you deleted Facebook but still check it in your browser, you can use parental controls to protect yourself from yourself. There are a number of sites I wanted to stop checking, so I made it harder for me to do so.

Go on a purge

Delete contacts you don’t use. Delete apps you don’t need. Clear your cookies. Do you need the Macy’s app? Do you actually need both Lyft and Uber? Simplify. Your phone wants to remember everything to make your experience using it more seamless. Don’t let it.

“Do Not Disturb” is your friend

Use this feature all the time. Whenever you sit down to a meeting. Whenever you got into a movie. Whenever you’re doing something nice with your family. Put up a wall that prevents people, emails, and texts from getting through. Protect your space. Be in the moment.

Whenever possible, replace your phone with another solution

If you read news on your phone, try subscribing to a newspaper or a magazine. If you want a restaurant recommendation, ask a friend. If you use a countdown app with your kids, get a kitchen timer. Yes, the phone can be easier for all these things, but what we don’t factor in is the mindless scrolling that we slip into once the task at hand is done. The less you use your phone to deal with trivial matters or minor conveniences, the less dependent you’ll be on it.

Okay, but what do you use your phone for, then? Well, lots of helpful things. It’s a calculator. It lets me look up information I need on the go. I can take pictures. I can listen to music and podcasts. I get directions. I can call an Uber to pick me up anywhere in the world. I manage my schedule. I write notes to myself. I record my runs and my swims. I FaceTime my kids when I’m away.

My life is better because of the ability to do these things. It’s the stuff that prevents me from doing them that I want to get rid of.

Because it’s my life and it’s ticking away every second. I want to be there for it, not staring at a screen.

***

Like to Read?

I’ve created a list of 15 books you’ve never heard of that will alter your worldview and help you excel at your career.

Get the secret book list here!

Every year, I try to narrow down all the books I have recommended and read for this email list down to just a handful of the best. The kind of books where if they were the only books I’d read that year, I’d still feel like it was an awesome year of reading. (You can check out the best of lists I did in 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012 and 2011.)

I know that people are busy, and we don’t always have time to read as much as we’d like. Nothing wrong with that (though if you want to read more—don’t look for shortcuts—make more time!). What matters is that when you do read, you pick the right books. 

My reading list is now 200,000+ people, which means I hear pretty quickly when a recommendation has landed well. I promise you—you can’t go wrong with any of these.  

Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein

This is by far the book I have recommended to the most people this year—and it’s the one I have come back to and thought about most. I’ve heard from many important and interesting people in business, sports and politics who have said the same thing. In this well-written and entertaining book, David makes a convincing case for the benefits of generalization and experimentation, particularly early on in one’s career and life (Roger Federer being a great contrast to Tiger Woods). I don’t think I would be a good writer if I had trained in it from childhood—it was the experiences that I had in business, in marketing, as well as in researching that converged to give me a broad range of successful skills. Today, I am a proud multi-hyphenate and believe this book can help you become one too. I will also say that this book also doubly functions as a parenting book and is a must read for anyone with kids. 

The Woman’s Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote by Elaine Weiss

Last year, one of my favorite books was Stephen Greenblatt’s Tyrant, which somehow, despite being a book entirely about Shakespeare’s plays, manages to open a real window into what is happening politically and culturally right now, all around us. Elaine Weiss has done something similar and much more inspiring—in these chaotic, divisive and polarizing times, her riveting biography of how activists passed the 19th Amendment  (the right for women to vote), shows us how hard and incremental transformational change actually is. It took suffragettes roughly 100 years to win their battle and even then, it nearly didn’t happen. Their fight took real guts, strategy, compromise, and brute force. It took brave women (and men) who put it on the line to make it happen. This wasn’t garbage social media virtue signaling. It wasn’t fait accompli because it was right. It wasn’t made to happen. It was willed into existence…against all sorts of reservations. I wrote this year about how poorly anger works as a political strategy (ironically, it made a lot of people angry). This book makes a better argument than I did and hopefully provides a road map to future generations of people trying to make the world a better and fairer place.

Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar

One thing I committed to doing this year was re-reading, specifically re-reading some fiction. I’m so glad I did because it meant getting to dive back into this book, which I loved and enjoyed even more the second time. This novel—it’s written as if it were the memoirs of the Emperor Hadrian speaking to his successor, Marcus Aurelius—is just an utterly beautiful book. Hadrian was complicated, as all people drawn to power are. Yet somehow he managed to identify and cultivate not just one but two heirs who were much better than he was, and for this, all of history owes a debt of gratitude. How did he do it? The message of this novel pretends to know, which makes it perfect for leaders, for parents, and for anyone thinking about their legacy. I can only imagine how much more beautiful the book is in its original French. In any case, if you haven’t read this book, do so. If you have, do it again. 

The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life by David Brooks

What’s the second mountain? It’s what you starting thinking about once you have made it to the top of your field, once you have realized that material success or fame or recognition from your peers is not nearly as satisfying as you thought they would be. For Brooks, the second mountain is where we start thinking less about ourselves and more about other people. It’s the decision to leave Wall Street to move to your hometown and be a part of a community. It’s the choice to start a charity or to go back to school to become a teacher. It’s running for mayor or volunteering in a soup kitchen. To say this book will make you think about your life is an understatement. It will make you question everything in your life. Do read it. I know reading it has greatly shaped what I plan to do in 2020, so stay tuned!

Honorable mentions: I loved David Roll’s George Marshall: Defender of the Republic and I also liked General Mattis’ memoir, Call Sign Chaos. We need more leaders like those two. Cal Newport’s book Digital Minimalism was critical in my design to radically scale back social media use this year and Austin Kleon’s book Keep Going was an inspiration for me as a creative—these two books make a great pair. If you’re interested in the Stoics, I strongly recommend Donald Robertson’s biography of Marcus Aurelius How to Think Like a Roman Emperor. And How To Keep Your Cool, a short selection of important passages from one of Seneca’s greatest works (On Anger), is worth reading for anyone with a temper (that is to say, everyone). I probably got more quotes from Juan Ramon Jimenez’s The Complete Perfectionist than I did from any other book I read this year. Did you know Herbert Hoover wrote a book about fishing in 1963? It’s called Fishing for Fun: And to Wash Your Soul—I loved the subtitle and this short book. I read some epic biographies this year including William Manchester’s biography of Douglas MacArthur and T. R. Fehrenbach’s biography of Texas. These two writers were flawed but undoubtedly masters of their craft. I also really liked Daniel Immerwahr’s book How To Hide An Empire, which is about the “greater” United States. Finally, Susan Orlean’s The Library Book is another classic from one of my favorite journalists. A must-read for any book lover. 

Anyway, this is just a sampling of what I read this year. I’m very lucky that I get to read for a living and can afford to go down rabbit holes and read leisurely. If you’re looking to read great stuff in 2020, I think you’ll like everything I recommended. And if you want to become a better reader this year, we’ve come up with a challenge at Daily Stoic that’s perfect for you:

Read to Lead: A Daily Stoic Reading Challenge

Harry Truman once said that “not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers.” It’s true.   

To be a great leader you have to have a ceaseless appetite for learning, for self-improvement, for wisdom. The Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius prized the ability to “read attentively,” and used this skill to reign masterfully over his domain. Reading is the shortest, most established path to total self-improvement. We know intuitively that this is true. The question is: what active steps are we taking toward our better selves, to improve every aspect of our lives, to ensure success? We created the Read To Lead challenge as a way to give you an answer to that question.

In one of my favorite novels, The Moviegoer by Walker Percy, Aunt Emily is famous for asking a question. It’s a simple one, but I think an eye-opening one. Aunt Emily, the wisest character in the book, likes to ask,

What do you live by? 

As in, what are your principles? What are the Ten Commandments that rule your life? Who’s the animating force behind what you do and why you do it? 

You’d think most people would know the answer to this question, but of course they don’t. Seattle Seahawks Coach Pete Carroll likes to tell a story about how long he managed to coach football without actually knowing what he believed in as a coach. It was only after another disappointing season with the New England Patriots—some 15 years into his career—that it struck Carroll that he had no real coaching philosophy, no real belief system. Inspired by John Wood, Carroll got to work, “writing notes and filling binders”—on nailing down his core values, his philosophy, what exactly he believes in. It was a transformative decision: He would go on to win two National Championships and win a Super Bowl with the Seattle Seahawks.

Now when he gives talks, he likes to open with that question: What’s your philosophy? What do you live by? He told me once, when I asked him about it, how shocked he is, on a regular basis, how many CEOs and generals and investors and coaches at the highest levels reveal, accidentally, that they have just been winging it. 

That’s crazy! 

In light of that fact, I thought I would look backwards to history, when the idea of a code—the Romans called it mas morium—was more common. The “old ways” come down to us in the form of some wonderful Latin expressions that remain, thousands of years later, very much worth living by. 

Festina Lente (Make Haste Slowly)

From the Roman historian Suetonius, we learn that festina lente was the motto of Rome’s first emperor, Augustus. “He thought nothing less becoming in a well-trained leader than haste and rashness,” Suetonius writes, “And, accordingly, favourite sayings of his were: ‘More haste, less speed’; ‘Better a safe commander than a bold’; and ‘That is done quickly enough which is done well enough.’”

Faster is not always better. In fact, it’s often the slowest way to accomplish anything. Great leaders throughout history have known this. There is a quote ascribed to Lincoln about how the way to chop down a tree is to first spend several hours sharpening your axe. Kennedy used to talk about using time as a tool, not as a couch. 

It’s easy to rush in. It feels good to start doing. But if you don’t know what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and how to do it? Well, it’s not going to go well. If you’re going quickly for the sake of speed, you’re going to make costly mistakes. You’re going to miss opportunities. You’re going to miss critical warnings. 

Each of us needs more clear thinking, wisdom, patience, and a keen eye for the root of problems. “Slowly,” Juan Ramon Jimenezas put it, “you will do everything quickly.” 

Festina Lente.

Carpe Diem (Seize The Day)

Locked in prison by Henry Bolingbroke (Henry IV) in Shakespeare’s Richard II, Richard II gives a haunting speech about his hopeless fate. One line stands out, as it captures perfectly the reality of nearly every human being—indeed, it sounds like it was cribbed from Seneca’s On The Shortness of Life. 

“I wasted time,” Richard II says, “and now doth time waste me.”

Isn’t that beautiful? And terribly sad? It was some 1500 years before Shakespeare that the poet Horace wrote in book 1 of Odes, “carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero” (seize the day, trust tomorrow e’en as little as you may).

We think that time is ours to waste. We even say, “We have two hours to kill” or speak of dead time between projects. The irony! Because time is the one that’s killing us. Each minute that passes is not just dead to us, it brings us closer to being dead.

That’s what Richard II realizes in that prison cell. He had wasted time and now, by a stroke of bad luck and evil, he is now wasting away. Only now is he realizing that each second that ticks by is a beat of his heart that he won’t get back, each ringing bell that marks the hour falls upon him like a blow. 

Seneca writes that we think life is short, when in reality we just waste it. Marcus admonishes himself to not put off until tomorrow what he can do today, because today was the only thing he controlled (and to get out of bed and get moving for the same reason). The Stoics knew that fate was unpredictable and that death could come at any moment. Therefore, it was a sin (and stupidity) to take time for granted. 

Today is the most valuable thing you own. It is the only thing you have. Don’t waste it. Seize it.

Carpe Diem. 

Fac, si facis (Do It If You’re Going To Do It)

The painter Edgar Degas, though best known for his beautiful Impressionist paintings of dancers, toyed briefly with poetry. As a brilliant and creative mind, the potential for great poems was all there—he could see beauty, he could find inspiration. Yet there are no great Degas poems. There is one famous conversation that might explain why. One day, Degas complained to his friend, the poet Stéphane Mallarmé, about his trouble writing. “I can’t manage to say what I want, and yet I’m full of ideas.” Mallarmé’s response cuts to the bone. “It’s not with ideas, my dear Degas, that one makes verse. It’s with words.” 

So yes, deliberation and patience are key. You don’t want to rush into things. That’s what festina lente is about. But at some point the rubber has to meet the road. 

“I should start a company.” “I have a great idea for a movie.” “I would love to write that book one day.” “If I tried hard enough, I could be ______.” How many of those people actually go through with building the company, releasing the movie, publishing the book, or becoming whatever it is they claim they could become? Sadly, almost none.

“Lots of people,” as Austin Kleon puts it, “want to be the noun without doing the verb.” It doesn’t matter where we are; to get to wherever we want to go, to implement all 11 of these expressions to live by, it is works, not words, that are required. “You must build up your life action by action,” Marcus Aurelius said. You must get started. 

Fac, si facis.

Quidvis recte factum quamvis humile praeclarum (Whatever Is Rightly Done, However Humble, Is Noble)

The youngest of five children, Sir Henry Royce’s father died when he was just 9 years old. He went to work to alleviate his family’s financial burdens, so if his dreams of being an engineer were to be realized, it’d be without any formal education. Royce took jobs selling newspapers, delivering telegrams, making tools, and fixing street lights. At the age of twenty-one he started his own company making electric fittings. At twenty-six his interests shifted to the emerging automobile industry, and soon thereafter, he created Rolls-Royce Motor Cars.

It might seem like there is an enormous difference between those professions but in fact, they are related. It was his experiences doing that manual labor, doing those seemingly insignificant tasks that cultivated Royce’s commitment to and understanding of excellence. In fact, he later had a version of it inscribed on the mantle over his fireplace: Quidvis recte factum quamvis humble praeclarum. 

Whatever you do well, however lowly, is noble. 

There is no such thing as a job or a task that is beneath us. How we do anything is how we do everything. And if we can truly internalize and believe that, it will help us do the important things better. That’s why we love luxury items and pay so much for them, isn’t it? Because of their insane attention to detail, because how they refused to settle, how they did everything right? 

Quidvis recte factum quamvis humile praeclarum.

Semper Fidelis (Always Faithful)

Otto Frank was late coming home from the First World War. No, it wasn’t because he was injured. Nor was he detained by a girl he’d fallen in love with or waylaid by traveling he decided to do. He was delayed for weeks because during the war his unit had commandeered some horses from a small farm in Pomerania and, after the hostilities had ended, he felt duty bound to return them. 

When the war ended, nearly every soldier wanted nothing more than to rush home and see their families. Otto Frank did too. But he had borrowed something that wasn’t his and he was determined to honor his obligation, even if that meant delaying the homecoming he craved so much. The farmer, for his part, was shocked to see the horses again. Otto Frank’s mother, who assumed the worst of his absence, was so angry when she heard why he was late that she hurled a coffee pot across the room. She couldn’t understand the selflessness of his actions because in her case, since it had deprived her of her son a little longer, almost felt like selfishness.

“Cold or warm. Tired or well-rested. Despised or honored,” Marcus Aurelius wrote. “Just that you do the right thing. The rest doesn’t matter.” It isn’t easy. It can mean adding on top of already considerable burdens. Other people won’t always understand or take notice. They may be exasperated with you. They might be driven into a rage which you can neither control nor assuage. But none of that matters, and that’s why Semper Fi is the motto of the US Marine Corps. “It is not negotiable,” one Marine puts it. “It is not relative, but absolute…Marines pride themselves on their mission and steadfast dedication to accomplish it.” Not just to the mission, but to each other, and to their country. 

You do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do. It is the ultimate tautology, but that’s the point. Doing the right thing is all that matters. It is its own reward. 

Semper Fidelis.

Per Angusta Ad Augusta (Through Difficulties To Honors)

Look, nobody wants to go through hard times. We’d prefer that things go according to plan, that what could go wrong doesn’t, so that we might enjoy our lives without being challenged or tested beyond our limits. 

Unfortunately, that’s unlikely to happen. Which leaves us with the question of what good there is in such difficulty and how we might—either in the moment or after the fact—come to understand what it is that we’re going through…today, tomorrow, and always. 

This passage from Sonia Purnell’s wonderful biography of Clementine Churchill, wife of Winston Churchill, is worth thinking about:

“Clementine was not cut out from birth for the part history handed her. Adversity, combined with sheer willpower, burnished a timorous, self-doubting bundle of nerves and emotion into a wartime consort of unparalleled composure, wisdom, and courage. The flames of many hardships in early life forged the inner core of steel she needed for her biggest test of all. By the Second World War the young child terrified of her father…had transmogrified into a woman cowed by no one.” 

The Stoics believed that adversity was inevitable. They knew that Fortune was capricious and that it often subjected us to things we were not remotely prepared to handle. And this is not necessarily a bad thing. Because it teaches us. It strengthens us. It gives us a chance to prove ourselves. “Disaster,” Seneca wrote, “is Virtue’s opportunity.” The obstacle is the way, was Marcus Aurelius’s expression. 

And so the same can be true for you and whatever it is that you’re going through right now. 

Per Angusta Ad Augusta.

Amor fati (Love Of Fate)

The writer Jorge Luis Borges said:

A writer — and, I believe, generally all persons — must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art.

Everything is material. We have to learn to find joy in every single thing that happens. We have to understand that certain things—particularly bad things—are outside our control. But we can use it all—if we learn to love whatever happens to us and face it with unfailing cheerfulness. And again, not just artists. Issues we had with our parents become lessons that we teach our children. An injury that lays us up in bed becomes a reason to reflect on where our life is going. A problem at work inspires us to invent a new product and strike out on our own. These obstacles become opportunities. 

The line from Marcus Aurelius about this was that a blazing fire makes flame and brightness out of everything that is thrown into it. That’s how we want to be. We want to be the artist that turns pain and frustration and even humiliation into beauty. We want to be the entrepreneur that turns a sticking point into a money maker. We want to be the person who takes their own experiences and turns them into wisdom that can be learned from and passed on to others. 

Nietzsche said, “My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it…but love it.” Use it all. Find purpose in all of it. Find opportunity in everything. Love it. 

You love everything that happens. Because you make use of it. 

Amor Fati

Fatum Ingenium Est (Character Is Fate)

When he was in college and struggling to live up to the expectations of his illustrious family, Walker Percy wrote a letter to his uncle and adopted father, Will Percy. He probably expected to receive a lecture about his grades in reply. Or be admonished for letting the family down. Or perhaps to be sent money for a tutor. 

But the reply surprised him. Because there wasn’t any of that. Instead, Will waved those concerns off. “My whole theory about life,” Will told his beloved nephew and son, “is that glory and accomplishment are of far less importance than the creation of character and the individual good life.” 

It was Heraclitus who said that character is fate. Or character is destiny, depending on the translation. What he meant was: Character decides everything. It determines who we are/what we do. Develop good character and all will be well. Fail to, and nothing will.

It can be easy to lose sight of this. Because we know how competitive the world is. Because things aren’t exactly going our way. Because we want to reach our full potential. But ultimately, we only need to care about our character. The rest is fated from it.  “Life is short,” Marcus Aurelius said, and “the fruit of this life is a good character.”

It’s true in reverse too: A good life is the fruit of good character. 

Fatum Ingenium Est.

Semper Anticus (Always Forward)

The wisdom of the ancient world comes down pretty hard and pretty universally against looking back. No one, Jesus said, who looks backwards as they plot is fit for the kingdom of God. Even before Jesus, Cato the Elder—the great-grandfather of the Stoic Cato the Younger—wrote in his only work, On Agriculture, “The forehead is better than the hindhead.” Meaning: Don’t look back. Look forward. 

It’s easy to want to look back at the past. To reflect on what’s happened. To blame. To indulge in nostalgia. To wistfully think of what might have been. To inspect and admire what you’ve done. But this is pointless. Because the past is dead. It’s lost. We had our shot with it. Now, all that remains before us is the present—and if we are lucky, the future. 

The name of Lance Armstrong’s podcast is called what? The Forward. Because he can’t go back and change what happened, just like in a race, you can’t go backwards and you can’t stop either. All you can do is keep going. All you can do is keep trying to get better. 

We must seize this opportunity while we still can. We must give it everything we have. No matter what has happened before—whose fault it was, how much pain it caused us, what regrets we have, or even how triumphant it was—all we can do is move forward. All we can do is act now, with the virtues we hold dear: courage, temperance, wisdom, justice.

Semper Anticus. 

Vivere Militare Est (To Live Is To Fight)

Odysseus leaves Troy after ten long years of war destined for Ithaca, for home. If only he knew what was ahead of him: ten more years of travel. That he’d come so close to the shores of his homeland, his queen and young son, only to be blown back again. That he’d face storms, temptation, a Cyclops, deadly whirlpools, and a six-headed monster. Or that he’d be held captive for seven years and suffer the wrath of Poseidon. And, of course, that back in Ithaca his rivals were circling, trying to take his kingdom and his wife. 

He fought his way home. Marcus Aurelius once described life as warfare and a journey far from home. That was Odysseus’s experience certainly. To the Stoics, one had to go through life as a boxer or a wrestler, dug in and ready for sudden assaults. 

That’s life. It kicks us around. The stuff we expected to be simple turns out to be tough. The people we thought were friends let us down. A couple storms or unexpected weather patterns just add a whole bunch of difficulty on top of whatever we’ve been doing. Seneca wrote that only the fighter who has been bloodied and bruised—in training and in previous matches—can go into the ring confident of his chances of winning. The one who has never been touched before, never had a hard fight? That’s a fighter who is scared. And if they aren’t, they should be. Because they have no actual idea how they’re going to hold up.

We have to have a true and accurate sense of the rhythms of the fight and what winning is going to require us to do. We have to be ready for the fighting life. We have to be able to get knocked around without letting it knock us out. We have to be in touch with ourselves and the fight we’re in.

Vivere Militare Est.

Memento Mori (Remember Death)

A person who wraps up each day as if it were the end of their life, who meditates on their mortality in the evening, Seneca believed, has a super power when they wake up. 

“When a man has said, ‘I have lived!’” Seneca wrote, then “every morning he arises is a bonus.” 

Think back: to that one time you were playing with house money, if not literally then metaphorically. Or when your vacation got extended. Or that appointment you were dreading canceled at the last moment. 

Do you remember how you felt? Probably, in a word—better. You feel lighter. Nicer. You appreciate everything. You are present. All the trivial concerns and short term anxieties go away—because for a second, you realize how little they matter. 

Well, that’s how one ought to live. Go to bed, having lived a full day, appreciating that you may not get the privilege of waking up tomorrow. And if you do wake up, it will be impossible not to see every second of the next twenty-four hours as a bonus. As a vacation extended. An appointment with death put off one more day. As playing with house money. 

”You could leave life right now,” Marcus Aurelius wrote, “let that determine what you do and say and think.”

Is there better advice than this? If so, it has yet to be written. Keep it close.

Memento Mori.

— 

The power of an epigram or one of these expressions is that they say a lot with a little. They help guide us through the complexity of life with their unswerving directness. Each person must, as the retired USMC general and former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, has said, “Know what you will stand for and, more important, what you won’t stand for.” “State your flat-ass rules and stick to them. They shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.”

Least of all to you. 

So borrow these eleven, or dig into history or religion or philosophy to find some more. 

And then turn those words…into works.