One thing this pandemic has shown is that people have a problem facing facts. 

I don’t mean facts in the sense of the scientific data, although that’s clearly a problem as well judging by the litany of conspiracy theories that have become acceptable even in polite company. 

I mean “facts” in the more colloquial sense—of coming to terms with reality and accepting it on reality’s terms. Just look at COVID-19.

We’ve taken a merciless, apolitical, indifferent but pretty well-understood virus, scientifically speaking, and turned it into a divisive, partisan argument. Every molecule seems subject to debate, because we have somehow come to believe that what we think about it, or our own personal needs in relation to it, have some relevance to its airborne spread from person to person, and its ability to kill with ruthlessness and painful efficiency. 

Perhaps nothing captures this impotent rage better than a tweet I saw from Laura Ingraham…

OK, Karen, would you like to speak to COVID-19’s manager?

Back here in reality where the rest of us live, it is an inescapable truth of human existence that there are some crises and problems so bad that they force those affected by them to live with the uncertainty that the crises create. They force us to stop doing things we’d like to do. They cost us things we really can’t afford. 

But, alas, there is no degree of forcefulness to an opinion nor staggering amount of need that can change those facts. 

Imagine someone living in America in 1942. No one could have told them when they’d be able to travel to Europe to see their aging parents again. No one could have told them when the rationing would stop. No one would have been able to say when their son would be released from the Army. No one could promise them that they were safe in their homes and would ultimately survive. The world war was a fact, and everybody had to deal with it. Like it or not. 

Life is like this. It’s uncertain. It’s uncomfortable. It doesn’t really care whether we really want or need something. It doesn’t care about us at all, really, it just is. 

Many years ago, I wrote a piece about our tendency to think that we could “vote on reality,” and how the internet was designed to encourage this impulse. From Twitter to Facebook to blogging, the platforms of social media are designed around the insidious idea that your opinion about things changes what they unflinchingly are. 

I think this is what Foster the People is singing about in their song, “The Truth”:

Well an absolute measure won’t change with opinion

no matter how hard you try

It’s an immovable thing

We are seduced by the idea that not liking some element of reality is powerful enough to will it to be different. That a simple objection is more powerful than objectivity. Of course, the Stoics had no time for this. Facts are facts, they say. Fate or Fortune or death have no care for your opinion. 

They were like Civil War historian James McPherson who, responding to Abraham Lincoln’s 1862 claim that European allies seemed to care more about tiny Northern defeats than his major victories, said simply: “Unreasonable it may have been, but it was a reality.” 

When we talk about facing facts, we are in part talking about making the hard choices that life demands—which usually means doing the harder thing. “At the top,” Secretary of State Dean Acheson once observed about the presidency, “there are no easy choices. All are between evils, the consequences of which are hard to judge.” He meant that all the simple, easy stuff gets handled by people lower down on the chain. The obvious stuff never makes it to the Oval Office. And so it is with life, too—the easy stuff is never much of an issue. There’s never any uncertainty about the things that don’t require any sacrifice and pain. 

I think he also means that it’s not the choices that are hard. In fact, the right thing is often obvious. It’s the consequences and the costs of that choice that are hard. It’s the complicated, difficult, unpleasant stuff that we adults end up having to wrestle with on the other side of our decisions that make the decisions seem so difficult. 

In reality, when it comes to a pandemic or a bankruptcy or a failing marriage, the choices are easy to the extent that they are simple and clear. It’s this or this. It’s A or B or C. The difficulty comes with the hard facts that must be swallowed as a consequence of picking one of those easy choices. Don’t you dare think that Acheson, when he said the consequences were hard to judge, was excusing leaders who preferred their own fantasies or wishful thinking to the hard realities of geopolitics.  

I see this with some of my friends, now considering whether to send their kids back to school. Even though most of the advice is against it; even though they regularly go overboard protecting their families from all sorts of much less dangerous things than a pandemic; even though they are otherwise good people who care about how their actions affect others—here they are saying something to the effect of “Well, it’s just so hard to know what the right thing is.”

Or my favorite: “How much longer can this go on?”

Truth goes on as long as it’s true!

What we’re saying when we throw up our hands at something like reopening the schools is, “I have a sense that I’m not making the right decision, but if I act bewildered, it excuses me from the consequences.” Or they are saying, “I get that generally this is a really bad idea, but my specific circumstances should be exempt from the otherwise unfavorable facts because it hasn’t been a problem in my town yet and the consequences of the other choice are more difficult than I’m comfortable with.” No! 

How has the track record for not listening to expert opinion gone in the United States over the last five months? Oh, right, it’s created one of the worst coronavirus breakouts in the world, one that has seen US citizens banned from international travel en masse, and has mayors from Texas to New York City requesting extra freezer trucks to support their overflowing morgues. We’re zeroing in on 200,000 dead! 67 9/11s. Four Vietnams. Eight times more than the American Revolution. (And the fact that lots of people also die of heart disease is not a response. They are dying of that too.) The country that, for a century, was called to rescue other countries from natural disasters is now the unlikely recipient of pity from New Zealand, Italy and Denmark. People love to talk about American exceptionalism—well, we are being exceptionally stupid.

And so we are now entering another phase of the crisis that will undeniably be shaped by people who, instead of dealing honestly and critically with the reality of the situation, are letting all sorts of other factors shape what they’re seeing (note: obviously the real blame lies with the feckless leaders who put them in the position in the first place). No sane person would look at a country with tens of thousands of new cases and 1,000+ deaths a day and think: “I should probably send my kid to hang out with thousands of other kids in small rooms, right?” Yet here we are, talking about how life has to go back to normal sometime…

But kids need school! you reply. 

I am reminded of a conversation between Col. Harry G. Summers and a North Vietnamese colonel after the Vietnam War. Summers pointed out that the US was never beaten on the battlefield. The man replied, “That is true. It is also irrelevant.”

We need a lot of things. My kids certainly do. But the facts come first, so we’re staying home. Not because we want to, but because, in truth, there is no choice. It’s why my businesses remain closed too. 

There is not much upside in a pandemic—not one that has killed nearly 200,000 Americans and close to a million people worldwide. But there is a lesson in it. 

It’s a lesson that we have done our best not to learn, that we have fought for some time now. 

That lesson is this: Life is hard. It is filled with hard facts and hard decisions. 

You cannot flee it. You can only defer the consequences for so long or, perhaps, if you are content to be an asshole, shirk them onto some other innocent person. 

Facts don’t care how hard they are. Just because you can’t bear something doesn’t mean it doesn’t have to be borne. Just because you have an opinion—or a need—doesn’t mean it’s relevant. 

“There is a truth,” it says in the song I mentioned earlier, “I can promise you that.” 

It’s time to wake up, put on our big boy pants, and accept that we are living through a period of great discomfort and frightening uncertainty, and what you think or feel about that fact has precisely zero impact on the truth of our new reality  

We have to face the truth. Do the hard thing. 

*Two wrap up notes:

If you really really disagree with me on the school thing, just plug in any number of other examples: People going ahead with their weddings. Random hookups on Tinder because they “need the spontaneity.” People going on vacations. Pro football stadiums in Florida filled with fans. People who say things like, I like Trump but hate his tweets. 

And most importantly, if you disagree with me so much that this article makes you angry? Do me a favor and don’t reply. Your opinion will not change the facts, and I’m too tired to deal with anyone’s cognitive dissonance these days.

In a book that changed my life, Marcus Aurelius thanks his mentor for introducing him to the book that changed his life. 

One person passing along brilliant writing to another: it’s a tradition as old as time. You may even already be a part of that tradition. You may have been introduced to a life-changing book by a friend or a family member.

But do you actively seek out more of these experiences? When was the last time you asked someone you admired for a book recommendation—or more specifically, for the book that changed their life? You hear smart people talking about books they’re reading or thinking about all the time, but do you make the effort to read them too? Or do they just sit on your mental to-do list or your Amazon “save for later” list, never to be read?

Imagine if Marcus just let that book sit on his desk. Imagine if he kept saving it for later. His whole life would have turned out differently. The history of the Western world may have been altered. Don’t let a version of that happen to you. Read these books. They will change your life.

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Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

To me, this is the greatest book ever written. I’ve read it a couple hundred times and have a large passage that I printed out and posted above my desk to look at before I start each day. For me, it was what Tyler Cowen calls a “quake book”—shaking everything I thought I knew about the world. It is the definitive text on self-discipline, personal ethics, humility, self-actualization and strength. If you read it and aren’t profoundly changed by it, it’s probably because, as Aurelius says, “what doesn’t transmit light creates its own darkness.” You HAVE to read the Gregory Hays translation. If you want a preview of Marcus, here are five of his best quotes in a video I did. 

The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene

If you want to live life on your terms, climb as high as you know you’re capable, and avoid being controlled by others—you need to read this book. Robert is an amazing researcher and storyteller. He has a profound ability to explain timeless truths through story and example. You can read the classics and not always understand the lessons. But if you read The 48 Laws of Power, I promise you will leave not just with actionable lessons but an indelible sense of what to do in many trying and confusing situations. Is there a darkness to this book? Yes. But there is a darkness to life, too. You have to understand it, be able to defend against it, and know how to know what you’re not willing to do. Here is my podcast with Robert about this book and others. 

The Autobiography of Malcolm X 

In 1946, Malcolm Little went to jail. Looking at a decade behind bars, he faced what Robert Greene calls an “Alive Time or Dead Time” scenario. He could have served his time simply counting the days. Instead, he started reading. He literally copied the dictionary word for word. Every minute he wasn’t in his bunk, he was in the library. That was how Malcolm Little was transformed into Malcolm X, one of the great civil rights leaders of the 20th century. There’s a lot to learn from his life and his choices. Two other timelessly relevant books these days are Invisible Man and My Bondage and My Freedom.

How to Live: Or A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer by Sarah Bakewell 

Montaigne is one of humanity’s greatest treasures—a wise and insightful thinker who never takes himself too seriously. This book is spectacular. The format is a bit unusual—instead of chapters, it is made up of 20 Montaigne-style essays that discuss the man from a variety of different perspectives. Montaigne was a man obsessed with figuring himself out: why he thought the way he did, how he could find happiness, his fetishes, his near-death experiences. He lived in tumultuous times too, and he coped by looking inward. We’re lucky that he did, and we can do the same. (You might also like this piece I wrote almost a decade ago for Tim Ferriss’ blog, The Experimental Life: An Introduction to Michel de Montaigne.) This year I also re-read Stefan Zweig’s book about Montaigne, which is incredible. It’s the biography of a man who retreated from the chaos of 16th century France to study himself, written by a man fleeing the chaos of 20th century Europe. When I say it’s timely, I mean that it’s hard to be a thinking person and not see alarming warning signs about today’s world while reading this book.

History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides

“There is no History, perhaps, better adapted to this useful purpose than that of Thucydides,” as John Adams wrote to his son in 1777. “You will find it full of Instruction to the Orator, the Statesman, the General, as well as to the Historian and the Philosopher.” Indeed, people in the State Department right now are reading Thucydides to better understand the rising threat of China. Countless millions—including many of the Stoics—have read it over the last 2000 years to understand the ethical dilemmas inherent in leadership, in war, in politics, and in life. Because Thucydides was so smart, so timeless, he is able to teach lessons to us even now. And because the countries and the events are so distant and impersonal to us, we can actually hear them, learn them, and apply them to the political situations we face today. 

Plutarch’s Lives

The structure and style of my next book—Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius—was inspired by Plutarch, the master of one of my favorite categories of books to recommend—moral biographies. That is, short biographical sketches about great men and women, written with an eye towards practical application and advice. As Plutarch prefaced his portrait of Alexander the Great, “I am writing biography, not history, and the truth is that the most brilliant exploits often tell us nothing of the virtues or vices of the men who performed them, while on the other hand a chance remark or a joke may reveal far more of a man’s character than the mere feat of winning battles in which thousands fall.” That’s why Shakespeare based many of his plays on the stories of Plutarch; not only are they well-written and exciting, but they exhibit everything that is good and bad about the human condition. Greed, love, pain, hate, success, selflessness, leadership, stupidity—it’s all there. 

What Makes Sammy Run? by Budd Schulberg

This was one of the first books I read when I started working in Hollywood, and it had a powerful impact on me at 19. Some 10 years later, I pulled the book from my shelf while finishing the first draft of Ego Is the Enemy and rediscovered three handwritten pages of notes I folded and stuck in the back. Those notes expressed many of the painful lessons I wanted to share in Ego, so I adapted them into the epilogue that made it to publication. What Makes Sammy Run? is a novel that reminds us that even when egotists “win,” they lose. My favorite quote: “What a tremendous burning and blinding light ambition can be where there is something behind it, and what a puny flickering sparkler when there isn’t.” It’s also a fascinating look at the entertainment industry and what makes hustlers and strivers do the things they do.

Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

A man is sent to a concentration camp and finds some way for good to come of it. He finds some way to turn it into the ultimate metaphor for life: that we have little control over our circumstances, but complete control over our attitude and the ability to make meaning out of the things which happen to us. In Frankl’s case, we are lucky that he was a brilliant psychologist and writer and managed to turn all this into one of the most important books of the 20th century. I constantly think of his line about the man who asks, “What is the meaning of life?” The answer is that you don’t get to ask the question. Life is the one who asks and we must reply with our actions.

Average Is Over: Powering America Beyond the Age of the Great Stagnation by Tyler Cowen

There is nobody who has exposed me to more books and ideas than Tyler Cowen. Tyler is a polymath, a diverse and contrarian thinker who has incredible taste in ideas, ways of thinking, and modern and classical wisdom. In terms of business/economics, Average Is Over is one of the more important books I’ve ever read. For a long time, I even kept a framed passage from it on my wall (it also inspired a piece of writing I am proud of). Although much of what Cowen proposes will be uncomfortable, he has a tone that borders on cheerful. I think that’s what makes this so convincing and so eye-opening.

Leadership: In Turbulent Times by Doris Kearns Goodwin

This is an absolutely incredible book. It is a study of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, FDR and Lyndon Johnson, and it is so clearly the culmination of a lifetime of research… and yet, somehow, it is not overwhelming or boring. Distillation at its best! I have read extensively on each of those figures and I got a ton out of it. Even with things I already knew, I benefited from Goodwin’s perspective. This is the perfect book to read right now. 

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Now, the most important part. “To read attentively,” as Marcus put it, “not to be satisfied with ‘just getting the gist of.’” Go to the library. Pull up Amazon and buy the cheapest used copy you can find. “Borrow it” from a friend. Whatever it takes—read. It will change your life!

Like a lot of people, I try to collect words to live by. Most of these words come from reading, but also from conversations, from teachers, and from everyday life. As Seneca, the philosopher and playwright, so eloquently put it:

We should hunt out the helpful pieces of teaching and the spirited and noble-minded sayings which are capable of immediate practical application—not far-fetched or archaic expressions or extravagant metaphors and figures of speech—and learn them so well that words become works.

In my commonplace book, I keep these little sayings under the heading “Life.” That is, things that help me live better, more meaningfully, and with happiness and honesty. Below are 9 sayings, what they mean, and how they changed my life. Perhaps they will strike you and be of service. Hopefully the words might become works for you too.

“If you see fraud and do not say fraud, you are a fraud.” —Nassim Taleb

This little epigram from Nassim Taleb has been a driving force in my life. It fuels my writing, but mostly it has fueled difficult personal decisions. A few years ago, I was in the middle of a difficult personal situation in which my financial incentives were not necessarily aligned with the right thing. Speaking out would cost me money. I actually emailed Nassim. I asked: “What does ‘saying’ entail? To the person? To the public? At what cost? And how do you know where/when ego might be the influencing factor in determining where you decide to go on that public/private spectrum?” His response was simple: If it harms the collective, you speak up until it no longer does. There’s another line in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Caesar, having returned from the conquest of Gaul, is reminded to tread lightly when speaking to the senators. He replies, “Have I accomplished so much in battle, but now I’m afraid to tell some old men the truth?” That is what I think about with Nassim’s quote. What’s the point of working hard and being successful if it means biting your tongue (or declining to act) when you see something unfair or untoward? What do you care what everyone else thinks?

“It can have meaning if it changes you for the better.” —Viktor Frankl

Viktor Frankl, who was imprisoned and survived three separate Nazi concentration camps, lost his wife, his parents, job, his home and the manuscript that his entire life’s work had gone into. Yet, he emerged from this horrific nightmare convinced that life was not meaningless and that suffering was not without purpose. His work in psychology—now known as logotherapy—is reminiscent of the Stoics: We don’t control what happens to us, only how we respond. Nothing deprives us of this ability to respond, even if only in the slightest way, even if that response is only acceptance. In bad moments, I think of this line. It reminds me that I can change for the better because of it and find meaning in everything—even if my “suffering” pales in comparison to what others have gone through.

“Thou knowest this man’s fall; but thou knowest not his wrassling.” —James Baldwin

As James Baldwin reflected on the death of his father, a man who he loved and hated, he realized that he only saw the man’s outsides. Yes, he had his problems but hidden behind those external manifestations was his own unique internal struggle which no other person is ever able to fully comprehend. The same is true for everyone—your parents, your boss, the person behind you in line. We can see their flaws but not their struggles. If we can focus on this, we’ll have so much more patience and so much less anger and resentment. It reminds me of another line that means a lot to me from Pascal: “To understand is to forgive.” You don’t have to fully understand or know, but it does help to try.

“This is not your responsibility but it is your problem.” —Cheryl Strayed

Though I came to Cheryl Strayed late, the impact has been significant. In the letter this quote came from, she was speaking to someone who had something unfair done to them. But you see, life is unfair. Just because you should not have to deal with something doesn’t change whether you in fact need to. It reminds me of something my parents told me when I was learning to drive: It doesn’t matter that you had the right of way if you end up dying in an accident. Deal with the situation at hand, even if you don’t want to, even if someone else should have to, because you’re the one that’s being affected by it. End of story. Her quote is the best articulation I’ve found of that fact.

“Dogs bark at what they cannot understand.” —Heraclitus

People are going to criticize you. They are going to resist or resent what you try to do. You’re going to face obstacles and a lot of those obstacles will be other human beings. Heraclitus is explaining why. People don’t like change. They don’t like to be confused. It’s also a fact that doing new things means forcing change and confusion on other people. So, if you’re looking for an explanation for all the barking you’re hearing, there it is. Let it go, keep working, do your job. My other favorite line from Heraclitus is: “Character is fate.” Who you are and what you stand for will determine who you are and what you do. Surely character makes ignoring the barking a bit easier.

“Life is short—the fruit of this life is a good character and acts for the common good.” —Marcus Aurelius

Marcus wrote this line at some point during the Antonine Plague—a global pandemic spanning the entirety of his reign. He could have fled Rome. Most people of means did. No one would have faulted him if he did too. Instead, Marcus stayed and braved the deadliest plague of Rome’s 900-year history. And we know that he didn’t even consider choosing his safety and fleeing over his responsibility and staying. He wrote repeatedly about the Stoic concept of sympatheia—the idea that all things are mutually woven together, that we were made for eachother, that we are all one. It’s one of the lesser-known Stoic concepts because it’s easier to only think and care about the people immediately around you. It’s tempting to get consumed by your own problems. It’s natural to assume you have more in common and the same interests as the people who look like you or live like you do. But that is an insidious lie—one responsible for monstrous inhumanity and needless pain. When other people suffer, we suffer. When the world suffers, we suffer. What’s bad for the hive is bad for the bee, Marcus said. When we take actions, we have to always think: What would happen if everyone did this? What are the costs of my decisions for other people? What risks am I externalizing? Is this really what a person with good character and a concern for others would do? You have to care about others. It’s sometimes the hardest thing to do, but it’s the only thing that counts. As Heraclitus (one of Marcus’ favorites) said, character is fate. It’s the fruit of this life. 

“Happiness does not come from the seeking, it is never ours by right.” —Eleanor Roosevelt

Eleanor Roosevelt was a remarkable woman. Her father killed himself. Her mother was verbally abusive. Her husband repeatedly betrayed her—even up to the moment he died. Yet she slowly but steadily became one of the most influential and important people in the world. I think you could argue that happiness and meaning came from this journey too. Her line here is reminiscent of something explained by both Aristotle and Viktor Frankl—happiness is not pursued, it ensues. It is the result of principles and the fulfillment of our potential. It is also transitory—we get glimpses of it. We don’t have it forever and we must continually re-engage with it. Whatever quote you need to understand this truth, use it. Because it will get you through bad times and to very good ones.

“You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.” —Marcus Aurelius

If there is better advice than this, it has yet to be written. For many civilizations, the first time that their citizens realize just how vulnerable they are is when they find out they’ve been conquered, or are at the mercy of some cruel tyrant, or some uncontainable disease. It’s when somebody famous—like Tom Hanks or Marcus Aurelius—falls ill that they get serious. The result of this delayed awakening is a critical realization: We are mortal and fragile, and fate can inflict horrible things on our tiny, powerless bodies. There is no amount of fleeing or quarantining we can do to insulate ourselves from the reality of human existence: memento mori—thou art mortal. No one, no country, no planet is as safe or as special as we like to think we are. We are all at the mercy of enormous events outside our control. You can go at any moment, Marcus was constantly reminding himself with each of the events swirling around him. He made sure this fact shaped every choice and action and thought. 

“Some lack the fickleness to live as they wish and just live as they have begun.” —Seneca

After beginning with Seneca, let’s end with him. Inertia is a powerful force. The status quo—even if self-created—is comforting. So people find themselves on certain paths in life and cannot conceive of changing them, even if such a change would result in more personal happiness. We think that fickleness is a negative trait, but if it pushes you to be better and find and explore new, better things, it certainly isn’t. I’ve always been a proponent of dropping out, of quitting paths that have gotten stale. Seneca’s quote has helped me with that and I actually have it framed next to my desk so that I might look at it each day. It’s a constant reminder: Why am I still doing this? Is it for the right reasons? Or is it just because it’s been that way for a while?

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The power of these quotes is that they say a lot with a little. They help guide us through the complexity of life with their unswerving directness. They make us better, keep us centered, give us something to rest on—a kind of backstop to prevent backsliding. That’s what these 9 quotes have done for me in my life. Borrow them or dig into history or religion or philosophy to find some to add to your own commonplace book. 

And then turn those words… into works.