Every year, I try to narrow down the hundred plus books I have recommended or read down to just the three or four best. I know that people are busy, and most of you don’t have time to read as much as you’d like. There’s absolutely no shame in that–what matters is that you make the time you can and that you pick the right books when you do. In 2014, I personally read a lot. Most of the books weren’t new releases and strangely compared to 2013, fewer books towered above the others. That made selecting this list a little harder but that didn’t mean there weren’t some potential life-changing standouts. There were plenty.

Before I get into those books, I wanted to share something I’m incredibly proud of this year: I was able to collaborate on a print with one of my artistic heroes, Joey Roth (I’ve written about him a lot). The very limited print is available here and is based on the stoic ideas in my book The Obstacle Is The Way. Here’s a post I wrote with some more background. Can’t wait for you to see it.

Now, to the books!

The Theory of Moral Sentiments by Adam Smith
I was heartily recommend this book by Dr. Drew and since the last book he recommended changed my life as a young man, I did not hesitate to get it. Now this is a tough book, a really tough book, but it is amazing. People think of Adam Smith as being this ruthless economist who studied self-interest but this forgotten book reveals that he was in fact, a great moral and practical philosopher. It is clear to me that Smith was profoundly influenced by the Stoics and by the great classic thinkers of history. Intimidated? Well, good news! It turns out Penguin published a new book this year called How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life by Russ Roberts and it happens to be an eminently accessible access point into Theory of Moral Sentiments. (In fact, I liked both so much, I am buying copies to send as a package to a handful of close friends) I hope you pick up either book and I hope its deep thoughts on the pursuit of fame, of money, and of course, his concept of the “indifferent spectator” to guide your actions, make you think as much as they did for me.

In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick
Wow, did you know that Moby Dick was based on a true story? There was a real whaling ship that was broken in half by an angry sperm whale. But it gets even more insane. The members of the crew escaped in three lifeboats, traveling thousands of miles at sea with little food and water until they slowly resorted to cannibalism(!) Besides being an utterly unbelievable story, this book also gives a great history into the whaling industry and the cowboys/entrepreneurs who led it. Definitely recommend and I promise my spoilers did not ruin anything. Another great narrative nonfiction out this year that I hope you’ll like is: The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown

Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Life and Love from Dear Sugar by Cheryl Strayed and Bird By Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott
It was wonderful to read these two provocative books of essays by two incredibly wise and compassionate women. Cheryl Strayed, also the author of Wild, was the anonymous columnist behind the online column, Dear Sugar and boy, are we better off for it. This is not a random smattering of advice. This book contains some of the most cogent insights on life, pain, loss, love, success, youth that I have ever seen. I won’t belabor the point: read this book. Thank me later. Anne Lamott’s book is ostensibly about the art of writing, but really it too is about life and how to tackle the problems, temptations and opportunities life throws at us. Both will make you think and both made me a better person this year.

Some Others:
Of course, I cannot stop at three (or four). I read both of Sam Sheridan’s books A Fighter’s Heart and A Fighter’s Mind this year and they are both spectacular. Don’t be put off by the subject matter. They are good. Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics was something I reread and cannot recommend highly enough. In terms of big biographies, Ron Chernow’s biography of Washington, Eric Romm’s biography of Seneca Dying Every Day (LOVED THIS) and Edmund Morris’ final biography of Theodore Roosevelt, Col. Roosevelt were all worth every page. If you want a full list of what I learned reading in 2014, well, I put that together too.

So, thank you again for subscribing to this newsletters. It’s been an immense pleasure chatting with you, all 35,000 of you, this year. I hope you had a great 2014 and an even better year of reading in 2015.

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With the end of the year upon us, I thought I would do a round up of everything I’ve written and published (other than here) since my last round up in August. If you missed any of these, definitely follow me on Twitter, where I post each article when it goes live. Hope you enjoy these articles and feel free to share them.

More to come in 2015!

BETABEAT

The New Media Dilemma: Eschewing Crap for Quality, Despite the Incentives (August 11, 2014)

Thought Catalog: Why I Won’t Pull My Pieces, Despite the Outrage (August 22, 2014)

Spare Us The Sanctimony: The Gross Hypocrisy of Online Media in the Nude Photo Leak (September 2, 2014)

Apple’s Free Ride: Why Journalists Treat Product Launches Like News (September 9, 2014)

Facebook Is Getting Rid of Clickbait — But Not Because They Care About You (September 15, 2014)

Who Can You Trust? A Guide To Your Online Media Diet (September 23, 2014)

The Giant Online Ad Scam: Infinite Inventory and Prices That Should Be a Red Flag (October 7, 2014)

Rage Profiteers: How Bloggers Harness Our Anger For Their Own Gain (October 21, 2014)

From Zero to 35,000: How I Built A Big Email List Exclusively About Books I Liked (November 25, 2014)

I Was Summoned by #GamerGate; Here’s What I Saw (December 3, 2014)

You Are So Terrible: A Letter About the Cosby Coverage (December 9, 2014)

No Gray Area: It’s Definitely Not OK to Publish Emails From the Sony Hack (December 12, 2014).

If You Think the Sony Hacks Were a PR Stunt, You’re an Idiot (December 26, 2014)

THOUGHT CATALOG

3 Stages To Actually Knowing What You’re Talking About: Where Are You On The Path? (August 7, 2014)

5 Criminally Underrated Things About LA (August 15, 2014)

No Matter What You Want To Change, It Won’t Be As Terrifying As The First Step You Take Toward Making It (August 21, 2014)

You’ve Been Voluntold. (August 27, 2014)

So You’ve Just Dropped Out Of College (Or Made A Life-Changing Decision) (September 2, 2014).

What Is “Work Aversion,” And Do You Have It? (September 16, 2014)

Alive Time Vs. Dead Time: Which Are You In? (September 22, 2014)

Why Do You Do What You Do? Because You Better Know. (October 2, 2014)

The 16 Best Books About Marketing, Period. (October 13, 2014)

Passion Is The Problem, Not The Solution (October 26, 2014)

13 Quotes On Being Magnanimous From Aristotle (November 3, 2014)

2 Simple Rules That Great Readers Live By (But Never Tell) (November 12, 2014)

Two Questions Every Writer Needs To Ask Themselves (November 20, 2014)

Things I Learned Reading In 2014 (November 30, 2014)

How To See Opportunity Where Others See A Roadblock (December 7, 2014)

The Difference Between Just Saying Something And Having Something Worth Saying (December 11, 2014)

3 Books You Absolutely Must Read Next Year (December 17, 2014)

Every Phone Call Can Be A Walk in The Park (December 23, 2014)

NEW YORK OBSERVER

Disrupting How Bestsellers Are Made: Apply Startup-style Growth Hacking To Publishing (October 14, 2014)

Abraham Lincoln as Media Manipulator-in-Chief: The 150 Year History of Corrupt Press (November 5, 2014)

5 Reasons Nobody Likes Tech PR (November 19, 2014)

Ryan Holiday Picks the Best Books of 2014 (December 18, 2014)

ENTREPRENEUR.COM

Capturing Repeat Customers Is the Magic of Growth Hacking (November 12, 2014)

THE NEXT WEB

Productivity Advice I Learned From People Much Smarter Than Me (November 21, 2014)

99U

This Is Why You Don’t Have a Mentor

SVBSCRIPTION

Three Ways To Refocus Your World (December 12, 2014)

STOICISM TODAY

Stoicism Is For Life, Not a Week (November 22, 2014)

GENIUS.COM

Growth Hacker Marketing (Annotated Excerpt)

LINKEDIN

The Single Worst Marketing Mistake You Can Make (October 29, 2014)

BUSINESS INSIDER

How To Build A Self-Perpetuating Marketing Machine That Reaches Millions By Itself (December 13, 2014)

Here we are at the end of the year once again. It’s ironic to me that sandwiched at the completion of one year and the beginning of another, we have two vastly different rituals.

On the one hand, we have Christmas, which has for too many of us, become so materialistic and gluttonous. We expect gifts and good food and overindulge in both. On the other hand, we have the “New Year, New You” mentality which promotes ambitious new resolutions in which we commit to utterly change ourselves in the upcoming twelve months (or until we abandon these inconvenient goals).

It all seems to be all so misguided. In a way, one creates the problems that the other attempts to solve.

New Year’s resolutions can however be a useful way to reflect on your bad habits.

For example, one of my friends recently managed to give up smoking after first making the switch to vaping. This time last year, he bought an e-cigarette and some e-liquid from the Air Factory range and slowly but surely began to suppress his nicotine addiction. It’s no secret that vaping is claimed to be a safer alternative to regular cigarettes, so resolutions such as this can certainly have a positive impact on our lives and well being.

Furthermore, the Stoics provide good advice here, as always. These two thousand year old, pre-Christian philosophers offer us a clearer way to live–without the ups and downs and extra helpings of self-loathing.

Let’s look at three quick insights for the holiday season:

First, practice your “contemptuous expressions.” I know contempt seems like a weird emotion to bring to Christmas but stay with me. As you look out over the bountiful offering of Christmas–the presents, the food, the lights–remind yourself what this stuff really is: a bunch of stuff. As Marcus Aurelius once wrote, sounding like he was almost describing a Christmas dinner:

“Like seeing roasted meat and other dishes in front of you and suddenly realizing: This is a dead fish. A dead bird. A dead pig. Perceptions like that—latching onto things and piercing through them, so we see what they really are. That’s what we need to do all the time.”

What’s important are the people and the thoughts. Don’t let yourself get distracted from them.

Second, live in the present moment. That is, don’t obsess over what has happened in the past or lose yourself in visions of the future. Focus on what is right here, right in front of you. Make the most of it, and enjoy yourself. This moment could be all you have after all–it’s so much better to think that 2015 is not a guarantee and then to be grateful for all of it, then to have expectations and entitlements that go unfulfilled.

As Marcus Aurelius reminded himself:

“Don’t let your imagination be crushed by life as a whole. Don’t try to picture everything bad that could possibly happen. Stick with the situation at hand.”

What matters right now is right now. Enjoy it.

Third, if you are going to try to improve in the next year or you do have some regrets about the previous year, don’t just hope that this will happen. That’s not how it works. As Seneca wrote to a friend who’d asked for advice, you need to pick a person or a model to hold yourself against.

“Choose someone whose way of life as well as words, and whose very face as mirroring the character that lies behind it, have won your approval. Be always pointing him out to yourself either as your guardian or as your model. There is a need, in my view, for someone as a standard against which our characters can measure themselves. Without a ruler to do it against you won’t make crooked straight. ”

So, who will it be for you this year?

**

Stoicism is not something you “believe”, it’s something you do. It’s a practical philosophy. The more you work it, the more it will do for you. So why not start now? There isn’t a better time.

As a final parting thought, remember that we choose whether this was a good year or a bad year. We choose whether everything is good or bad. As Seneca said, “a good person dyes events with his own color…and turns whatever happens to his own benefit.”

This is the attitude for success and optimism in all situations. By controlling our perceptions, we create a reality in which every situation, no matter what it is, provides us with a positive, exposed benefit we can act on, if only we look for it.

With this in mind, I hope you enjoy the holidays and consider the Stoics when you can.

For more on Stoicism visit The Daily Stoic.