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Title: The Obstacle Is the Way Authors: Ryan Holiday Category:supplementals Number of Highlights: 66 Date: 2025-12-28 Last Highlighted: **
Highlights
There is no good or bad without us, there is only perception. There is the event itself and the story we tell ourselves about what it means.
Tags:act,favorite,perception,stoic
There is always a countermove, always an escape or a way through, so there is no reason to get worked up. No one said it would be easy and, of course, the stakes are high, but the path is there for those ready to take it.
Tags:perception,stoic
âThe obstacle in the path becomes the path. Never forget, within every obstacle is an opportunity to improve our condition.â
Tags:favorite,opportunity,stoic
In life our first job is this, to divide and distinguish things into two categories: externals I cannot control, but the choices I make with regard to them I do control. Where will I find good and bad? In me, in my choices.
Donât let the force of an impression when it first hit you knock you off your feet; just say to it: Hold on a moment; let me see who you are and what you represent. Let me put you to the test.
Tags:perception
The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.
Tags:stoic
Where the head goes, the body follows. Perception precedes action. Right action follows the right perspective.
Tags:action,favorite,motivation,perception,stoic
Objective judgment, now at this very moment. Unselfish action, now at this very moment. Willing acceptanceânow at this very momentâof all external events. Thatâs all you need.
Tags:present,problem_solving,stoic,stress
Our perceptions determine, to an incredibly large degree, what we are and are not capable of. In many ways, they determine reality itself.
Tags:favorite,perception
Every obstacle is unique to each of us. But the responses they elicit are the same: Fear. Frustration. Helplessness. Depression.
Tags:perception,problem_solving,stoic
Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become the next moment. By the same token, every human being has the freedom to change at any instant.
Tags:existentialism,stoic
âBad companies are destroyed by crisis. Good companies survive them. Great companies are improved by them.â
Tags:perception,problem_solving,stoic,work
See things for what they are. Do what we can. Endure and bear what we must. What blocked the path now is a path. What once impeded action advances action. The Obstacle is the Way.
Choose not to be harmedâand you wonât feel harmed. Donât feel harmedâand you havenât been.
Tags:perspective,problem_solving
You will come across obstacles in lifeâfair and unfair. And you will discover, time and time again, that what matters most is not what these obstacles are but how we see them, how we react to them, and whether we keep our composure.
Tags:problem_solving,stoic
Focusing exclusively on what is in our power magnifies and enhances our power.
Tags:problem_solving,stoic,work
âThe Things which hurt,â Benjamin Franklin wrote, âinstruct.â
Tags:favorite,knowledge,perspective
In the meantime, cling tooth and nail to the following rule: not to give in to adversity, not to trust prosperity, and always take full note of fortuneâs habit of behaving just as she pleases.
Tags:stoic
âNothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so,â as Shakespeare put it.
Tags:stoic
If weâre to overcome our obstacles, this is the message to broadcastâinternally and externally. We will not be stopped by failure, we will not be rushed or distracted by external noise. We will chisel and peg away at the obstacle until it is gone. Resistance is futile.
Tags:stoic
Real strength lies in the control or, as Nassim Taleb put it, the domestication of oneâs emotions, not in pretending they donât exist.
âDonât think about winning the SEC Championship. Donât think about the national championship. Think about what you needed to do in this drill, on this play, in this moment. Thatâs the process: Letâs think about what we can do today, the task at hand.â
Being trapped is just a position, not a fate. You get out of it by addressing and eliminating each part of that position through small, deliberate actionsânot by trying (and failing) to push it away with superhuman strength.
Tags:problem_solving
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change The courage to change the things I can, And the wisdom to know the difference.
First, see clearly. Next, act correctly. Finally, endure and accept the world as it is.
Tags:stoic
The process is about doing the right things, right now. Not worrying about what might happen later, or the results, or the whole picture.
A good person dyes events with his own color . and turns whatever happens to his own benefit.
Tags:perspective
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.
Tags:fate,problem_solving,stoic
We must all either wear out or rust out, every one of us. My choice is to wear out.
Just because the conditions arenât exactly to your liking, or you donât feel ready yet, doesnât mean you get a pass. If you want momentum, youâll have to create it yourself, right now, by getting up and getting started.
Tags:exercise,motivation,work
If you think itâs simply enough to take advantage of the opportunities that arise in your life, you will fall short of greatness. Anyone sentient can do that. What you must do is learn how to press forward precisely when everyone around you sees disaster.
Tags:motivation,persistence
Remember and remind yourself of a phrase favored by Epictetus: âpersist and resist.â Persist in your efforts. Resist giving in to distraction, discouragement, or disorder.
Tags:motivation,stoic
Genius is the ability to put into effect what is in your mind. Thereâs no other definition of it.
Tags:problem_solving
What such a man needs is not courage but nerve control, cool headedness. This he can get only by practice.
Discipline in perception lets you clearly see the advantage and the proper course of action in every situationâwithout the pestilence of panic or fear.
Tags:discipline,perception
When it comes to our actions, disorder and distraction are death. The unordered mind loses track of whatâs in front of itâwhat mattersâand gets distracted by thoughts of the future. The process is order, it keeps our perceptions in check and our actions in sync.
Tags:action,perception
âYou never want a serious crisis to go to waste. Things that we had postponed for too long, that were long-term, are now immediate and must be dealt with. [A] crisis provides the opportunity for us to do things that you could not do before.â
Tags:crisis,opportunity
We forget: In life, it doesnât matter what happens to you or where you came from. It matters what you do with what happens and what youâve been given. And the only way youâll do something spectacular is by using it all to your advantage.
Tags:stoic
The struggle against an obstacle inevitably propels the fighter to a new level of functioning. The extent of the struggle determines the extent of the growth. The obstacle is an advantage, not adversity. The enemy is any perception that prevents us from seeing this.
Tags:growth,problem_solving
Ordinary people shy away from negative situations, just as they do with failure. They do their best to avoid trouble. What great people do is the opposite. They are their best in these situations. They turn personal tragedy or misfortuneâreally anything, everythingâto their advantage.
Tags:perspective,problem_solving,stoic
This is the skill that must be cultivatedâfreedom from disturbance and perturbationâso you can focus your energy exclusively on solving problems, rather than reacting to them.
Tags:focus,problem_solving,stoic
Failure shows us the wayâby showing us what isnât the way.
Tags:failing
The great psychologist Viktor Frankl, survivor of three concentration camps, found presumptuousness in the age-old question: âWhat is the meaning of life?â As though it is someone elseâs responsibility to tell you. Instead, he said, the world is asking you that question. And itâs your job to answer with your actions.
To do great things, we need to be able to endure tragedy and setbacks. Weâve got to love what we do and all that it entails, good and bad. We have to learn to find joy in every single thing that happens.
Focus on the moment, not the monsters that may or may not be up ahead.
Uncertainty and fear are relieved by authority. Training is authority. Itâs a release valve. With enough exposure, you can adapt out those perfectly ordinary, even innate, fears that are bred mostly from unfamiliarity. Fortunately, unfamiliarity is simple to fix (again, not easy), which makes it possible to increase our tolerance for stress and uncertainty.
The observing eye sees events, clear of distractions, exaggerations, and misperceptions. The perceiving eye sees âinsurmountable obstaclesâ or âmajor setbacksâ or even just âissues.â It brings its own issues to the fight. The former is helpful, the latter is not.
The next step after we discard our expectations and accept what happens to us, after understanding that certain thingsâparticularly bad thingsâare outside our control, is this: loving whatever happens to us and facing it with unfailing cheerfulness.
Tags:acceptance,problem_solving,stoic
What is defeat? Nothing but education; nothing but the first steps to something better.
Tags:problem_solving
To be physically and mentally loose takes no talent. Thatâs just recklessness. (We want right action, not action period.) To be physically and mentally tight? Thatâs called anxiety. It doesnât work, either. Eventually we snap. But physical looseness combined with mental restraint? That is powerful.
Tags:stoic
The best men are not those who have waited for chances but who have taken them; besieged chance, conquered the chance, and made chance the servitor.
Tags:opportunity,stoic
Itâs three interdependent, interconnected, and fluidly contingent disciplines: Perception, Action, and the Will.
Tags:action,perception,will
You donât convince people by challenging their longest and most firmly held opinions. You find common ground and work from there. Or you look for leverage to make them listen. Or you create an alternative with so much support from other people that the opposition voluntarily abandons its views and joins your camp.
Tags:negotiation
Many of our problems come from having too much: rapid technological disruption, junk food, traditions that tell us the way weâre supposed to live our lives. Weâre soft, entitled, and scared of conflict. Great times are great softeners. Abundance can be its own obstacle, as many people can attest.
Tags:conflict,perspective
Itâs okay to be discouraged. Itâs not okay to quit. To know you want to quit but to plant your feet and keep inching closer until you take the impenetrable fortress youâve decided to lay siege to in your own lifeâthatâs persistence.
Stop pretending that what youâre going through is somehow special or unfair. Whatever trouble youâre havingâno matter how difficultâis not some unique misfortune picked out especially for you. It just is what it is.
Tags:problem_solving
The task, as Pericles showed, is not to ignore fear but to explain it away. Take what youâre afraid ofâwhen fear strikes youâand break it apart.
Tags:fear,introspection,stoic
Itâs one thing to not be overwhelmed by obstacles, or discouraged or upset by them. This is something that few are able to do. But after you have controlled your emotions, and you can see objectively and stand steadily, the next step becomes possible: a mental flip, so youâre looking not at the obstacle but at the opportunity within it.
It might help to say it over and over again whenever you feel the anxiety begin to come on: I am not going to die from this. I am not going to die from this. I am not going to die from this.
Everything we do mattersâwhether itâs making smoothies while you save up money or studying for the barâeven after you already achieved the success you sought. Everything is a chance to do and be your best. Only self-absorbed assholes think they are too good for whatever their current station requires.
We craft our spiritual strength through physical exercise, and our physical hardiness through mental practice (mens sana in corpore sanoâsound mind in a strong body).
Perspective is everything. That is, when you can break apart something, or look at it from some new angle, it loses its power over you.
The goal is: Not: Iâm okay with this. Not: I think I feel good about this. But: I feel great about it. Because if it happened, then it was meant to happen, and I am glad that it did when it did. I am meant to make the best of it.
No one is coming to save you. And if weâd like to go where we claim we want to goâto accomplish what we claim are our goalsâthere is only one way. And thatâs to meet our problems with the right action.
Think progress, not perfection.
We donât get to choose what happens to us, but we can always choose how we feel about it.