[[Notes]] - Topics: [[Perspective]], [[Perspective]] - People: [[Ryan Holiday]] - Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mxefl6Gc9k --- ## Summary - [[Epictetus]] was a slave for 30 years that became a philosopher who inspired a generation of Romans (from the lowest class to the highest) based on his teachings of resilience – something everyone must have in order to thrive in their version of life. - Cultivating resilience is the discover of [[The power to endure]]. - In life, you may not always get to choose what happens to you. But, you always have the power to choose how you respond. This is the [[Faculty of choice]]. - Choose to graps the handle that allows you to move forward. To adapt, learn, overcome, and get stronger. The practice of this builds resilience. This is training for whatever life has to throw at you. - See challenges not as blockers, but as **opportunities to grow**. - **Let go** of things that you cannot change (the past) and focus on the potential that lies ahead. [[Walk on]]. - This is not resignation, but bold optimism fused with determination. - It makes you powerful and unstoppable in every human way possible. - [[Challenges are opportunities to discover who you really are and who you want to be]] ## Notes - People all over attended the philosophy lectures of this **former slave**, [[Epictetus]], because he could teach us what we all needed to know, **how to be resilient**. - Resilience leads to a mainly **untroubled life**. The ability to overcome the worst and darkest circumstances. - Epictetus had mastered it, and he taught others how to do it too. - Cultivating resilience is discovering the **power of endurance**. - It starts with the **chief task in life** - Identifying what we can control and what we cannot. - Understanding that this the key to discovering the power to endure, the building of resilience. - Example: Being insulted. "What other people say is not up to us. How we respond, is". - [[Faculty of choice]] - How we choose to respond to things. - It is our greatest power. Our most efficacious gift. Our **uniquely human capability.** - "If someone is provoking you, you must realize that your mind is complicit in the provocation." - As bad as things get, as powerless as we may feel, we **always** have the **power to choose our response**. - Our attitude, our emotions, our perspective, our creativity, our judgment our opinions. - We choose to be who we are – our unique piece in the grand puzzle of humanity. - "Every event has **2 handles** – one that which it can be carried and one by which it can't." - When crisis strikes, grab the handle that can carry us forward. One of forgiveness, strength, and optimism. - When grabbing a handle, ask yourself, are we grasping the **problem** or the **opportunity**? The have to, or the get to? - [[Don't focus on the right to be angry. Find the power to move on.]] - "There's also some good within the bad. You have to look for it and you have to grab hold of it. This is how we thrive in life". - Sometimes things are not up to us. You have to **let go, and move on**. [[Walk on]]. - [[The art of acquiescence]]. - There is a bigger picture that we cannot see, but we are apart of. - "This does not make us weak. Far from it. It makes us powerful and unstoppable in every **human way**". - [[Amor fati]]. Embracing your fate. - [[Your experience shapes you to be the person you need to be to do the things you need to do]]. - Rise above, even under the worst of circumstances. - "We must undergo a hard winters training and not rush into things, for which we haven't prepared". - This is where we get the stoic, "love of challenges", of embracing diversity. - Training for what the world is likely to throw at us. It takes work. - Resilience comes from building resilience. It takes work, practice, preparation, and most importantly, **acceptance**. - **Every challenge is training**. The opportunity to learn, adapt, and get stronger. - "In time, you will grow to be confidence that there is nothing which you do not have the means to tolerate". - [[Turn what you have to do into what you get to do]]. ## Original ![[Epictetus and the art of resilience-1.jpg]] ![[Epictetus and the art of resilience-2.jpg]] ![[Epictetus and the art of resilience-3.jpg]]