The Daily Stoic

Your Obstacles Are Trying To Teach You Something

17 Mar 2020

Audio

Description

One way to go through life is to turn away from the things that are hard. You can close your eyes and ears to what is unpleasant. You can take the easy way, forgoing difficulty whenever possible. The other way is the Stoic way—it entails not only not avoiding hardship, but actively seeking it out.In the novel Memoirs of Hadrian, Marguerite Yourcenar has Hadrian write to young Marcus Aurelius about his philosophy for learning and benefiting from all of life’s adversity and unpleasantness. “Whenever an object repelled me,” he says, “I made it a subject of study, ingeniously compelling myself to extract from it a motive for enjoyment. If faced with something unforeseen or near cause for despair, like an ambush or a storm at sea, after all measures for the safety of others had been taken, I strove to welcome this hazard, to rejoice in whatever it brought me of the new and unexpected, and thus without shock the ambush or the tempest was incorporated into my plans, or my thoughts. Even in the throes of my worst disaster, I have seen a moment when sheer exhaustion reduced some part of the horror of the experience, and when I made the defeat a thing of my own in being willing to accept it.” Of course, this is fiction so Hadrian never said such a thing. But clearly somebody taught Marcus a lesson along those lines, because Meditations is filled with similar passages. Marcus writes about how a fire turns everything that is thrown into it into flame. He says that obstacles are actually fuel. “The impediment to action advances action,” he writes, “what stands in the way becomes the way.”It’s a beautiful way to approach the world—and ultimately, the only one suited for our unpredictable and stressful times. To avoid difficulty would mean complete retreat from life. It would mean hiding in ignorance. Worse, this would make you dreadfully vulnerable to crisis if it did ever find you. Instead, we must strive—as Hadrian said—to welcome hazard. We can rejoice in the unexpected and even turn failure into something by deciding to own it. We can learn from unpleasantness and even soften our aversions. This will not be easy. But that’s fitting, isn’t it? We are not naturally attracted to obstacles...which is precisely why we must work on finding out how to like them. This is the way. Great news: The Obstacle is the Way, just went on sale for $1.99 as an ebook in the US and Canada (and £3.32 in the UK). Get your copy of this #1 bestseller, read and absorbed by everyone from politicians and generals to head coaches and athletes, today.And that's not all: to help you keep the book's message close at hand, we're offering a 20% discount on our Obstacle is the Way coin and pendant at the Daily Stoic store (use code OBSTACLEDISCOUNT). See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcription

This episode hasn't been transcribed yet

Help us prioritize this episode for transcription by upvoting it.

0 upvotes

🗳️ Sign in to Upvote

Popular episodes get transcribed faster

Other episodes from The Daily Stoic

Transcribed and ready to explore now

7 Stoic Steps for Breaking an Addiction

10 Jun 2026

The Daily Stoic

Choose to See What It Gave You

10 Jun 2026

The Daily Stoic

It’s No Good Without This | Epicurus’ Secret to the Good Life

09 Jun 2026

The Daily Stoic

In The Resolute Urgency of Now | Finding The Right Mentors

08 Jun 2026

The Daily Stoic

Why Struggling Is the Point | David Epstein

07 Jun 2026

The Daily Stoic

The Stoic Mind Behind D-Day

06 Jun 2026

The Daily Stoic

View all episodes from The Daily Stoic

Comments

There are no comments yet.

Please log in to write the first comment.

Report any issue

The Daily Stoic

Your Obstacles Are Trying To Teach You Something

This episode hasn't been transcribed yet

Other episodes from The Daily Stoic

7 Stoic Steps for Breaking an Addiction

Choose to See What It Gave You

It’s No Good Without This | Epicurus’ Secret to the Good Life

In The Resolute Urgency of Now | Finding The Right Mentors

Why Struggling Is the Point | David Epstein

The Stoic Mind Behind D-Day

Sign in to Audioscrape

Share this moment