2017 is the year of everything.

This is the year we answer the question: what is the right path to everything?

Humans do not inherit an operating system for life, we are instead embroiled with instincts and emotions.

I have realized this, not only in a year of managing the content for this blog, but also in the many years I have spent contemplating my life and its forward or backward projections.

The right way to do things, or do anything, has never been transparent. If you read, and you should, you’ll quickly realize that the world’s most successful people choose to go against the common way of doing things.

Take a deeper look into Western society and you’ll realize again that the suicide rates for this part of the world are astronomical, despite our cushy lives and our endless opportunities.

The way we are told to live is based on a false premise. It is peppered with hedonistic thought, it is a neverending quest for more.

Perhaps, the worst way for a person to live is to constantly chase more and more things that never create satisfaction. Look around and you’ll sadly discover, that is where most people are.

Read More: The Outwork Book Club

The Journey of Optimal Living

I decided that the best way to figure all of this out was to reflect upon history and upon the present, to see what persists among those that are successful and happy.

What I discovered is that life philosophy is key. Humans need a guiding principle to weather the ups and downs of life. This has been true of every era in history. This helps to explain the prominence of religion in our history.

But there is another path to optimal living: it is an ancient philosophy that has stood the test of time.

A way of thinking that has humbled a Roman emperor, a slave, an imprisoned fighter pilot, a modern marketing superstar, the author of the most popular lifestyle book ever, and Tom Brady.

ENTER STOICISM

“It is the power of the mind to be unconquerable.” ― Seneca

William Irvine, in A Guide to the Good Life, notes that stoicism has been misunderstood. Its dictionary definition does not do it justice. Stoics were masters of their emotions and they worked every day to discipline their minds. They were not void of emotion, but instead aimed to banish negative emotion.

The Stoic Summer Reading List that is below combines ancient wisdom with modern circumspection that I hope will bring me closer to understanding and applying the powers of a stoic mind.

If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment. ― Marcus Aurelius

It begins with the Outwork Book Club’s review of Irvine’s A Guide to the Good Life. I thought about starting with something by one of stoicism’s founding fathers, but I opted instead for a more general overview that Irvine provides.

It is also a solid anchor before moving forward to some of the more recognized classics on Stoicism:

♦ Meditations by Marcus Aurelius (Gregory Hays translation)

♦ The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday

♦ On the Shortness of Life by Seneca

♦ Thoughts of a Philosophical Fighter Pilot by James Stockdale

This list is by no means a complete exhaustion of all stoic philosophy. There are some classics that are not on here but my goal is to optimize my thoughts and emotions and this selection meets that demand in the simplest way possible.

For added measure, I am mixing in two books that are not of stoic origins. Managing Oneself by Peter Drucker is more a leadership book originally published in the Harvard Business Review. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (Teach Yourself) by Christine Wilding is a modern psychological technique that grows from stoic roots.

Both additions are again aimed at the grandest of all goals: self-mastery and how to live one’s life.

The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way. – Marcus Aurelius

Onward, 

Chief

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