The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living

Holiday encourages readers to embrace challenges, as obstacles can help them to understand their capabilities, while an easy life may foster the wrong qualities. For instance, Musonius Rufus warned against a luxurious lifestyle, which he believed encourages injustice, greediness, and cowardice. Holiday echoes this advice, as he believes that people should try to resist living in luxury so they do not have to fear losing what they have and can achieve stability.

The same principle should be applied to our inner lives; Holiday warns against overconfidence, since it is inevitable that life will burst this “bubble” (274) and send people crashing down. The unexpected nature of some tragedies makes their pain worse, so Stoics should always remember that misfortune can happen to them. One way to avoid this kind of shock is to lessen “dependencies before they become too great” (287). Epictetus felt that people suffer because they become attached to people or things that they cannot have forever; knowing that the only permanent in life is “prohairesis, our capacity for reasoned choice” (348) leads to a more balanced and less reactive life.

Even in the absence of challenges, some people will still worry.