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One of the more well-known Stoics today is Seneca. He lived before Marcus Aurelius by roughly around One Hundred to Two Hundred years. Similar to Marcus Aurelius' work, the Meditations, Seneca also wrote various letters, the difference being to whom the letters are addressed.

"The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way" This train of thought, written to himself by Marcus Aurelius a philosopher king from 2 nd century Rome; 100-200 AD, advises what stands in our way; the hardships; the failures; these are part of the path. This is the path.  The Obstacle is the Way is heavy with stoic principles. Ryan Holidays splits the book into 3 parts: Perception, Action and Will. Managing perception; Directing action; and Enduring and accept the world as it is. Perception. It’s how we look and understand our environment. External events do not mean any specific thing. We give them meaning. How we see an event depends on whether we perceive it as strengthening or exhausting. To be objective, see things as they are, keep an even keel, stay present and focused on what can be controlled.  Action equates to doing the right things, Actions are not created equal. Working on the things that matter, and being per...

I was going through some rough times a couple months back and this book helped me go through that period. This is the best piece of literature  I read this year.   I'm not going to write a summary. Instead I'm merely going to list a couple quotable quotes I'd like to remember. Book 1 - 4: When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly. They are like this because they can't tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own-not of the same blood or birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands, and eyes, like two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel ...