How To Stay Calm When Everything Goes Wrong (Stoic Lessons)
Ryan Holiday vlogs a hectic trip from London to San Diego, Lake Tahoe and home to Austin, using Stoic ideas to show how to stay calm through delays, exhaustion and travel chaos.
The gist
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Holiday cites Seneca's premeditatio malorum: expect likely travel problems, like his 30-minute holding stack at Heathrow, so they don't hit as hard.
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Holiday runs long in every city, doing 8 miles and 7 3/4 miles in London, to see the sights and build endurance.
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Borrowing from Robert Greene, Holiday treats airport waits as alive time rather than dead time, using delays to catch up on reading.
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When his wife's flight was delayed 4 and a half hours, they followed her rule: solve the problem first, sort out blame later.
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After getting home at 1:30 a.m., Holiday says memento mori puts setbacks in perspective: any trip you walk away from was a success.
Ryan Holiday recommends it
"Seneca has this idea of premeditatio malorum. He actually uses travel as an example... Things can happen when you're on the road. So, don't be surprised by them when they happen to you. The unexpected blow lands heaviest. The Stoics said, 'Don't be surprised by it. In fact, pr..."
▶ Play at 0:54
Ryan Holiday uses it
"I do have one stoic travel hack, which is that I go for a long run in every city that I'm in. So, I did eight miles yesterday. I did 7 3/4 today... I did get to see 16 miles of the city. I crossed off all the big sites... But the second part is actually the most important, whi..."
▶ Play at 5:35
Ryan Holiday uses it
"One of the best pieces of advice I ever got in my life was from Robert Greene. He said, 'There's two types of time in life. Dead time and alive time. How are you using that time?' I'm using that time to read."
▶ Play at 7:33
Ryan Holiday uses it
"It brought up one of my most important travel rules, which of course came from my wife. We solve the problem first... What we don't do is talk about why it happened. We don't talk about whose fault it is."
▶ Play at 13:50What they recommend · 4 picks
"I do have one stoic travel hack, which is that I go for a long run in every city that I'm in. So, I did eight miles yesterday. I did 7 3/4 today... I did get to see 16 miles of ..."
"Seneca has this idea of premeditatio malorum. He actually uses travel as an example... Things can happen when you're on the road. So, don't be surprised by them when they happen..."
"One of the best pieces of advice I ever got in my life was from Robert Greene. He said, 'There's two types of time in life. Dead time and alive time. How are you using that time..."
Ryan, Andrew and Tom agree on 6 things
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