The Obstacle Is the Way

Overview

The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph (2014) is Ryan Holiday's first Stoic book and the work that launched the modern Stoic revival into the mainstream. The title is drawn from Marcus Aurelius's Meditations — "the impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way" — and the book develops the formula into a complete philosophy of adversity. The book is organized around the three Stoic disciplines: perception (how we see the obstacles), action (how we engage them), and will (how we endure them). It has been read by athletes, executives, soldiers, and artists, and it has made the Stoic attitude to difficulty — the transformation of the obstacle into the material of the progress — the signature idea of the modern Stoic movement.

Author

Ryan Holiday is an American author and media strategist, the most prominent popularizer of Stoicism in the English-speaking world. His books — The Obstacle Is the Way, Ego Is the Enemy, The Daily Stoic, and others — have sold millions of copies, and he has made the ancient philosophy accessible to a mass audience through the practical application of the Stoic disciplines to the challenges of modern life.

Historical Background

The book belongs to the modern revival of Stoicism, which recovered the ancient philosophy as a practical discipline for the contemporary world. The revival was prepared by the scholarly recovery of the Stoic texts and by the discovery of the Stoic roots of cognitive behavioral therapy, and it was popularized by the books of the new Stoic movement — above all the works of Holiday and William Irvine. The Obstacle Is the Way appeared at the crest of the revival, and it brought the Stoic attitude to adversity to the widest audience the philosophy had reached since antiquity.

Key Ideas

The book's central thesis is the formula of the title: the obstacle is the way. The obstacles of life — the setbacks, the difficulties, the failures — are not the interruptions of the progress but its material: the impediment advances the action, and what stands in the way becomes the way. The formula is developed through the three Stoic disciplines. Perception: see the obstacles as they are — not as the catastrophes but as the opportunities for the practice. Action: engage the obstacles with courage and persistence, acting with the full commitment and accepting the outcome. Will: endure the obstacles that cannot be changed, accepting the fate and finding in the endurance the strength.

The book is illustrated throughout with the examples of the great practitioners — the generals, the athletes, the artists, and the Stoics themselves — who turned the trials into the triumphs, and the examples serve the single demonstration: the attitude is the practice, and the practice is available to everyone.

Important Passages

The book's most quoted passages are the formulations of the central formula: "The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way" — the Marcus Aurelius quotation that gives the book its title; and the summary of the disciplines: "We can always choose to perceive things differently. We can focus on what is new, what is positive, what is within our control." The examples — from Demosthenes to Amelia Earhart to the modern entrepreneurs — illustrate the practice in action.

Influence

The Obstacle Is the Way has been one of the most influential books of the modern Stoic revival. It has been read by athletes (it is a favorite of NFL players and Olympians), by executives, by soldiers, and by millions of general readers, and it has made the Stoic attitude to adversity — the transformation of the obstacle into the way — a staple of the modern self-improvement culture. It has also brought a new audience to the ancient texts: the readers of Holiday's books go on to read Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and Epictetus, and the revival feeds on its own success.

Sources

• Holiday, Ryan. The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph. New York: Portfolio, 2014.
• Marcus Aurelius. Meditations. Trans. Gregory Hays. New York: Modern Library, 2002.
• Holiday, Ryan, and Stephen Hanselman. The Daily Stoic. New York: Portfolio, 2016.