
IN A NUTSHELL
This book is like the gateway drug into Stoic Philosophy.
Structured in bite sized and easily digestible way.
For people who are interested but also dreading Philosophy at the same time.
Get you into positive mindset everyday of the year.
FORMAT
The book has 366 passages of Stoic wisdom and philosophy and every page has a date and month for each day of the and even accounting for leap years, hence the 366 passages. I believe the author’s intention was for the reader to read 1 passage per day for several reasons. First, I think he wanted to make it easily digestible and in bite sizes because the content is somewhat heavy, after all this is a philosophy book. Furthermore, I think that the author, who is a productivity nut, believes that good daily habits it a prerequisite for success, and daily reading is definitely a good habit utilized by most successful people. Lastly, I think that the author believes that if you can start everyday with the right mindset, which this book does enable, you’ve already won half the battle and you are already off to a good start to win the day.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR & HIS WRITING STYLE
Ryan Holiday is a bestselling author and is best known for his books such as The Obstacle Is the Way and Ego Is the Enemy. He began his career by apprenticing for the great Robert Greene who wrote 48 Laws Of Power. His writing style at least for this book is direct, succinct, and easy to understand.
WHO IS THIS FOR?
This book is for anyone who is interested in Stoic Philosophy or in Philosophy in general. Philosophy can be quite scary for a newbie because there is an ocean of philosophy books, categories, and authors to choose from. You will just be overwhelmed and paralyze by the breadth of the content available on this subject. And even just in the Stoic Philosophy itself, there’s many authors / philosophers and each of them have several books, so you wouldn’t know where to start. To compound to the problem, the subject itself is quite heavy, hard to understand and difficult to tackle. This book is like a mixed tape, a greatest hits album if you will, and structure in a bite size and easy to digest way for a novice. This is also a great way for you to get a glimpse of each author / philosopher and see which one resonates with you so you can dig deeper into that particular author’s work.
OBJECTIVE COMMENT
I think that this book is brilliantly done. Being a rookie in reading philosophy myself, I really like the structure of the book. I believe there are tons of people out there who are interested in reading philosophy but the content is just so complicated and overwhelming, and even though we’ve already bought the book, we either don’t read it at all or try a few pages and give up. This book is really a god send in my opinion. Not only the author structures it in simplified manner, he also give kind of explanation and commentary under every passage to make the reader fully understand the message.
WHAT DID I GET FROM THIS BOOK
There’s several things that I got from this book personally. First, it made me take the plunge into reading my first philosophy book. Furthermore, I have started the habit of reading every morning about 3 years ago and from a habit it already has turned into a ritual. I like to read and finish a chapter everyday so at least I finish the thought of the author in that section and I can ponder on the message. But there are still days that I don’t get to read due to various reasons mostly outside my control. Since I’ve bought this book I’ve been reading everyday without fail because it is only one page for each thought or message. Even on days that time doesn’t permit me to read a chapter, I still can read one page, finish the author thought and digest the message. It’s been a God send. Lastly, this book puts me in the right and positive mindset every morning before I tackle my day. It’s a lot like a good warm up routine and pep talk before game time as opposed to just rolling out of bed, suiting up, and competing in the Olympics, while expecting to outperform everybody else.
SUBJECTIVE OPINION
In my personal and humble opinion. If you are like me who like to read philosophy or quotes and just ponder, day dream, and be lost in thought, then you can just focus on the passages and ignore the commentaries beneath. I think his commentaries is a little like reading the novel vs watching the movie. When reading the novel, it leaves the imagination up to you and you can let your mind flow wherever it wants to go, while when watching a movie, it specifically guides you through story through the directors vision and imagination.
VERDICT
To endorse this book is a no brainer. I think everyone should have this book in their collection. If you are serious about success, self improvement, positive mindset, or personal growth, this books really needs to be in your tool kit. The beauty of Philosophy is that it never gets old. It’s always relevant. Not only you can, but you should re-read philosophy books and you will get a different take on the same passages when you are at a different point and time in your life. You will get a different perspective. So from that stand point this is book that you can buy and read for the rest of your life. What a value! Highly recommended!!!

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