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The Obstacle Is the Way

Metadata

  • Author: Ryan Holiday
  • ASIN: B00G3L1B8K
  • ISBN: 1591846358
  • Reference: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00G3L1B8K
  • Kindle link

Highlights

He rarely rose to excess or anger, and never to hatred or bitterness. — location: 100 ^ref-25910

It’s not just: How can I think this is not so bad? No, it is how to will yourself to see that this must be good—an — location: 179 ^ref-28614

Not “be positive” but learn to be ceaselessly creative and opportunistic. — location: 181 ^ref-58337

Too often we react emotionally, get despondent, and lose our perspective. All that does is turn bad things into really bad things. — location: 299 ^ref-27592

We have a choice about how we respond to this situation (or any situation, for that matter). We can be blindly led by these primal feelings or we can understand them and learn to filter them. Discipline in perception lets you clearly see the advantage and the proper course of action in every situation—without the pestilence of panic or fear. — location: 305 ^ref-44656

They hadn’t ruined his life—they’d just put him somewhere he didn’t deserve to be and he did not intend to stay there. — location: 339 ^ref-24220

Carter did not even request an apology from the court. Because to him, that would imply that they’d taken something of his that Carter felt he was owed. That had never been his view, even in the dark depths of solitary confinement. He had made his choice: This can’t harm me—I might not have wanted it to happen, but I decide how it will affect me. No one else has the right. — location: 342 ^ref-3160

if we have our wits fully about us, we can step back and remember that situations, by themselves, cannot be good or bad. — location: 355 ^ref-38447

through our perception of events, we are complicit in the creation—as well as the destruction—of every one of our obstacles. — location: 365 ^ref-62612

Regardless of how much actual danger we’re in, stress puts us at the potential whim of our baser—fearful—instinctual reactions. — location: 402 ^ref-14508

Uncertainty and fear are relieved by authority. Training is authority. It’s a release valve. With enough exposure, you can adapt out those perfectly ordinary, even innate, fears that are bred mostly from unfamiliarity. — location: 430 ^ref-31442

It’s time to realize that this is a luxury, an indulgence of our lesser self. In space, the difference between life and death lies in emotional regulation. — location: 437 ^ref-14622

Life is really no different. Obstacles make us emotional, but the only way we’ll survive or overcome them is by keeping those emotions in check—if we can keep steady no matter what happens, no matter how much external events may fluctuate. — location: 442 ^ref-52103

the skill that must be cultivated—freedom from disturbance and perturbation—so you can focus your energy exclusively on solving problems, — location: 447 ^ref-34251

If an emotion can’t change the condition or the situation you’re dealing with, it is likely an unhelpful emotion. Or, quite possibly, a destructive one. — location: 454 ^ref-2871

don’t lie to yourself by conflating emoting about a problem and dealing with it. Because they are as different as sleeping and waking. — location: 458 ^ref-14792

I am in control, not my emotions. I see what’s really going on here. I’m not going to get excited or upset. — location: 459 ^ref-6506

see these things as they really are, without any of the ornamentation. — location: 509 ^ref-47094

when you can break apart something, or look at it from some new angle, it loses its power over you. — location: 532 ^ref-45263

What we can do is limit and expand our perspective to whatever will keep us calmest and most ready for the task at hand. — location: 550 ^ref-29865

That was what he began projecting in his auditions—not exclusively his acting skills but that he was the man for the job. — location: 566 ^ref-23866

Focus on the moment, not the monsters that may or may not be up ahead. — location: 658 ^ref-50206

though our doubts (and self-doubts) feel real, they have very little bearing on what is and isn’t possible. — location: 694 ^ref-57480

It’s this all-too-common impulse to complain, defer, and then give up that holds us back. — location: 720 ^ref-32713

the worst thing to happen is never the event, but the event and losing your head. — location: 808 ^ref-32637

So when you’re frustrated in pursuit of your own goals, don’t sit there and complain that you don’t have what you want or that this obstacle won’t budge. If you haven’t even tried yet, then of course you will still be in the exact same place. You haven’t actually pursued anything. — location: 946 ^ref-53028

If we’re to overcome our obstacles, this is the message to broadcast—internally and externally. We will not be stopped by failure, we will not be rushed or distracted by external noise. We will chisel and peg away at the obstacle until it is gone. Resistance is futile. — location: 970 ^ref-12491

The one way to guarantee we don’t benefit from failure—to ensure it is a bad thing—is to not learn from it. — location: 1067 ^ref-51904

the world doesn’t have time to plead, argue, and convince them of their errors. — location: 1070 ^ref-33609

Think about what you needed to do in this drill, on this play, in this moment. That’s the process: Let’s think about what we can do today, the task at hand.” — location: 1086 ^ref-39407

Even mammoth tasks become just a series of component parts. — location: 1098 ^ref-14618

Being trapped is just a position, not a fate. You get out of it by addressing and eliminating each part of that position through small, deliberate actions—not by trying (and failing) to push it away with superhuman strength. — location: 1122 ^ref-28657

We’ve just wrongly assumed that it has to happen all at once, and we give up at the thought of it. We are A-to-Z thinkers, fretting about A, obsessing over Z, yet forgetting all about B through Y. — location: 1131 ^ref-23270

Any way that works—that’s the motto. — location: 1218 ^ref-32231

With the stakes this high, you better be willing to bend the rules or do something desperate or crazy. To thumb your nose at the authorities and say: What? This is not a bridge. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Or, in some cases, giving the middle finger to the people trying to hold you down and blowing right through their evil, disgusting rules. — location: 1236 ^ref-48278

ambitious enough to get everything you need. Don’t think small, but make the distinction between the critical and the extra. — location: 1248 ^ref-3218