- Seen elsewhere on the internet and published with permission.
Title: Wisdom takes work
Author: Ryan Holiday
By design, this was the first book I read in 2026. I’m a card-carrying Stoic, and I probably had a great affinity with this way of thinking and life, long before I knew what it should be called. Ryan Holiday and I are contemporaries in age (pushing 40, spring chickens; he’s roughly a year younger), and I’ve read and thoroughly enjoyed the first three books in this Stoic virtues series.
I’d like to think my built-in bullshit detector works pretty well, and that I can tell the difference between a flash in the pan or a fad, and a writer with a belief system or philosophy that will actually make me a better, more thoughtful person over time. Reading Holiday’s The daily Stoic some years ago, as well as his Lives of the Stoics, and then deep-diving into the seminal works of Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Epictetus and others, has indeed helped me to reaffirm two of the most important principles in life. We don’t control what happens in the world or to us, but only how we choose to respond. No amount of righteous anger, disappointment writ large or despair at the state of the world is going to make a difference to what is happening out there. Taking considered, measured action – being thoughtful and mindful of the gap between stimulus and response – now there’s a thought worth pursuing!
Furthermore, we are always in the process of becoming, always learning and always improving, if we let ourselves. We can find a multitude of freedoms and ways of being in the world by learning from the experiences, stories and wisdom of others. There’s nothing new under the sun; every age has brought fundamental challenges and conflicts that mankind has had to find ways to overcome.
The smart man knows that he barely knows a thing; the fool basks in his own glory, and bellows to all and sundry about what he knows and how much smarter he is than anyone else. In a post-truth, “loud and proud” world of political posturing, influencers and snake oil salesmen, it’s exceptionally refreshing to meet a man like Ryan Holiday at eye-level. He is the kind of guy equally adept at relishing historical detail and drawing parallels between ancient and modern times, as he is at talking about the perils and privileges of being a parent, in a book such as The daily dad.
Stoic philosophy has entered the mainstream over the past number of years, and a kind of overblown, machismo-led and ultimately very shaky version of idealised masculinity and self-improvement has taken root globally, spearheaded by the likes of Andrew Tate and others. Despite this fact, many still have a completely or partially skewed idea of what Stoicism and Stoic philosophy truly are. No, it doesn’t mean a stiff upper lip above all else, and just pushing your feelings down to make them more manageable. Nor does it mean thinking you’re better than everybody else, and becoming a walking soundbite about how Marcus Aurelius would actually dig the self-actualising power of TikTok or the Instagram reel. It definitely has no correlation to weaponising thought or knowledge into a divisive and destructive “us and them”, zero-sum game form of politics of antagonism and despair.
Perhaps more than Discipline is destiny, Courage is calling and Right thing, right now, to my mind Wisdom takes work is the apex and most cogent distillation of what lies at the very heart of being a Stoic. It is an openness and a genuine, unwavering embrace of the fact that we find meaning and purpose not by becoming experts at the art of living, but by never stopping being curious about the world, its people and how we can make a difference. Heavy lies the crown for some, but it doesn’t have to be so.
Courage, temperance and justice – three of the four foundational virtues – all flow from wisdom. Being wise, having true wisdom and knowing the difference between what truly matters and what is merely loud, empty noise, is the forefront of this exceptionally well-crafted and instructive read. If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for everything, as the saying goes. Wisdom takes work arrives in the form of a no-sentence-wasted, all-killer and no-filler “best of” when it comes to historical figures (and history always includes the present) and their stories, learnings and curiosities, all packaged together to be in conversation and to spark thought and action from the reader. Marcus Aurelius, Montaigne, Lincoln, Joan Didion, Maya Angelou and even Anne Frank are some of the well-known people Holiday positions as students, readers and eventually authors in their own right.
We tend to think of these and other well-known and esteemed figures as fully formed, and as people who made their indelible mark on this world. But what about the formative learning experiences, the intellectual journeys and the backstories that made them who they were? What kind of relationship did they have with books, libraries, teachers and mentors? Who taught them the first principles, non-negotiable?
I can virtually guarantee that you’ll be fascinated by the case studies on offer here. They go some way to reveal how the human beings (certainly not always political figures exclusively) whom we recognise for being courageous, selfless, positively influential and ultimately wise, all had a fundamental desire to question their place in the world and the ways knowledge circulated in that world.
You can’t help but be moved when Holiday shares fragments around the literary “curation” done by Joan Didion. He shows how she insisted that living in the world meant engaging with its myriad politics and uncertainties, and with its sheer messiness and multitudes. You can’t help but shed a tear when the author speculates that Anne Frank might well have made an outstanding writer at large. And what about Montaigne’s almost unbelievable lifelong education, one we’re tempted to write with a capital E?
Holiday has collected and collated significant, sometimes surprising, and always powerful glimmers of wisdom, reminding his readers that it is our duty to view ourselves as indefatigable readers and archivists of personal wisdom. You’ve got such a splendid bouquet of thought, aphorism and rich insight here, that it’s mighty tempting to want to bookmark almost the entire text. And that’s very much the point: One line, one idea, one insight, found at the right time and with the right frame of mind, can quite literally change a life. You’re never too young or too old to start or keep learning.
Ryan Holiday has gone some way toward perfecting his craft. Wisdom takes work is his modern-day Meditations of sorts, a very personal kind of other-directed reckoning and taking stock, that allows the reader to pick and choose what resonates and what doesn’t.
Having devoted almost his entire adult life to studying, writing about and talking about his beloved Stoics, he can finally lay claim to a genuinely moving accomplishment. He himself has fully emulated the Stoic philosophy by not only living his truth and producing works of literature, but connecting readers to “wise works” in his bookstore, The Painted Porch, in Main Street in Bastrop, Texas. Wisdom takes work, indeed.
See also:
Seen elsewhere: Intermezzo by Sally Rooney – a reader’s impression
Seen elsewhere: We two from heaven by James Whyle – a reader’s impression