In 1922, an unknown, struggling writer named Ernest Hemingway was covering events in Switzerland when he met an editor interested in publishing his work. At last, he thought, his big break had arrived. His wife, Hadley, packed up all the writing Hemingway had accumulated in their tiny, unheated Paris apartment—manuscripts, short stories, poetry, an unfinished novel—and traveled to meet them.
But as she waited during a stopover at the Gare de Lyon train station, her bag went missing. Was it stolen? Did she forget where she left it? It doesn’t matter. It was an enormous, nearly unbearable loss. Years of work disappeared in an instant, impossible to recover.
How we choose to respond to devastating moments like this is what the Stoics would call the art of acquiescence. On the surface, that may sound like resignation or a sign of weakness. But when we discuss this idea that The Obstacle Is the Way—in case you missed it, the expanded 10th anniversary edition of the book comes out in two days (grab yours we still have a few signed, numbered first-edition copies –grab yours now while supplies last!)—it starts with us accepting that the obstacle exists, that there’s something in the road. Once we do that, with enough toughness, humility, and will, we can figure out what to do next and allow ourselves to be made better by it in the process.
Of course, no one gets there right away. “I suppose you heard about the loss of my Juvenilia?” Hemingway wrote in a letter to the writer Ezra Pound. “You, naturally, would say, ‘Good’ etc. But don’t say it to me. I ain’t yet reached that mood. I worked three years on the damn stuff.”
Eventually Hemingway did get in the mood. Within weeks he was writing again, but in a fresh, concise style that allowed him to produce more stories faster than before in order to make up for his lost time and effort. He was made better for the experience he went through as was the literary world—a new voice that revolutionized publishing came from it. And the same can be true for us and our obstacles, our mistakes, our accidents. They might not seem good in the moment, but we can make them so. As Cleanthes says, “The Fates guide the person who accepts them and hinder the person who resists them.”
The way Hemingway used his loss to his advantage—how he turned the impediment to action into the impetus for action—was one of the many new stories added to the 10th anniversary edition of The Obstacle Is the Way. How he allowed the Fates to guide him is part of the new “The Art of Acquiescence” chapter, because in recreating who he was as a writer after the loss of his life’s work, he allowed himself to be transformed by the obstacles in his path and, in the process, transform the world around him for the better.
A lot has happened in the 10 years since The Obstacle Is the Way came out, and those experiences, mistakes and lessons are some of the things that I (Hi, it’s Ryan) wanted to channel into this new edition of the book. I’m a different person, a different writer, than I was back in 2014 and I was just so excited to get a chance to improve and update this book accordingly. There were mistakes to fix, criticism to address (some not so fun), new ideas to incorporate. I’ve learned so much from all of you readers over the years as well as from writing this email every day—I wanted this new edition to reflect all that.
You can grab a signed, numbered first-edition exclusively at the Daily Stoic Store. A great companion to the book, if this is your first time or 10th time reading it, is our The Obstacle Is the Way Action Guide, which is full of exercises on how to apply the lessons from the book to your own life, as well as suggestions for what to read or watch next to extend those lessons. We also have some preorder bonuses available for a limited time, like a signed page of the manuscript I used when recording the audiobook (some with handwritten notes!) Learn more and grab your copy before they’re gone by heading to dailystoic.com/obstacle today!
