Stillness is the Key: An Ancient Strategy for Modern Life

by Ryan Holiday

Hardcover, 2019

Status

Available

Call number

R15

Publication

Profile Books (2019), Edition: Main, 288 pages

Description

Business. Philosophy. Self-Improvement. Nonfiction. HTML:Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller & Wall Street Journal Bestseller In The Obstacle Is the Way and Ego Is the Enemy, bestselling author Ryan Holiday made ancient wisdom wildly popular with a new generation of leaders in sports, politics, and technology. In his new book, Stillness Is the Key, Holiday draws on timeless Stoic and Buddhist philosophy to show why slowing down is the secret weapon for those charging ahead. All great leaders, thinkers, artists, athletes, and visionaries share one indelible quality. It enables them to conquer their tempers. To avoid distraction and discover great insights. To achieve happiness and do the right thing. Ryan Holiday calls it stillness�??to be steady while the world spins around you. In this book, he outlines a path for achieving this ancient, but urgently necessary way of living. Drawing on a wide range of history's greatest thinkers, from Confucius to Seneca, Marcus Aurelius to Thich Nhat Hanh, John Stuart Mill to Nietzsche, he argues that stillness is not mere inactivity, but the doorway to self-mastery, discipline, and focus. Holiday also examines figures who exemplified the power of stillness: baseball player Sadaharu Oh, whose study of Zen made him the greatest home run hitter of all time; Winston Churchill, who in balancing his busy public life with time spent laying bricks and painting at his Chartwell estate managed to save the world from annihilation in the process; Fred Rogers, who taught generations of children to see what was invisible to the eye; Anne Frank, whose journaling and love of nature guided her through unimaginable adversity. More than ever, people are overwhelmed. They face obstacles and egos and competition. Stillness Is the Key offers a simple but inspiring antidote to the stress of 24/7 news and social media. The stillness that we all seek is the path to meaning, contentment, and excellence in a world that needs more of it than ev… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member SqueakyChu
I picked up this book not knowing anything about it. It looked like one of those spiritual airy-fairy self-help books, judging by its title. I started browsing through it, and it looked sort of interesting. I decided to read it and was most pleasantly surprised by a nice personal stillness guide
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book. In this age of anxiety (and I suffered a lot during the pandemic and associated political upheaval in the past few years), I found this to be a helpful book indeed. It centers on personal calm, how to be grounded, and gives practical advice how to achieve this.

I think that if one would read this book again from time to time, a different chapter would stand out with each reread. At the particular time I was reading this book, the chapter about anger made the most sense to me and gave me the best advice.

I like that the author used multiple credible sources of information from olden times to present day to supply the reader with facts and quotes. His writing was done so well and was so inspiring that I would seek out other works by him in the future.
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Language

Original language

English

Physical description

7.09 inches

ISBN

1788162056 / 9781788162050
Page: 0.3889 seconds