hopeful informative inspiring reflective fast-paced
informative fast-paced

While I found "Ego is the enemy" a bit more well built, this book was really good in forcing you to envision things in a different way, helping you to cope with adversity and obstacles by changing the way you think about them (or see them, or feel them even). While still heavily based on the Stoïc teachings, Ryan Holiday offers a great lot of examples of people overcoming adversity and building something new, better and stronger upon at first seemingly impossible obstacles. Quite inspiring and really helpful for everyone willing to improve himself.

Somewhat confused, somewhat thankful. I have a mix emotions in reading thus book, One is that I soon learnt that this book is too optimistic even in if the author mentioned that its not a book about optimism. Second, The book is a good start for people who wants to learn a very short introduction to philosophy. I soon realised that I didn’t really learn much from this book. I came by the thought that I actually know more than the book can offer.

The book was a nice, quick introduction to Stoicism. The anecdotes were often really compelling, but other times I felt like adding more context might've complicated the author's point (which might've been a good thing). Overall, what you get out of the book will mostly be a product of your mindset while reading the book. Depending on my mindset, chapters would be received with eye rolls or deep introspective thought. The book can surely be met with either.

In the end, I think Holiday's done a good job both evangelizing and profiting from a valuable philosophy and he does good to bring it back into the fray. I'm looking forward to reading Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, which more than anything was probably his purpose.
informative reflective

Quick disclaimer: I read the first 15% of the book at home and the remaining 85% on a flight to Hungary, so I only deep-thought about this book for about two hours.

One of the best things about Stoicism is that you can read the original works of the Stoics and understand them. You don't need any other writer that came after to dumb down the core concepts for the average human being, which is why there are probably only a select few authors that should be read regarding Stoicism.

But I really like Ryan Holiday's work, and since I read his second book in this Stoicism trilogy before the first one (this one), I've grown to understand that his books, like most Modern stoicism practitioners, tell a story. The books consist of stories.

Now, sure, I can see that on the surface level, a "just overcome it" attitude is the last thing some people need to hear. And of course, survivorship bias is a thing that controls most modern self-help examples, which is why a book about ego probably helps someone more deeply because most of the stories told there are about falling down.

But personally, I didn't feel insulted by the book as many top reviewers did. I felt inspired to smack the shit out of the obstacles that I've encountered recently. This is why I rate the book five stars, and that's my rating. You get to have your own rating, for your own reasons.
informative reflective medium-paced
informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

 "Det som stod i vägen har blivit vägen"

Ryan Holiday delar upp bokens innehåll i tre olika kategorier. Blicken, handlingen och viljan. Med dessa tre förmågor menar han på att man kan vända motgångar till segrar som titeln också tydligt förmedlar.
Syftet med Hindret är vägen är att se motgångarna som vi kommer stöta på i livet som någonting positivt, att se det som en utmaning till att göra oss till starkare, smartare och snällare människor. Flera gånger tar Holiday upp poängen om att vi inte ska se hindret som ett hinder, utan att se hindret som självaste vägen. Precis som titeln på boken tar upp.

Flera av dem teman som Holiday tar upp är om att det är vi själva som har makten över våra val i livet, att vi inte kan kontrollera vad som händer oss men att vi kan kontrollera hur vi väljer att reagera. Att leva i nuet och att uppskatta det vi har. Om att vi är starkare än vi själva tror när det kommer till motgångar. Att vara envis och att aldrig ge upp oavsett hur mörkt och blekt det kanske ser ut. Om att göra sitt jobb i nuet, inte att övertänka och stressa de uppgifter som finns i framtiden utan att göra det bästa som vi kan i just denna stund. Till sist, att inte vara så jävla egoistisk. Tänk på folk runt om kring dig och inse att det finns människor som har det på tok mycket värre än vad du någonsin kunde föreställa dig. Ha lite empati för dina medmänniskor och när du har hjälp dig själv, börja sätta andra människor i första hand så de kan få den hjälp de behöver.

4/5 stjärnor. 

Another great one.

Really loving Ryan Holiday these days. On to the most recent one in n this series, Stillness is the Key.