Ego Is the Enemy: The Fight to Master Our Greatest Opponent

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2016

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Part 1

Part 2

Part 3-Epilogue

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

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Discussion Questions

Background

Philosophical Context: Holiday’s Use of Stoic Philosophy

Ryan Holiday has written several self-help books, including Perennial Seller, The Lives of the Stoics, The Daily Dad, and The Daily Stoic, many of which explore messages and themes from Stoic thought. His book Ego Is the Enemy forms part of an informal series that includes his previous work, The Obstacle is the Way, and his later additions, Courage Is Calling, Stillness Is the Key, and Discipline Is Destiny. Taken together, these works communicate a host of Stoic principles using Holiday’s favored approach of real-life anecdotes from ancient and modern history.

Stoicism is an ancient Greco-Roman philosophy. The first Stoic school of philosophy was founded by Zeno around 300 BCE, but the philosophy reached its height in the first and second centuries CE under the Roman Empire. The Roman orator and politician Cicero (106 BCE-43 BCE) is often credited with first popularizing the main tenets of the philosophy in Rome. The most famous Stoic philosophers recognized today are Epictetus (50 CE-135 CE), Seneca the Younger (4 BCE-65 CE), and the emperor Marcus Aurelius (121 CE-180 CE). Epictetus’s teachings were collected and circulated by one of his pupils and later published as Discourses and Enchiridion. Seneca became famous for both his tragedies and his philosophical works, including On the Brevity of Life and Letters from a Stoic. The emperor Marcus Aurelius’s private book of personal and philosophical reflections, Meditations, was not widely known until the Middle Ages and first published in the 16th century, but it has since become a touchstone for Stoic philosophy.

While Stoic philosophers often prided themselves on rejecting dogmatism and remaining open-minded in their philosophical approaches, some key teachings are shared between all the main Stoic philosophers. These teachings include recognizing the ethical life as the supreme good and only true source of happiness, learning to distinguish what is and is not within one’s control and accepting the vagaries of fortune, and favoring reason and self-control even when under pressure. While Ego Is the Enemy does not exclusively focus on Stoicism or its philosophers, the author’s preference for historical examples from ancient Rome is evident. He refers to figures such as Martial and Caesar to illustrate poor behavior while upholding the emperor Marcus Aurelius and the general Belisarius as strong role models. His main message about the dangers of the ego is also steeped in Stoic thought, emphasizing humility, hard work, and good deeds.

Cultural Context: Ego and Success in the Modern World

In Ego Is the Enemy, Ryan Holiday argues that egotistical behavior is the “enemy” of well-being, happiness, and accomplishment. In his work, Holiday often challenges modern American culture’s notions of success and paints a different picture of real achievement for the reader, encouraging the reader to adopt a fresh perspective on what success means to them. For instance, Holiday claims that receiving credit for one’s ideas is not important and that people should instead focus on the effect their ideas have on others. He lauds General Sherman for his ability to focus on the job at hand without worrying about being praised or honored for it, writing that he “was more than happy to contribute to a winning team, even if it meant less credit or fame for himself” (21). Similarly, he also praises coach Bill Belichick and General Marshall for the contributions they made to their respective fields without expecting credit for their work.

Holiday’s approach to the ownership of one’s work runs counter to modern culture, in which most people would consider credit highly important and new ideas and inventions are often copyrighted and patented as intellectual property. Perhaps the most important aspect of most people’s idea of success is the accumulation of wealth. While Holiday does not denigrate the pursuit of wealth, he often reminds the reader that accumulating wealth can make people more isolated, entitled, and paranoid—all egotistical tendencies that threaten their well-being, as well as their ability to sustain and enjoy their money.

In order to undermine the notion that more wealth is always better, Holiday includes several cautionary tales about the consequences of greed, pointing out that egotistical behavior can easily lead to the loss of even vast fortunes, as was the case with businessmen Howard Hughes and Dov Charney. By establishing his own vision of success, Holiday presents the reader with a disciplined and ethical worldview in which material success can be pursued and enjoyed within a certain framework of egoless thought and behavior.