“Our actions may be impeded … but there can be no impeding our intentions or our dispositions. Because we can accommodate and adapt. The mind adapts and converts to its own purposes the obstacle to our acting. The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”
-Marcus Aurelius, Meditations V.2
“In every situation, that which blocks our path actually presents a new path with a new part of us.”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way
The book which first turned me on to Stoicism is “The Obstacle is the Way” by Ryan Holiday. Mr. Holiday takes the title, as well as the overall gestalt of the book from today’s quote by Marcus. While I cannot overstate the importance of this idea, I recognize that to truly dig into “turning the obstacle into the way” would take a book to explain (as it did for Mr. Holiday). Nevertheless, my discussions on Stoicism would be incomplete without at least some discussion of what, for me, has become a core tenant of the Stoic practice.
The idea is simple enough to explain; fate throws hardship, or pain, or obstacles in our way. Our plans don’t work, we lose that job, our girlfriend dumps us or we do everything right and we still find ourselves on the losing end. For the vast majority of those things, those obstacles, there is nothing we could do to avoid them. Still less we can do to remove them from our path. What we can control, is our perceptions of the obstacle and how we choose to react. Put another way, it is our responsibility to take these challenges and not just overcome them, but make them work for us. Make it so that the impediment to action actually advances action.
Rather than find an example from my own life, or from the lives of the Stoics, I was reflecting today on a place when seeing obstacles turn to actions is commonplace: Jiu-Jitsu. I have been practicing for only about 4 months now, and while I am enjoying the multiple benefits that the martial art provides I am very much a beginner. Still, even for my untrained eyes, I am shocked at how similar some of the ideas in Stoicism, apply to Jiu Jitsu and vice-versa.
For example, one of my professors has a mantra, which he often repeats to use white belts. He says “Move thyself…!” It is a simple and elegant reminder that, when engaged in a sparring session, beginners like myself will often try to force our opponents to do something. While that might work, inevitably we waste energy, and often fail to achieve our desired ends and may even expose ourselves to repercussions (usually in the way of an arm-bar for me…).
However, if instead for trying to force our opponent into movement, we simply moved ourselves around him, we are far more likely to find ourselves in the position we wanted, and do so with far less energy exerted or pain endured. “Move thyself” is an exhortation to control only what you can (your own body) and stop trying to affect that which you cant (your opponent’s position).
Furthermore, in many cases, when we do move ourselves, we use our opponent’s body to do so. We kick off from their hip, or we use their weight to render them unable to react as we move. Not only are we moving, but we are using the very obstacle before us to do so.
An impediment to action advances action, the obstacle becomes the way…. Move thyself.