| Epictetus was born into slavery. This would have been a profoundly painful experience that left many scars and many disadvantages. His thirty years in bondage left him with a limp for the rest of his life, courtesy of a sadistic owner who tortured him. He would have carried the baggage from his ordeal, literally and figuratively, everywhere he went. And yet, from these harsh beginnings emerged one of history's most profound insights about freedom. In Rome at the time, many people believed that only free people were capable of being educated. But the indisputable truth that Epictetus saw every day in the moral disorder and dysfunction of Nero's court, where his master served as a high-profile secretary, was that it was in fact the opposite. Only the educated, he said, were free. This is something Seneca points out about that same period in Rome—how profoundly unfree many of the richest and most powerful people are. This is true twenty odd centuries later too: Most people are enslaved and controlled and directed by their ignorance. Their impulses. Their temper. Their desires and delusions. What Epictetus came to understand is that wisdom is freedom. From the things that have enslaved and controlled and directed people for all time. From ignorance. From stupid opinions. From immature emotions and childish impulses. From desires and delusions. From bitterness and frustration and resentment. That's the point of wisdom, he said: to argue less, to rage less, to be upset less. To enjoy, Epictetus said, a "smooth flow of life." But the Stoics also believed that wisdom is something we have to work for—not something we're given. It didn't matter if you were a slave like Epictetus or raised as royalty like Marcus Aurelius—wisdom was still something you had to earn. How did you earn it? Through hard work. Through reading, thinking, reflecting. Through mentors and teachers. Through painful trial and error. Through opening yourself to experiences and knowledge outside your comfort zone. If you want to get serious about that work, well, we have a book for you: Wisdom Takes Work is the last book in the Stoic Virtue series. You can preorder it now (and we have a limited edition set of all four books here as well) and it's filled with hard-won insights of some of history's wisest people, and how we can follow in their footsteps. If you're ready to start—or to deepen your commitment to—that work, the book is now available for preorder! Like we did for Courage is Calling, Discipline Is Destiny and Right Thing, Right Now, we have a limited number of signed and numbered first-editions available. These will sell out—Discipline Is Destiny and Right Thing, Right Now both sold out before launch—so get yours while supplies still last! We also have a bunch of awesome preorder bonuses for you, including: - A signed page of the original manuscript
- Invite to a LIVE Q&A with Ryan Holiday
- EARLY access to the Wisdom Takes Work introduction
- Two BONUS chapters from the book
- And you can even have dinner with Ryan at The Painted Porch in Bastrop, TX.
These will only be available to those who preorder Wisdom Takes Work before its official release on October 21, 2025—which is actually 100 days from today! Learn more about these bonuses and preorder the book today at dailystoic.com/wisdom! *** | 
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