Every time I feel complacent or start complaining too much, I go back to the Stoics. They remind me of something I’ve always felt: Hardship is good.

Most people think happiness comes from comfort. From eliminating struggle. From making life as easy as possible.

But comfort is overrated. Life without challenges is not life at all. It’s an early death.

Hardship as training

Even as a child, I had a sense that hardship was good. My parents always offered to drive me to school when it rained. But I detested that. I would just put on a rain suit and go to school on my bike in rain, snow, or storms.

Throughout the years, my parents brought me to school a handful of times, and that was when I was sick. And even then, I put my bike in the car so I could cycle back myself. I just didn’t want to be weak.

On top of that, where we lived in the Netherlands, you would hear it all day from your friends if you didn’t come on the bike. We would say, “Are you made of sugar or something? Wuss.” That was my generation. I’m not sure it’s still like that today.

I was talking about this with my wife the other day. We just found out we’re expecting a boy. I told her I hope he never wants us to drive him to school. Not because I wouldn’t want to, but because I think it’s character-building. Then I said I don’t know about this generation that loves comfort. I wouldn’t be surprised if the making fun of you for having your parents drive you to school is no longer around.

Seneca saw this clearly two thousand years ago.

“Excellence withers without an adversary. The time for us to see how great it is, how much its force, is when it displays its power through endurance.”

Strength only grows through resistance. Seneca said that wrestlers don’t train with weak opponents. They demand to fight the strongest. Otherwise their skill rots.

Life is the same. Prosperity makes you soft. Struggle makes you tougher.

Fail. Fail again. Then win.

The pattern of life is often the same:

Fail.
Fail again.
Fail some more.
Then win.

That’s how you build endurance. That’s how you learn to fight back after setbacks. That’s how you build a spine that doesn’t bend at the first sign of adversity.

Seneca again:

“Prosperity that is undiminished cannot withstand a single blow; but the man who has struggled constantly against his own ills becomes hardened by suffering and no misfortune makes him yield. Indeed, if he falls, he still fights on his knees.”

The person who only knows good times crumbles the first time things go wrong. But the person who fails often, who gets knocked down, who knows pain, becomes unshakable. That’s the type of person I want to be.

Always have a fight in front of you

One way to practice this is to always work on something massive. A project you can never finish. For me, that’s writing.

I’ve been at it for more than a decade. And I can say I’ve improved. But every time I get better, I realize how much better I can get. There’s always something to improve.

There’s no finish line. That’s the point.

When you commit to something endless, you train your endurance. You accept that you’ll never be “done.” You learn to love the process of fighting uphill.

Shun luxury

Another way: Avoid luxury.

Marvin Hagler, the famous boxer, once said: “It’s tough to get out of bed to do roadwork at 5 a.m. when you’ve been sleeping in silk sheets.” He was right. Comfort kills drive.

Seneca warned against it too:

“Shun luxury, shun good fortune that makes men weak… unless something happens to remind them of their human lot, they waste away, lulled to sleep, as it were, in a drunkenness that has no end.”

Luxury is a trap. It feels good at first, but it slowly eats away at your strength. It makes you fragile. The less you can tolerate discomfort, the less you can tolerate life.

I’ve always kept my life relatively simple. Not because I can’t afford more comfort, but because I don’t want to lose my edge. I don’t want to grow dependent on silk sheets.

Hardship is a gift

Here’s what Seneca said about parenting:

“Do you not see how differently fathers and mothers show their love? The father orders his children to be roused early to pursue their studies, not allowing them to be idle even on a holiday, and wrings from them sweat and sometimes tears; but the mother wants to cherish them in her embrace and keep them out of the sun’s glare, and wishes them never to know sadness, never to shed tears, never to toil.”

It’s not about the role of the father or mother because sometimes it’s reversed. The point is that it’s the parents’ encouragement to do hard things that builds strength.

Harship is not here to crush us, but to build us.

This is how I want to raise my son. Not sheltered, but tested. Not protected from every difficulty, but prepared to face them.

If you think about it, hardship is really a gift. But you never think that way when you’re doing the hard things. You think to yourself, “I wish it were over.”

But afterwards, you always look back, and say, “I’m glad I did it.”

Adversity as medicine

The hardest lesson Seneca teaches in On Providence is that even the worst tragedies can be of benefit. Poverty, exile, sickness, disgrace. He compares them to surgery. Painful, yes. But often the only way to heal.

If you never face adversity, you never test yourself. And if you never test yourself, you never know your strength.

Demetrius, a Stoic philosopher Seneca admired, said it best:

“Nothing seems to me more unhappy than the man who has no experience of adversity. For he has not been allowed to put himself to the test.”

That’s the real tragedy. Not suffering. Not loss. But living a life so easy that you never discover what you’re capable of.

The early death of comfort

So here’s the lesson Seneca shared: Hardship is the way forward.

Do the hard thing. Get up early. Take the long route. Do your thing regardless of the weather. Take on the project you can’t finish. Resist luxury.

Fail. Fail again. Fail some more. Then win. That’s the rhythm.

Life without challenges is not life. It’s an early death.

The post Life Without Challenges Is an Early Death appeared first on Darius Foroux.

Most of life is a trade. Time for money. Skill for opportunity. Trust for results. 

Many things in life are not like that because people are evil, but because incentives drive us as human beings. 

And when people don’t get what they want, they often get nasty. The Stoic philosopher Epictetus explained why that is:

“When any person harms you or speaks badly of you, remember that he acts from a supposition of its being his duty.”

People always think they are doing the right thing… in their perspective of course. If someone feels like you wronged them, it’s because they really believe that.

Work conflicts that turn personal

I’ve heard a version of the following many times. Someone recommends a friend for a job. The friend gets hired. Then they don’t perform. Now the company questions the person who vouched for them. It’s awkward. It hurts. 

And it often ends the friendship. I’ve lived a version of that myself. Years ago I recommended a friend at our family company. It didn’t work out and our friendship basically ended. 

It’s really unfortunate when these things happen because it’s not necessary. When money, careers, and status enter the room, friendship is often secondary.

Indifference is the default, not the exception

My mom recently got veneers at a well-known clinic in Bocholt, Germany. It all started with great promises. But as the process went on, there were complications. 

My mom has pain with no clear cause. Suddenly the warmth from the dentist and their team evaporated. Busy calendars. Slow replies. A maze of “let’s wait and see.” 

This is sadly a common issue. When the sale is done, the incentive shifts. Fixing messy problems is expensive and take time. No one is waiting for that. 

There is no reward in actually helping people for them. But here’s the ting: You are not crazy for expecting care and support from service providers. You are just expecting something the system is not designed to deliver.

Epictetus gives you the clean way to think about this. People act from their own judgments and incentives. 

It only feels personal when you forget how the game is set up.

The best revenge is to not be like them

In 2018 I bought my first expensive watch at Schaap & Citroen in Groningen. The date function of the watch was broken from the start, and years later the shop refused to help because the warranty had expired. 

I went back last weekend and the clerk got aggressive. So I matched it, we argued, and I left a one-star review. Could they have tried to fix the problem? Yes. Would that have been right? Of course. 

But here is the trap: Expecting strangers to live by your standards guarantees frustration. 

The better move is to keep your standards even when others drop theirs. Speak clearly, stay calm, give a fair chance, then take your business elsewhere without turning it into a personal war.

Marcus Aurelius said, “The best revenge is to not be like your enemy.” It is easy to post that line and hard to practice it in a tense moment. I failed it that day. Next time, I choose my behavior, not theirs.

This mindset means that you stop confusing care with service. A business can serve you well without caring about you as a person. 

Take the win when it happens, and build your plans on contracts, documentation, and alternatives, not on the hope of extra compassion.

Or if you choose to recommend someone at your company, accept the downside upfront. If it goes wrong, do not moralize it. Solve the problem, learn the lesson, and avoid mixing roles in the future.

Just stop turning every disappointment into a story about good and evil. Most of the time it is incentives doing their work. 

This is the world we live in. It’s not good or bad. It’s just the way it is.

Values are promises you keep

“Focus on your values” only matters if you define them in behavior. Tell the truth when it costs you. Do competent work when no one is watching. 

Treat people with respect when they do not deserve it. Keep your cool when you are provoked. None of this depends on how others act. Your standards are yours.

A few people will care. Family, a couple of real friends, maybe a mentor. 

Let the rest be. Try to be the exception yourself and do the boring right thing quietly.

Epictetus explained why people act as they do. Marcus told us how to respond. 

Put those two together, and you get a simple way to live: 

Push when it matters, let go when it does not, and keep your own hands clean.

The post No One Cares About Your Feelings appeared first on Darius Foroux.

Over the last 3 years, I’ve spent a lot of time in the south of Spain, around Marbella. You can just smell the desperation in the air. Everyone wants to look rich. Luxury cars, designer clothes, Instagram-perfect lives. It’s all about appearances.

But it’s not only in places like Marbella. Even in my hometown of Leeuwarden, a place that’s never been rich or glamorous, I’m noticing the same trends. 

Leeuwarden is a simple working-class city. But lately, you see more expensive cars on the streets. Men obsess over Swiss watches and go to the barber every two weeks. Women carry designer bags and get Botox or fillers at the countless clinics that are popping up all over town. 

It’s as if having money (or appearing rich) has become the ultimate benchmark for self-worth.

Look at the internet. Whether it’s Twitter, Substack, Medium, or YouTube, most content revolves around money. “How to become rich,” “Passive income secrets,” “Millionaire mindset.” We’re all desperately chasing wealth.

But wealth alone isn’t enough anymore. We also crave fame. We take pictures all the time—posing, sharing, posting—as if our lives are part of some grand movie. We hope for likes, follows, and validation. Fame and money are intertwined desires that fuel off each other. 

Yet, these cravings for money and fame are nothing new. Nearly 2,000 years ago, Seneca warned us about the emptiness of these pursuits: “It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.”

If we constantly desire more, we can never truly be satisfied. It doesn’t matter if you drive a Ferrari or carry a Hermes bag. If your happiness depends on external validation or material wealth, you’ll always feel empty inside.

Seneca also said that, “If you live according to nature, you will never be poor; if you live according to opinion, you will never be rich.”

The real question we should ask ourselves is this: Why do we allow others to dictate what makes us feel worthy? When we live to impress others, we surrender our inner peace. We’re forever poor because we never have enough of what we don’t truly need.

Try a different path. Embrace simplicity. Measure yourself by your own standards, not by the opinions of others. Real wealth isn’t displayed; it’s felt within. It’s freedom, calmness, health, and genuine connections with people you care about.

Remember this next time you’re tempted by the illusion of wealth and fame. You really don’t need more stuff to be happy. You don’t need more followers or likes to feel important. 

Your real life isn’t a movie. And thank goodness for that!

The post Everybody Wants to Be Rich appeared first on Darius Foroux.

I woke up every day with a fresh start. At that time I also had student debt so I had a long way to go.

My goal was always to become a millionaire. It’s something our society has always considered a marker of financial success. If you have a million bucks, you’ve made it.

We all know that’s no longer true because society has changed a lot over the past decade. We’re living in the age of decadence. People just want to live luxurious lives, which requires a lot of money. But that’s the topic for another essay. 

What I’ve realized recently is that my pursuit of financial success was more fulfilling than simply acquiring money.

As I’m typing this, I feel it’s not a deep realization at all. Because if you look around you, the platitudes about this concept are everywhere.

“It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey.”

As a skeptical (and sometimes cynical) person, I have an allergy to motivational quotes and sayings.

Saying that life is about the journey just doesn’t mean anything when you’re stuck in the day-to-day grind of life.

You’re too focused on either surviving, providing, or improving your situation. First, you want to earn some money, get yourself a house, buy a car, and make sure you don’t have to worry about putting food on the table.

You want to be independent. And to be independent, you need income.

When life forces you to focus on certain things, you don’t appreciate it

In a way, life forces us to focus on becoming independent human beings.

That’s what we spend most of our time trying to accomplish. Most of us dedicate our entire lives to getting there.

But here’s the ironic part: When life pushes you into focusing on something specific, you rarely appreciate it at the moment. You think, “I can’t wait until I have enough money. I can’t wait until I have more freedom. I can’t wait until I don’t have to worry about bills anymore.”

Yet, when you finally reach that point, something strange happens. You lose a clear goal to strive toward.

Without that forced focus, life gets boring pretty fast. And boredom isn’t just annoying—it can lead to deeper problems. When you have nothing meaningful to pursue, you start asking yourself existential questions.

“What’s the point of all this? Why am I even here?”

Friedrich Nietzsche captured this perfectly when he said:

“He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.”

Similarly, Viktor Frankl wrote in his famous book on purpose, Man’s Search for Meaning:

“Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.”

Without friction, without some form of struggle, we fall into existential boredom or even depression.

We often complain about the constant demands that life puts on us without realizing that these very things keep us alive.

It’s the friction that sharpens our minds, teaches us resilience, and prepares us for greater and more significant challenges. Without it, we drift into complacency. 

Complacency might feel comforting temporarily, but it quickly shows its emptiness.

Life, I learned, is about continuously setting meaningful challenges that pull you forward.

You need to constantly renew your purpose, find new puzzles to solve, and new mountains to climb. It’s this ongoing pursuit that fills life with genuine joy and excitement.

What I love doing

I love the challenge of creating products, positioning them, and seeing whether people respond to them. It’s no longer about the money. I just love the process. I love it so much that I want to keep doing this indefinitely.

Because I don’t function well without a clear purpose, especially in terms of my career.

Sure, my personal life gives me a great deal of satisfaction and meaning. I’m very close to my family. I have a few good friends. My wife is pregnant, and that’s something I’m incredibly happy about. It gives my life depth and emotional fulfillment.

But I also need intellectual stimulation. I need a meaningful challenge, problems to solve, and some friction. It’s crucial for me to wake up each morning knowing I need to solve a challenge.

Whether it’s launching a new course, fine-tuning a book, or exploring innovative business strategies, the anticipation of the unknown and the potential to fail or succeed energizes me.

That’s what keeps me energized on all fronts. The act of constantly creating something new, pushing myself intellectually, and facing challenges—that’s my personal formula for a fulfilling life.

The post This Took Me 14 Years to Understand appeared first on Darius Foroux.

On the table next to us were three generations of a family—grandmother, mother, and son—drinking coffee. The young guy, who appeared to study in Amsterdam, had his family over for a visit.

We were already sitting when they came in. The first thing they talked about was the latest geopolitical news, which I hadn’t even heard yet.

Before they ordered coffee or talked about the guy’s studies, they talked politics.

This is not uncommon.

One of my acquaintances told me last week that his brother stopped talking to him because they have different political views.

“He just gave me the cold shoulder when I saw him in town,” he said. His brother didn’t acknowledge him.

Family disputes & debates: Is it worth it?

I’ve been hearing more and more stories of family disputes since COVID.

This is concerning.

Talking politics is fine to me. But arguing and having hard feelings towards each other is not.

Relationships and family come above political views to me. And it would be a shame if you rob yourself of the pleasure of deep relationships. All because of conflicting views.

You can still be friends if you think differently about some topics.

Think about the following.

Politics, at its core, is tribal. It’s about sides. And when you focus too much on it, you risk losing yourself in it.

Instead, focus on yourself. Be proud of what YOU are. Build your own life, develop your own mind, and improve your own situation.

Sure, talk politics. Just don’t debate politics (unless it’s your profession). There’s really no need to debate for most of us.

What are you aiming to get out of it? You spend time and energy convincing people of your views. And?

Focus on yourself

You can’t change people.

Everyone knows this. And you just end up creating rifts because most people will only judge. As Carl Jung said: 

“Thinking is difficult, that’s why most people judge.” 

People don’t like changing their minds, especially when it comes to deep-seated beliefs. So why waste energy arguing?

I want to leave you with one more quote. This is from the famous writer, Aldous Huxley: 

“There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self.”

Thinking of this quote will make sure you don’t waste your time.

The post Should you talk about politics? appeared first on Darius Foroux.