In honor of Presidents’ Day next week, I’m going to share several posts on Abraham Lincoln this week.
1: “Because he has become more myth than man, most people are unaware that Abraham Lincoln battled crippling depression his entire life,” writes Ryan Holiday in The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph.
“Known at the time as melancholy, his depression was often debilitating and profound—nearly driving him to suicide on two separate occasions,” Ryan notes. “Though he could be light and joyous, Lincoln suffered periods of intense brooding, isolation, and pain. Inside, he struggled to manage a heavy burden that often felt impossible to lift.”
Abe’s path to the presidency was “defined by enduring and transcending great difficulty,” Ryan writes.
“Growing up in rural poverty, losing his mother while he was still a child, educating himself, teaching himself the law, losing the woman he loved as a young man, practicing law in a small country town, experiencing multiple defeats at the ballot box as he made his way through politics, and, of course, the bouts of depression, which at the time were not understood or appreciated as a medical condition.”
As he faced these challenges, Abraham eventually came to believe they were part of his destiny. Depression, especially, uniquely prepared him. He learned to endure, articulate, and find meaning in it.
Seeing this is key to understanding his greatness.
Lincoln’s hardships shaped qualities essential for leadership, equipping him to guide the nation through crisis. The key takeaway: Personal adversity can foster virtues necessary for effective leadership.
“To live with his depression, Lincoln had developed a strong inner fortress that girded him,” Ryan writes. The Civil War “was to become nearly incomprehensibly violent, and Lincoln, who’d attempted at first to prevent it, would fight to win justly, and finally try to end it with ‘malice towards none.’”
Educated in suffering, Lincoln learned (in Virgil’s words) “to comfort those who suffer too.”
He connected with those around him and the nation on a deep level.
Why? “Because he had access to a part of the human experience that many had walled themselves off from. His personal pain was an advantage,” writes Ryan. “He could not find it in his heart to hate like others could. His own experience with suffering drove his compassion to allay it in others.”
2: Of course, Lincoln was smart and crafty and ambitious. But his greatest quality was his will, Ryan argues: “The way he was able to resign himself to an onerous task without giving in to hopelessness, the way he could contain both humor and deadly seriousness, the way he could use his own private turmoil to teach and help others, the way he was able to rise above the din and see politics philosophically.”
Abe’s favorite saying? “This too shall pass.” Which he once said was applicable in any and every situation and circumstance.
As leaders, we look into the future. We set goals. We make plans. We envision a better reality.
We must also prepare for the worst—and then strive to make the best of it and move forward.
Ryan reinforces this point, writing, “Leadership requires determination and energy. And certain situations, at times, call on leaders to marshal that determined energy simply to endure.” He adds, “To provide strength in terrible times.”
This is precisely what Lincoln did. Because of what he’d endured—because of what he’d struggled with and learned to cope with in his own life—he was able to lead, writes Ryan. “To hold a nation, a cause, an effort, together.”
3: Ryan believes there are three disciplines required to turn obstacles into opportunities: Perception, Action, and Will.
Perception is the discipline of the mind. Action is the discipline of the body. Will is the discipline of the heart and the soul. “Will is our internal power, which can never be affected by the outside world,” Ryan notes.
Will lets us stand firm while others yield to disorder. It gives us confidence, calm, and the readiness to work in any condition, continuing even in the worst times.
Will is fortitude and wisdom—not just about obstacles, but about life and how our obstacles fit into it. It gives us strength to endure, reflect, and find meaning in hardships we can’t overcome.
Abe was a strong and decisive leader. “But he also embodied the Stoic maxim: sustine et abstine. Bear and forbear. Acknowledge the pain but trod onward in our task,” Ryan writes.
More tomorrow.
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Reflection: How might my own struggles and “heavy burdens” be quietly preparing me to lead with deeper compassion, steadiness, and strength?
Action: Identify one past or present hardship in my life and take a few minutes this week to journal how it has shaped my character—and how I can use that experience to better support others.