Brian Johnson explores Seneca's idea of periodic self-discipline as a middle path between self-loathing and complacency. He uses metaphors like a hospital and furnace to explain how harsh self-correction, done with compassion, helps you become your best self.
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It comes from the Latin 'optimus', which means 'the best'.
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'+1: #380 Seneca Says: Be Harsh with Yourself at Times'.
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You're listening to the Optymyze with Brian Johnson podcast. Unlock the full Optymyze experience and join over 10,000 premium members at Optimize Me. Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another Optimize plus one. In our last couple ones, we had some fun at the hospital with our stoic friends Seneca and Epictetus. Recall Epictetus wisdom that sometimes good philosophy feels more like a trip to the hospital than a spa. Ouch. Seneca echoes this wisdom in Letters from a Stoic where he says, be harsh with yourself at times. Now of course this does not mean that we need to go around like that albino monk from the Da Vinci Code mutilating ourselves yowsers. But it does mean that at times with a base of and ultimately out of a deep sense of self compassion, we need to give ourselves a Zen stick to the head and wake up from the bad habits that might be dragging us down. Now, as with the virtuous mean chat we had a while ago, there's a virtuous mean here too. Too much harshness is destructive. We'll develop a sense of self loathing that Aristotle would consider a vice of excess. Too little harshness, on the other hand, and we run the risk of being a bit too self contented. That would be a vice of deficiency. The virtuous mean rests right there in the middle path where we're appropriately correcting our weaknesses without self criticism per se. Just a nice firm needs work look in the eye. As we embody more and more of our ideals, the great Sufi philosopher Rumi comes to mind. He tells us this discipline and rough treatment are a furnace to extract the silver from the dross. This testing purifies the gold by boiling the scum away. In other words, be harsh with yourself at times. Ch. Check yourself into the hospital for the surgery. Throw yourself into the furnace. Let's extract the silver from the dross. Purify the gold within by boiling away the scum. When? Now. And again. And again and again. How? With a knowing, joyful, stoic, Sufi optimizing smile. Hey, this is Brian with a quick question for you. Do you know what the word optimize literally means? It's from the Latin optimus, which means the best. In our case, we're talking about helping you create the best version of you. So another quick question. What's the best version of you look like? How does that version of you show up in the world? Helping you be that version of yourself all day, every day is what our Optimize membership program is all about. Now we obviously give away a ton of content for free and we give our 10,000 premium members a ton more. Members get hundreds of Philosopher's Notes, which are 20 minute book summaries that help you apply the best big ideas from the best optimal living books to your life to today. Plus members get dozens of hour long optimal living 101 masterclasses. More wisdom in less time for your busy life on everything from the science of setting and achieving goals, how to optimize your energy via the fundamentals of nutrition, movement, sleep and meditation, and how to be super productive day in and day out. While of course enjoying the whole process. Every facet of your life optimized equals you at your absolute best.
