Micro Class: Flexibility --> Tranquility

You're listening to Optimize with Bryan Johnson. More wisdom in Less Time. Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another micro class. This one's on flexibility leads to Tranquility. It's inspired by Seneca's on the Shortness of Life where he talks about commitment. Right. If you want to have tranquility in your life, you need to have commitment. But if you look at commitment and you look at it in the way that ancient Greek and Stoic, Roman Stoic philosophers looked at it, you want to see what the virtue is, right? And then you want to see what the vice is of deficiency, where you don't have enough of the virtue. And then there's also a vice of what they call excess. So you have a vice of excess. Excess vice and deficiency. Vice around commitment, right? And he says the virtue is flexibility, where you're committed, but you're flexible. You're not obstinate. Obstinate, interesting word, obstinate. Nor are you fickle. This is important. So if you are fickle, you go from thing to thing to thing to thing to thing. You're not committed. The moment it gets hard, you're like, oh, whatever, you don't have enough commitment. A vice of deficiency. You're fickle. But if you're on the other end of the spectrum and you're obstinate, things can happen that really indicate, you should probably go over here, you should probably shift, you should probably pivot, but you're obstinate about it, you're just stuck, you're over committed. That's not a virtue, that's a vice of excess. So we want to be flexible. We want to be committed, yet open to feedback. That is the virtue of flexibility. That leads to the experience of tranquility, peace of mind, et cetera. We talked about this in the context of grit, where she said, you need to have passion, but it can't be fireworks, it can't be fickle passion, right? You need to have it serve as more of a compass. A compass points you in the right direction. It doesn't necessarily. It's not a map that tells you you've got to go here. It points you in the general direction of where you want to go. That's another way to think about flexibility. So check in and see how are you fickle, how are you obstinate? And how are you. And how can you cultivate your flexibility? At the end of the day, it's always about bringing it back to our lives. Think about it and let's move from theory to practice. Integrate it into your life. Hope you enjoyed. Look forward to sharing more. Here's to flexibility that leads to tranquility. Hi, this is Brian. I hope you enjoyed that micro class. If so, I think you'll enjoy everything else we offer at BrianJohnson me. Two basic things one our free newsletter. It's called the Optimizer. Over 50,000 people start their day with it and they tell us it's pretty awesome and 2 our optimal living Membership program. This is where I put all my best stuff. 10 bucks a month for a ton of wisdom. Two primary things in there philosopher's notes plus optimal living 101 classes. When you sign up, you'll get instant access to 250 philosopher's notes, which are basically six page PDFs and 20 minute MP3s where I capture my favorite big ideas from great books. The PNTV episodes are kind of a mini version of all that goodness. You'll also get instant access to all my Optimal Living classes. This is where I take all the ideas we cover in the Philosopher's Notes and boil it down to the most practical stuff you can apply today. Classes include Confidence 101, Getting Stuff Done 101, Relationships 101, Habits 101, etc. You'll also get access to what we call micro classes that I think you'll love. We aim to astonish and we're blessed to have thousands of members telling us we're helping them change their lives and and that this is the best 10 bucks they invest in themselves every month. Go to BrianJohnson ME membership to learn more. Thanks for your support and have an awesome day.