Sick? Epictetus Says…: Do This! (Heroic +1 #1,822)

Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another heroic one. Not too long ago I posted a little note on Heroic Social celebrating an incredible stretch of super deep work days as I got ahead on content. I also celebrated the fact that I can easily dominate my aura scores from within the bubble wrap of my zero tech inputs perfectly controlled days when I do go deep. Here's how I put it in that post. I just spent 8 days with zero tech inputs other than the heroic app, no iPhone, text, email, etc. As I went deep on content creation to get another two months ahead so I can focus all my energy on the next heroic win which at the time was closing out our current crowd fundraising by the end of June. More on that soon. And then I said 60 plus ones and 9 pns will be complete by end of day Friday. Go me. And I continued by saying it's always amazing and amusing to see how easily I can dominate my aura scores in the bubble route of a perfectly controlled work environment. This is what that bubble wrap and 101/ heroic targets hit in a perfectly executed protocol looks like for me. Haha. Then I put up screengrabs of my aura scores reflecting the next level domination. The stats were pretty good if I say so myself. A bunch of high or mid-90s. Again, go me. And apparently the clever heroic gods decided that it would be amusing to penalize me for excessive celebration by giving me a remarkably good stomach bug that Eleanor had picked up. So although Eleanor had been knocked out for several days with a surprisingly strong stomach bug, I had successfully navigated it unscathed and during that highlight reel week. Then I got hit hard. In the couple days after I posted those scores, my scores dropped just a bit. Then I got some really bad scores. Like jumbo bad. In the middle of the night I might have been awakened by the stomach bug demons and woke up with a 40 readiness just to make sure they gave me the best possible chance to practice my philosophy. The heroic gods decided to drop the hammer one more day and night to such that I woke up the following morning with my all time worst aura readiness score of 37. Now I actually didn't feel that bad, but the readiness beat my prior Covid worst of 39. So it was an impressive drop from the highlight reel prior days. And it was also a truly great chance to practice my philosophy. Now I have Epictetus in mind as my principal guide when I find myself not feeling 100%, which is thankfully rare. But alas, I am not and will not be the first perfect person shoot so it happens now. More specifically, I have this wisdom gem from Epictetus in mind whenever I'm sick. He once said, remember that thou art an actor in a play of such a kind as the teacher or author may choose. If short of a short one, if long of a long one. If. If he wishes you to act the part of a poor man, see that you act the part naturally. If the part of a lame man, of a magistrate, of a private person, do the same. For this is your duty to act well. The part that is given to you. But to select the part belongs to another. Now, the heroic gods had selected me to play the role of a sick person for that day. Perfect. Let me play that role as well as I can, as I also keep this wisdom from Epictetus in mind. He said, show me one who is sick and yet happy in peril, and yet happy dying, and yet happy in exile and happy in disgrace and happy. Show me by the gods. I would fain see a stoic. Nay, you cannot show me a finished stoic. Then show me one in the molding one who has set his feet on the path. Now, to be clear, I still kinda suck at playing this role really well. But I am making progress. Remember the progressor. Check out that plus one. So let's go. And with that in mind, I decided to play my role as a sick person as well as I could. Which for me meant I activated my full recovery mode training protocol while making it a game to see just how fast I could turn my health around. Speed is a fourth style, which in this situation included fasting from food and training for two full days. One while practicing gratitude for my normally incredible health and reflecting on just how precious our health and lives are. I mean, the fact that some microscopic little virus can knock me out like that is such a wonderfully humbling reminder of who's ultimately in control. And that someone is definitely not me. So, heroic gods, thank you for that excessive celebration penalty. Very clever. I got the message. And that's today's one. Here's to playing our roles humbly yet heroically well, as we dynamically adapt our protocols to whatever life and those clever heroic gods throw at us today. P.S. at the risk of getting another excessive celebration penalty, but in the spirit of highlighting that the all in recovery plan did work pretty well, my two days of fasting from eating and training helped me turn that 40 then 37 readiness into an 85. Then it was a little more bumpy as I paid back some HRV debt. But I'll take it now pps. At the end of that post I also said this whenever I go deep, I also always have such profound gratitude for what Michael does to lead our team so heroically, to allow me to do what I do and for everyone else on the team. Love you guys. Appreciate you.