I’m reading Areté by Brian Johnson at the moment (no, not that Bryan Johnson). I would describe it as a summation of every self help book ever written¹. As such, it’s long. I’m slowly getting through it. 

It appears that the message that Brian most wants get across is to follow this algorithm:

“The worse you feel, the MORE committed you are to your protocol.”

From Brian:

What do YOU do when you feel bad?

If you’re like most people (and how I used to be), the WORSE you feel the WORSE you act—you stop doing the fundamentals that keep you plugged in.

You stay up late and watch stupid stuff past the time you know you should be asleep. You stare at your screen when you should be connecting with your kids. You pay less attention to what you’re eating and let your training slip. And maybe you engage in a bunch of other more destructive behaviors.

But… What if… When you felt TERRIBLE, you (somehow!) got yourself to DO THE VERY THINGS you do when you’re at your best with a FEROCITY that you didn’t even know you had? What if, when you typically tend to spiral DOWN into a circus because you’re not feeling great and start engaging in sub-optimal behaviors, you spiral UP and recommit yourself with an even greater level of grounded intensity to being the change you want to see by doing the very things you know serve you best?

My guy needs to calm down re: his use of all caps but he does have a point. I’m really good at doing all the things to take care of myself until I get run down or sick. When I need my good habits the most I tend to go rogue: skipping my mental health walks, binge eating and TikTok. 

Today threatened to be one of those days where I spiral down: day 2 of a menstrual phase coinciding with a head cold and the end of a very busy week. But! I ate well, I went on a nice long walk after lunch and I am writing this now instead of TikToking until bedtime. I’d say that’s a pretty good effort at following the “protocol”. Here’s hoping I feel better tomorrow.

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This has been post no. 10 for #WeblogPoMo2024 and it is what I was interested in today.

Footnotes

1. Michael Hobbs and Peter Shamshiri from If Books Could Kill have a “one book theory” - that all self-help books just end up saying the same thing. Well, I would posit this is the actual one book. ↩