04/13/2026
Part 2:
"It is not only the greater bodily exertion that injures you, it is even more the attendant strain on the mind, and the overwrought mind in its turn affects the body injuriously. If you do not assume an attitude of cool indifference, adopting the principle of living first for yourself and only secondly for others, then there is small chance of your recovery. When you are in your grave men will still be clothed, perhaps not as tastefully, but still tolerably well.
If you are a philosopher you may become healthy, you may attain to old age. If anything annoys you give no heed to it; if anything is too much for you have nothing to do with it; if any one seeks to drive you go, slowly and laugh at the fools who wish to make you unhappy. What you can do comfortably that do; what you cannot do, don’t bother yourself about.
Our temporal circumstances are not improved by overpressure at work. You must spend proportionately more in your domestic affairs, and so nothing is gained. Economy, limitation of superfluities (of which the hard worker has often very few) place us in a position to live with greater comfort – that is to say, more rationally, more intelligently, more in accordance with nature, more cheerfully, more quietly, more healthily. Thus we shall act more commendably, more wisely, more prudently, than by working in breathless hurry, with our nerves constantly over strung, to the destruction of the most precious treasure of life, calmly happy spirits and good health."
We are whole persons. Not a divided mind and body, but one. Your life, your health, your whole requires an understanding of that above all else. We cannot continue to view ourselves as compartments. 🙏
