Self-care is Your Responsibility

“If you want to command your own life in a way that benefits you and harms no one else, first clear your own faults out of the way.” -Seneca

In an Airplane, if cabin pressure drops, oxygen masks deploy, and you're told to secure your own before assisting others. It ensures you're conscious and capable before trying to help anyone else. But this principle also applies to life more broadly—self-care isn’t selfish; it’s necessary. Additionally Self-care is your responsibility: You're responsible for your mind, heart and body. 

In a relationship, it's normal to want the well-being of your partner, and support each other, but ultimately your partner is, also, responsible for the "heavy-lifting" in regards to their own self-care as you can't force someone to take care of themselves.

Many people are miserable because self-care requires the sort of effort they're not willing to partake in. The longer someone remains miserable the more difficult it is to get out of it as they find comfort in their misery. They can become familiar with their pain, even attached to it, because at least it's known.

Self-care is the secret of living well. Life is better when you feel good about yourself.

Reducing The Chances of Depression

 “Every emotion is weak at first, but then it gains strength as it progresses. It’s easier to prevent it from starting than to stop it once it has begun.” -Seneca

To simplify Seneca’s words: Prevention is easier than medication. The best way to fight depression is to live in such a way as to minimize the risk of developing depression. Some things, such as loss, are outside of our control and can cause depression. Many things, however, are within our control and we simply fail to associate them with depression. If we don’t exercise, socialize, eat properly, sleep well, or go outside... over time, these bad habits will increase the likelihood we’ll develop depression. Often depression is, like obesity, the result of bad habits which mean that a change in lifestyle may be require in order to change our outlook on life. Mental health, like physical health, requires effort in order to be maintained. Let’s insure that what’s within our control is as good as we have the energy to make it.

Where's The Discipline?

Is taking diet medicine cheating us out of some life lessons? Similar to someone winning the lottery, someone taking medicine to loose weight hasn't developed the discipline necessary to keep the results on their own accord.

What will happen once the medicine stops? Likely the same thing that happens when the money from lottery winners runs out... they'll revert back to their previous state.

Loosing weight is difficult because we live in a world where everything that is delicious isn't nutritious. It takes a great deal of effort to eat correctly, exercise and sleep appropriately but those that develop the discipline to do so become better versions of themselves. The lessons we learn, throughout our health journey, can help in other area of our lives. 

By being disciplined about our health, we gain energy, confidence and improve our mental health. What does diet medicine do besides help manage weight?

Think About Your Future Self

 “The choicest days of hapless human life Fly first; disease and bitter old age follow, And toil, till harsh death rudely snatches all.” -Vergil

In the future we may:

• Become sickly...
• Have financial struggles...
• Become lonely...
• Experience loss...
• Have trouble with the law...
• Loose freedoms...
• ...

What we do today shapes our future. What we do today may bring us closer, or further away, from problems. Life is a gift and we need to take care of our “present” in order to minimize the potential problems of the future. “Life is like a play—it doesn’t matter how long it is, but how well it’s acted. It makes no difference when you stop. Stop whenever you choose, just make sure the ending is well done.” -Seneca

On Peace

“Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson “The most important thing for peace of mind is never to do wrong. Those who lack self-control lead disturbed and chaotic lives; their crimes are matched by their fears, and they never find peace.” -Seneca Peace also comes from living a virtuous life. It’s more difficult for a thief to find peace than someone who lived a virtuous life as he not only has internal troubles but external ones as well - every day comes with the torment of “getting caught”. Live virtuously... “A person suffers more than necessary when he suffers before it is necessary.” -Seneca Peace is learning to live in the moment. Looking into the past brings regrets while looking in the future, at what may or may not be, brings anxiety. Live in the moment... “We are all subject to the same terms: whoever is granted the privilege of birth is also destined to die. Time separates us, but death brings us together. The time between our first day and our last is uncertain and always changing: if measured by its troubles, it seems long even to a young person; if measured by its speed, it seems short even to an old person. Everything is unstable, unpredictable, and more changeable than the weather. All things are tossed about and change into their opposites at the whim of Fortune; in this chaotic world, the only certainty is death.” -Seneca In order to find peace in this life one must overcome their fear of death. To understand life’s unpredictability and finite nature is to understand peace. What begins also has an end whether this end is tomorrow or a thousands years from now. Death will come... “Every day and every hour remind us of how insignificant we are, and they keep showing us in new ways how much we forget our own frailty; then, as we make plans for eternity, they force us to glance back at Death.” -Seneca References:

• “Letters from a Stoic” by Lucious Seneca
• “Self-Reliance and other essays” by Ralph Waldo Emerson