Hi, I’ve just published my new book, The Manual for Mental Strength: Ancient Heuristics For The Modern Crisis.
In this book, I talk about my struggle with mental health and how I built resilience. And my goal is for this book to help other people improve their mental health as well.
This book started as a Quora answer that went viral with several hundred upvotes, so I decided to expand it into a book.
I hope you enjoy it, and please leave a review because reviews help push my book out to more people. As an independent author, reviews help me grow and improve massively.
The question I put to you is: why wouldn’t life be unbearably difficult and hard?
We are all born with physical bodies that succumb to pain.
We all deal with mentally distressing problems in our lives.
Life is meant to be this way, so we shouldn’t resist it.
Just like when you use your hands as hands and your feet as feet, you’ll occasionally feel pain and fatigue.
The same is true with your mind when you experience challenging moments in life.
In fact, I would say it’s better to face the difficulties and challenges life offers than to choose the easy life.
If you’re pushing yourself in your vocation and life, you will face challenges and hardships.
Instead of getting bogged down, embrace your challenges.
Have you ever worked out?
If you have, you’ll know that when you lift weights, you feel the burn in your muscles.
If you’re new to working out, you might get worried about feeling the burning pain.
But if you’re a more experienced gym-goer, you’ll know that the burning feeling causes small tears in your muscles.
And in fact, because of these tears, your muscles grow back even stronger.
Many of us can understand that subjecting our bodies to stressors helps our muscles grow stronger.
But many of us struggle to apply this concept to our lives.
Great discoveries and innovations are usually a byproduct of difficulty, strife, and sometimes disaster.
Nassim Taleb said, “Difficulty is what wakes up the genius.”
For example, after every plane crash, the aviation industry reevaluates its safety protocols and strengthens them, leading to fewer fatalities in the future.
An author will write book after book until one does well, then will use the feedback and the complaints to make that book better.
Hardships and difficulties force us to grow
We live in an era where humans have overcome most hardships and difficulties.
For example, medicine is at its best ever, and people are living longer.
Health and safety are at an all-time high.
Most of us live at a similar level of comfort to the kings and queens of times gone by (probably even better with the technology we have).
Even when we face the event that causes the most suffering, death, modern medicine has enough painkillers so we don’t have to feel pain.
We live in a world with fewer hardships and problems than ever
This is a net good as a whole, but when we live lives devoid of challenges and hardships, we avoid the stressors that enable us to grow.
My story
In 2021, I was diagnosed with health anxiety because I kept thinking I had a lung disease and other illnesses.
The reason I got health anxiety, I believe, was because I was working a desk job, and I worked from home, which resulted in a lot of idle time searching my symptoms via doctor Google. (Idle hands are the devil’s workshop).
Because I was doing nothing with my free time, the vacuum in my life was filled with the wrong things, i.e., googling my symptoms online and getting anxious.
I cured my health anxiety by first getting the all clear from the doctor regarding my health and then being deliberate on how I filled that vacuum/void in my life.
So I started writing and reading, then going on more walks and lifting weights.
Filling the vacuum by doing difficult things helped my mental health massively.
And that’s one of the reasons I still read/ write daily and consistently work out.
The bottom line
Life is hard because it’s meant to be. As Nietzsche said, “What does not kill me makes me stronger.” And in the sense of fatal plane crashes, “That which kills me makes others stronger.” Via improved safety protocols. Challenges and hardships are part of evolution. They force us to evolve. Embrace them. Be more concerned if your life is devoid of hardships and challenges.
Credit for the picture goes to Dan Steffen from the Asphalt Jungle.
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Sea cucumbers shock and attack oncoming predators by spraying out their internal organs (which can be toxic) out of their butthole.
This entangles and can also injure the attacking predator, allowing the sea cucumber to escape for safety.
The sea cucumbers’ internal organs regenerate within days and weeks.
Nature works in mysterious ways.
Why I’m telling you this
You and I may not be sea cucumbers, but we are threatened in many different ways, ie spiritually, mentally and to a lesser extent, physically.
And instead of protecting ourselves with our internal organs like the sea cucumber, we need to use our minds.
What to remove from your life
Bad habits
People who don’t want the best for you
Idleness
Anything that is a detriment to your health
Sin & vices
Putting off your life’s mission
Bad habits
Avoid habits like excessive alcohol consumption, smoking, overeating and drugs.
These habits offer nothing to your life. To really grow, you first need to let go of what no longer serves you.
People who don’t want the best for you
I’m talking about people who encourage you down the wrong paths, people who put you down, and people who have no concern for wasting their own lives, so they’ll definitely have no concern for wasting yours.
Focus on how you feel around certain people. Do you feel uplifted or drained?
Avoid the unhappy and the unlucky, otherwise they will infect you with their unhappiness.
Idleness
I believe this is the most subtle yet destructive behaviour we can engage in.
Lying around watching ‘friends’ on repeat may seem like it doesn’t cause any harm.
But in fact it does.
When you waste time, you never get it back; it’s gone forever.
I know how valuable time is now, so I schedule my idleness (or laziness).
I can be idle once I’ve achieved everything for the day, and every Sunday.
You can’t be busy all the time.
Anything that is a detriment to your health
When you fail to exercise, eat healthily and get the required amount of sleep, you are slowly killing yourself.
Eat healthily, drink enough water, work out, and sleep 8 hours every night, and your body will thank you.
Sin & vice
I’ve already touched upon idleness, but other sins are just as destructive, such as:
Lust (ie watching porn, masturbating and pointless sexual encounters).
Gluttony ( overeating and becoming fat).
Wrath ( getting angry and losing your temper). How can you control your life if you can’t control yourself?
Pride ( excessive love of oneself, thereby making yourself the centre of the universe; these people are the worst to be around).
Sloth ( idleness and being lazy).
Envy ( being sad because others are prospering).
Greed ( an excessive desire for money, wealth and other material things. You never have enough).
Putting off your life’s mission
Only when you let go of everything that doesn’t serve you do you open up a narrow space to pursue your unique mission in life.
Part of the battle is just making way for that space for you to grow.
I would say that’s the most challenging part.
The sea cucumber releases a seemingly essential but also unnecessary part of itself to protect its future self
You need to do the same.
How I practice this advice
I was addicted to pride and had to let it go to protect my future self. Here was how it manifested.
I was addicted to bodybuilding and lifting weights. I wanted to be the most muscle-bound person I could be, so I lifted ultra-heavy weights, so much so that I injured my right wrist, which has resulted in me having to undergo two separate wrist surgeries. To protect my future self, I’ve had to part ways with this unhealthy bodybuilding obsession.
How I practice this advice 2.
As a teen growing up with the internet, I was addicted to porn.
This unhealthy obsession was getting in the way of romantic relationships and was wasting a lot of time. I had to part ways with porn to protect my future self.
The bottom line
Like a sea cucumber that ejects what it doesn’t need to survive and regenerate, we must let go of harmful habits, toxic people, and distractions to protect and grow our future selves.
I share ideas that challenge how you think and help you grow — all for free.
Walk between 8000-10,000 steps per day (preferably in the sunlight) will make you feel tired ( exposure to sunlight helps reset your circadian rhythm, which is your natural body clock, which enables you to feel wakeful in the morning and tired at night).
How I’m Trying To Build Myself Spiritually
I’m reading two pages of the Bible every night before bed.
To understand the deeper metaphorical and spiritual meanings, I’m trying to understand the verses myself, but if I need extra help, I ask ChatGPT.
All this is helping me see the profound wisdom in the Bible and is making me understand why it has lasted for two millennia.
A Thought I’ve Had
We all strive to acquire more things or to become more, but how many of us attempt to become a better, more virtuous person?
Some Wisdom On Dating And Marriage
Proverbs 21:19 (NIV):
“Better to live in a desert than with a quarrelsome and nagging wife.”
The Worst Advice I Ever Had
“Don’t go to the dentist, it’s a scam”.
It doesn’t need to be said, but visiting the dentist and getting regular check-ups is essential for maintaining your oral health.
It’s better to be proactive and get check-ups rather than being reactive and only getting treatment when it might be too late.
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We learn about others far more when they react to challenges than when everything is going smoothly.
A quote I like: “This too shall pass”.
Another quote I like by Seneca: “The outcome of violent anger is a mental raving, and therefore anger is to be avoided not for the sake of moderation but for the sake of sanity.”
When exercising, make it as low-risk and as least taxing as possible, thereby giving you more time and energy to use your mind.
A question to ask yourself ( and every day):
Am I better than I was yesterday?
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This quote is one that Seneca quotes (from an unknown poet) in Letters from a Stoic, though Seneca’s original quote is:
“a man is unhappy, though he reigns the world over, if he does not consider himself supremely happy.”
And I think Seneca is absolutely correct.
If we cannot be happy with our lot in life now, when can we be?
I guarantee that if you say, “I’m happy when I get this car or this house, etc., “ when you get what you want, the goal posts will move even more.
“What a shame it is to get what we wanted”. – anonymous
I heard the above quote somewhere, yet I can’t remember the source.
But it points to the fact that we tend to vastly overestimate how we will feel when we achieve a given goal.
Seneca also talks about how the best part of a work of art is the painting and not the underwhelming feeling of it being finished and then moving on to the next piece of artwork.
Finishing anything is such a small part of the whole process.
Seneca also wrote that when children are raised, seeing them flourish in the world as adults is pleasant, but it’s a byproduct of raising and caring for them in infancy.
And that it’s the raising and caring for children in their infant years that is looked upon most fondly ( I hear this echoed amongst many parents).
The Takeaway is that we should be happy with what we have. Yes, it’s fine to have goals and strive for them, but chronically being unhappy with your lot in life and always wanting more is a disease.
We should care more about sowing and less about reaping.
Things can always be better, but they can also be worse. If we want peace, we need to think of the latter.
A quick story:
Almost a year ago, I had wrist surgery to repair torn cartilage.
For the first six months after surgery, all was going well, then as I was pulling my car door (which I’ve done many times after surgery), I felt a pull and as a consequence pain in my wrist.
This pain has continued even while I write these words, and it’s looking ever more likely I’ll need to undergo wrist surgery again.
I’ve been feeling down in the dumps and repeating in my mind, “I just want my wrist to be normal again”.
But this has been making me suffer more.
So, I’ve thought to myself, “There is always someone worse off than me.”
I think of the poor children in Gaza, god bless them, who are suffering unimaginable horror and going through much worse than I.
When I think about my injury in this context, it’s made my wrist pain much more sufferable.
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Never care about someone’s opinion who you don’t respect or who can’t even live up to their own standards.
For religious people, the quote “only god can judge me” can provide one with great strength and resilience. It means you weigh yourself up against something else, something beyond this world, and nothing on this earth can affect you. For non-religious folk, this can be better thought of as “no one can judge me apart from myself”, which is still helpful.
Street smarts are real. In this world, there are doers and intellectuals yet idiots (IYIS), as Nassim Taleb says. We should only listen to the doers (people with skin in the game) because they are the only ones who take the world forward.
Set the world on fire. Tell people what they ought to hear, not what they want to hear, live according to your unwavering values and wage war against what threatens those values. The truth isn’t always comfortable. We aren’t born to make friends, we’re born to make a difference. But when we stand for something, we naturally attract others who stand for the same values and make friends as a byproduct.
“If you see fraud and don’t say fraud, you are a fraud.”- Nassim Taleb – my note on this is that when you encounter something inherently bad and ignore it rather than standing up for what’s right, you are part of the problem. There is clearly good and evil in this world, and we need to call out what’s evil, for example, the killing of so many Palestinians by Israel, led by Netanyahu. This mass murder needs to stop.
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Quote of the week: “ But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you…. Do to others as you would have them do to you. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them.” – Luke 6:27-32 – my note on this – love is a choice. If we want to make the world a better place, we need to do it out of a place of love. Love is contagious and will help you make a much more positive impact on people’s lives than if you came from a place of hate.
Never be heard complaining, even to yourself. Complaining never makes things better; we can either look for and implement positive solutions to our problems, or we don’t. We don’t have to fight against the present and complain. If we do complain, it makes the situation even harder to face. Marcus Aurelius said in Meditations, “Don’t be overheard complaining about life at court. Not even to yourself.” I agree.
A 30-minute walk can cure most of our neuroses. That’s why I walk every day. Movement is medicine.
When someone criticises an action you’ve done or something you’ve said or posted, there is a chance to improve. When someone attacks your character personally with nothing helpful to say, they’re subconsciously acting out jealousy and envy. In both situations, you’re on the right path. The first situation brings awareness that we can always be better. In the second situation, we know we’re on the right path because if we’re arousing envy and jealousy in others, we must be doing something right, see it as a compliment.
I regularly think about the quote “Those who talk should do and only those who do should talk” by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. When I read books or listen to someone’s advice before implementing it, I make sure they have a body of work that shows they’ve firstly used that advice themselves and secondly that it actually works. Talk is only good to the extent that it’s backed up by actions.
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How many people set themselves a goal but never accomplish it?
I would say many people do this ( including myself).
For example, I’ve had a hard time sticking to writing, but I’ve made my writing habit so easy to stick to that it’s almost impossible not to stick to it.
Heres what I do:
Instead of committing to an unreasonable goal like writing for several hours per day, I’ve set myself the goal of writing for at least 30 minutes every other day and writing a total of 300 words (each day), which I find very easy to stick to.
With fitness, I do the same. I only train with weights 3 times per week, simply because it’s much more sustainable.
Whatever goal you want to achieve, make it almost impossible not to achieve it. That usually means starting small and making your goal realistic.
2. It’s the simple things that matter the most
Things like sitting with a cup of tea or coffee, walking in nature, feeling well-rested after a good night’s sleep, having money in the bank and most importantly, having your health and spending time with friends and family.
The small things matter the most. Life is simple when you focus on the small things.
3. You will always have problems, but the key is to have problems you want to solve.
I recently got a new bathroom in my house, and it looks great, but now the rest of my house looks dated.
I’d rather have the problem of some of my house looking dated than all of it.
4. It’s not over till it’s over.
You might feel like you’ve messed up in life, and I know I have in some areas.
If you’re reading this, you’re breathing; if you’re breathing, you’re alive and can do something about your life.
It’s not over till it’s over.
5. Stay Present by doing so you avoid being wholly controlled by your mind.
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I had an ex-girlfriend who wouldn’t eat after 6 p.m. She thought eating at night made her body more likely to store fat.
I’ve personally lost a lot of fat ( over 30 pounds), yet when I told her the science behind losing body fat, she still wouldn’t listen.
Alas, she never ended up losing weight.
You see, to lose body fat, you need to be in a calorie deficit ( eat fewer calories than you burn).
Because your body consumes fewer calories than it needs, it burns your body fat stores to make up for the calories you’re not consuming.
You will lose body fat like clockwork if you consistently maintain a calorie deficit.
For example, here’s how I burn a pound of fat weekly.
I need to eat 2500 calories every day to maintain my weight.
If I put myself in a 500-calorie deficit, eating 2000 calories daily for a week, I’d be in a weekly calorie deficit of 3500 calories ( because 7×500=3500).
And in a pound of fat, there are roughly 3500 calories.
So as long as I eat 2000 calories daily, I lose a pound of fat weekly.
It doesn’t matter when I eat those calories; all that matters is that I don’t go above 2500 calories ( my total daily energy expenditure, TDEE) and don’t gain weight.
We gain weight when we eat more calories than we burn.
You Only Gain Body Fat When You Overconsume
If you are eating more calories than you burn, then it doesn’t matter if you don’t eat at night; you’re certain to gain weight.
Weight gain works similarly to a calorie deficit but in reverse.
Say you eat 500 calories more than you burn every day over the week.
In that case, you’ll gain roughly a pound of body fat weekly.
Because a pound of fat contains 3,500 calories, 7 x 500 calories = 3,500 calories gained per week.
This fat storage will go straight to your belly ( especially if you don’t exercise or lift weights).
The Bottom Line
Many people don’t understand how energy balance works. I hope this article can help free these people from the chains of not eating after 6 P.M.
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