Strengthen yourself through minor physical hardships
It’s really hard to keep your composure when you feel physically uncomfortable, whether from pain, tiredness, or hunger. Hunger is the one Henry’s been struggling with. Henry often works through lunch, thinking he would continue to be productive. All it winds up producing is grumpiness coupled with visions of pizza. No matter how hard he tries to focus, his mind just won’t settle down and spoils his mood for the rest of the day. The Stoics understood that physical discomfort can sometimes lead to emotional upset. This week’s exercise offers a simple technique: intentional, repeated practice.
"Now there are two kinds of [Stoic] training, one which is appropriate for the soul alone, and the other which is common to both soul and body. We use the training common to both when we discipline ourselves to cold, heat, thirst, hunger, meager rations, hard beds, avoidance of pleasures, and patience under suffering. For by these things and others like them the body is strengthened and becomes capable of enduring hardship, sturdy and ready for any task; the soul too is strengthened since it is trained for courage by patience under hardship and for self-control by abstinence from pleasures.”
Musonius Rufus, Lectures, 6
Even though the Stoics thought the mind was our most valuable asset—it’s the most sophisticated and important tool we have at our disposal—they did not neglect the body. In fact, as Epictetus’s teacher Musonius Rufus suggests, the mind (or “soul”) and body work together, each influencing the other, for good or for bad.
We can and should train our mind, which is why we study philosophy to begin with. This book is, after all, a series of exercises to train your mind by thinking more precisely about what is worth pursuing, what you should avoid, and what it means to have a life worth living. But philosophy, the Stoics rightly insisted, cannot be solely a matter of theory. Just as we can’t learn to ride a bicycle simply by listening to someone’s instructions on how to do it, so, too, we don’t become virtuous just by reading Epictetus or Seneca. We need to practice.
You may practice relatively mild exercises of self-imposed discomfort, following the examples listed by Musonius: Try going out in the cold without a coat, or in the heat while being overdressed; abstain from drinking water when thirsty (within reason); fast for a day or two (unless you have a medical condition—check with your doctor); sleep in a sleeping bag instead of your bed for a night or two; skip that yummy dessert after dinner, or decline the taste of that wonderful red wine you so enjoy; or choose the longest line at a checkout aisle to test your patience.
Why would anyone want to self-inflict any of these discomforts? The point isn’t to indulge in self-flagellation for the sake of making yourself miserable. These are all instances of mild self-deprivation. The Stoics did this in order to strengthen their character and resolve, and their ability to deal with hard times in a virtuous manner. The core idea is that the mind allows us to get through these situations unscathed. Here it is our own choice to go through the exercises; then when imposed on us by circumstance, we are already used to the idea that discomfort is no big deal. If others get through similar situations just fine, why complain and become frustrated when it’s our turn?
Henry’s problem is not that he is incapable of skipping lunch to focus on work, but rather that he has not trained himself to do it. Part of his mind actively resists the idea, making him feel resentful toward himself, frustrated both by the sensation of hunger and by the fact that he isn’t getting done what he wanted to do anyway.
We learn from Stoic philosophy, as well as modern empirical research in cognitive science, that unless we are well trained we should avoid difficult tasks or situations that are hard to handle when we are tired, hungry, sick, or otherwise physically distracted.1 When our body is strained, so is our mind, preventing us from being able to handle, say, a delicate discussion with our boss at work or our partner at home. In such a case, know thyself, gently ask for a postponement, and practice!