On Self-Improvement: Some Basic Ways Of Fixing Yourself Up
If one were to objectively look at the state of the modern man in today’s day and age, it’s pretty obvious that there has been a tremendous decline in him two ways compared to his predecessors/ancestors. Firstly, there is the biological or physical decay. It’s commonly known that testosterone levels are down, sperm counts are down, obesity rates are up, diabetes rates are up, grip strength is down, and what not. Secondly, you have the psychological downward spiral, men today are emotionally more troubled, more dependent on outward validation, more stressed out, and overall, just have a lot less grit to deal with the troubles of the world.
Thus, I view the most important aspect to self-improvement for young men in today’s day age as coming from the complementary and symbiotic relationship between physical robustness and mental strength. And I specifically use the term robustness with the former and strength with the latter because of some very pertinent reasons.
Physical strength or Physical might isn’t foremost on our bucket list looking at things we’re after. We want the ability to be able to grind, to be energetic in the face of the most excruciating circumstances for our bodies, to be able to make most of our living days on this earth.
When it comes to the mind though, we are indeed looking for strength or will power very specifically. The mind is the active participant in the affairs of the world, and it is the mind which plots to go out and chase very specific goals. It is the mind which grapples with the threats of those who would deter us, it is the mind which conquers our worst fears and terrors.
Coming to proper advice on how to best go about actually achieving these two symbiotic aims of generating mental strength and physical robustness, I’ll start off with some of the basic stuff.
The mind, as some say, is itself like a muscle, which must be trained and strengthened over long periods of time to deal with stressors, anxieties and terrors. There are primarily two kinds of ways of training the mind. One is the passive method, the second is the active method. The passive method is at play in our normal day to day affairs, when we interact with different sorts of troublesome situations, when we are involved in playing zero-sum games and other such problems. The active ways I know of are primarily two (both being intertwined): Stoic reflection and reading being the first, and the second being mindfulness or meditation.
There are 3 main Classical Stoic works, namely, Letters from a Stoic by Seneca, Meditations by Marcus Aurelius and last but not least Discourses by Epictetus. One should read them in this order, because in my experience, I’ve found that Seneca’s writings are the most plain and practical, while Marcus Aurelius talks about concepts at a deeper and slightly more complex level. Epictetus writes in a relatively more orthodox way such that his work has the rigour and complexity of a core scholarly exercise then something which is meant for new readers just starting to contemplate along stoic lines.
Meditation or its Mindfulness form, comes in a lot of varieties, some are traditional Hindu, Buddhist, even Christian/Islamic practices while others are secular/modern or Western. For a beginner, it doesn’t make that much of a difference which type of meditation one really goes for, whether of a traditional or a secular variety. The basic idea remains the same, which is to become fine tuned with the fundamental nature of awareness and consciousness itself. In some sense, it helps you give pause amidst the fast pace of life and really really get inside your own sense of being or self.
I know, sounds a bit esoteric and perhaps vague. It’s not something which is easy to really explain unless one tries it for oneself. I would suggest going with some of the guided meditation/mindfulness videos and programmes which are already easily available on YouTube and on a number of Android Apps. There’s no need to be really picky, lots of highly rated, genuine & legit choices out there.
Then let’s come to the aspect of physical robustness. I think here again we are playing with two ways of dealing with the situation at hand. One is diet, which is something which has gone wrong for a lot of people in the modern age. Primarily because we are very used to not consciously thinking about much of what we eat. Or even if we think we are consciously making a decision of what to eat, it’s usually just a knee jerk reaction to a particular set of circumstances and choices, and not really something which is actually well considered. It’s more often than not just our ancient taste buds and gut bacteria who are making the real decisions, and of course, no one told them that we’re living in a world where the average man is sitting in front of a screen for 8-10 hours a day and does not go under direct sunlight for more than half an hour to an hour a day at best.
Thus, we need to actively make an effort to ensure that it is the conscious mind, fed with information about our actual nutritional deficiencies (there are a number of cheaply available tests on medical apps who will tell you exactly what your body is lacking and what you’ve been taking in excess) which is responsible for our dietary choices and not some gut extinct. Some common deficiencies which people have these days Vitamin D (lack of sunlight), too little Protein in the diet (particularly in India), lack of Vitamin B12, lack of zinc and magnesium, and a whole bunch of other things. A simple Google search will give you a rough idea about what kinds of foods are a valuable source of these and other vitamins which you may lack (depending on a medical report, or if you can’t get that immediately, one can always read a bit about symptoms of a particular nutrient’s deficiency and see if that sounds familiar).
If the deficiency is so far gone that simply eating more of a type of veggies or fruit won’t do nearly enough, one can always check out some basic supplements for that particular nutrient or get some multi-vitamin (may the blessings of Canada Kumar be upon you) which is easily available over the counter.
Along with fixing the nutritional profile, one also has to obviously have a physically active life. It doesn’t matter if you have the most well serviced, fanciest Lamborghini with insane horsepower and the very top notch engine oil and fuel all loaded and ready to roll if the car never makes it out of the Garage.
I think physical exercise and regimen are made overly complicated by a lot of online gym bro types with endless variants of ‘Do you even lift bruh?’ being thrown at the audience. See, lifting is very nice and wholesome, for sure. It helps builds muscle and boosts your metabolism at an incredibly efficient pace, especially when supplemented with a suitable diet. However, it’s not the only way. A reasonable alternative is to go for body-weight exercises at home or in a nearby open space (like a Park) which require little to no equipment. Examples of bodyweight exercises are crunches, push-ups, pull ups/chin ups, etc. There are many others, but 3-4 basic ones like these are all you need to get started and be on your way to really start building a healthy amount of physical robustness.
Oh yeah, and of course, don’t forget cardio. A brisk walk/jog would be nice for starters. Running replacing that over time would be really useful as well. All in all, again, physical exercise doesn’t need to be very complicated for most people. Of course, there are many straightforward weight training programmes as well, and gym memberships aren’t all that expensive these days, so you can choose to go down that path as well.
Also, one major piece of advice, especially since this piece is for young(or youngish) men. If you want to destroy all your progress, both in the mental and physical areas of self-improvement, have a habit of jerking off regularly. If you actually want to make strides and improve your life, stop watching porn entirely and put an end to jerking off/masturbation.
Have a good day fren.