A few weeks ago, my friend told me something that has stuck with me ever since

”When you have a reason for doing something, it becomes easy. When you don’t, it turns into pure hell”

A week before that I had been challenged to complete a day of fasting. To follow the Islamic tradition of Ramadan.

And it truly felt like pure hell.

I lost all my motivation to do anything, I didn’t have an ounce of energy and all I could think about was food.

But the funny thing is, I’ve done a lot more difficult things than going without food for a day. But for some reason, skipping two meals felt like torture.

When I thought back to what my friend had told me — something clicked.

It wasn’t the task itself that made it difficult, but my inner story about it. What made the whole thing tortuous was my lack of a deeper reason.

There wasn’t a reason not to run to the kitchen, to take that sip of refreshing water or indulge in a giant breakfast. And so not doing it, felt like prison.

There isn’t any shortage of self improvement and health advice.

But there is a shortage of people sticking to it.

But the reason isn’t laziness or a lack of discipline. The reason is ironically the lack of a reason. Even though people recognize that improving your health is good for you — there isn’t any deeper reason for it.

As a result they continuously fall back down after every effort to improve their lives, to improve their health.

They can’t stick to their diet because they can’t see the bigger picture as to why they should even bother.

Because if you don’t know if life is worth it, why would improving it be?

This puzzled me for a long time, but I think I’ve gotten a fair bit closer to the answer.

But it all starts with realizing one thing.

Everyone Is A Philosopher

You are a philosopher.

Not in the sense that you sit around in a rocking chair all day. But as in the old meaning of the word -- the art of living.

Your life is your philosophy.

How well it's constructed determines how good of a life you can lead. It's how you think, make decisions and act.

In other words, your life is only as good as your philosophy allows it to be. Your definition of the meaning to life, is what determines your life.

Think of building a tower. It can only reach as high as its foundation allows it to. If it tries to go beyond that, it will get knocked over by the slightest breeze.

In the same way, when you try to improve your health (and life) without knowing on what foundation you stand — your tower crumbles.

Having more energy, more flexibility and less pain is great. But what are you gonna use it for?

It's like spending all your time building a ship — but without a destination you want to reach.

If you don't have a why, your mind will start working against you. You'll take shortcuts, skip days and finally leave the ship unbuilt.

In exactly the same way, when you try to improve your life without a why — you set yourself up for failure. Because deep down, your mind will always be asking "why"? And you won’t have an answer.

And whether you realize it or not, you'll start justifying not putting in the work. Not because you're not disciplined. But because discipline requires a reason to exist (as we talked about in "you won't make it without discipline").

Your life turns into this giant chore you have to drag yourself through. You have to eat healthy, you have to be honest, you have to workout.

It all becomes a situation of your parents forcing you to eat your vegetables.

When you build your life without a philosophical foundation, you won't know why you're doing anything. And you can't do anything.

Life becomes a game of running from pain and towards pleasure. Or of blindly following someone else's path in life, whether it be religions, society's preamade plan or your parents' advice.

If you live without a philosophical foundation in favor of life — you crumble. Life becomes meaningless and pleasure becomes the highest goal in your life.

And if you adopt someone else's like a religion — life becomes a chore you have to drag yourself through.

In either case, you can't reach your potential. Because in the first, you don't have a foundation to stand on. In the second, the foundation isn't yours. And you're required to build only the sort of tower that the religion deems as good.

The only logical thing to do, is to create your own way of living.

Of constructing your own philosophy, your own way of going through life and your own meaning.

But for that, you need a reason.

Oh' Glorious Purpose 

You're not living at your potential because you don't have a reason to.

The reason you should bother to improve your health is so that you can experience life fully. It's to get rid of the limitations a crappy health puts on you.

And that's all well and good…

But to build the ship that is your health, you need to pick a destination you want to sail in. You need an answer to why you're spending so much time hammering away on the deck.

You don't build a ship because it's good to have a ship, you build a ship to go places.

But more than that — you build a ship because the act of sailing through the treacherous waves is meaningful and enjoyable.

In exactly fly the same way, you build your health not just because it's good for you. You build your health so that you can reach your goals.

• That your mind actually works

• That you can move your body without pain

• That you can experience life without having your health drag it down

But the bigger reason for improving your health is because the journey towards those goals is meaningful and enjoyable. Because the better your ship is, the higher waves you can sail and the more enjoyable it becomes.

In exactly the same way, the better your health is, the more you can push life to the edge. The more meaning and enjoyment you can create.

It's cliche, but it is so for a reason: It's not the destination, it's the journey. But the journey isn't possible without the destination. They work together to create meaning. In other words, you need a ‘why’ to enjoy the how.

This is as far as I can tell, why you should bother improving your health. And why you should bother improving anything at all.

So that you can experience and enjoy life while making it meaningful. Because having a problem (goals) and being engaged in the solution (improvement), is better than not having a problem at all.

That is the act of faith you have to take. To assume that being is better than non being.

As Nietzsche so splendidly pointed out, your philosophy has to be in favor of life. It has to say 'yes' to it.

So before you build your ship, health and life (they are all the same) — you need a reason for doing so.

You need a philosophical foundation.

Your Own Way Of Playing The Game

To bild a tower, you need a foundation.

To build your philosophy, you need fundamental philosophical axioms.

Ideas that are so fundamental that they cannot be refuted.

Because if they can, when you encounter the tragedy of life (as you will) — like a Jenga tower having its supporting bricks pulled out — your entire philosophy and life will collapse.

But that’s not to say it’s easy. It’s a problem philosophers have toggled with for as long as humans have existed…

The question of the meaning to life.

But we have the advantage of being able to stand on the shoulders of great minds in turn standing on great minds.

With the internet, we are equipped with the greatest resource of knowledge ever collected.

So I think we can do just fine.

1. Reducing Unnecessary Suffering

Why should you bother to improve anything?

One answer is; "so you don't suffer any more stupidly than you have to".

Because if you're suffering and are in pain, you will care.

This is the first almost irrefutable axiom you can start building your philosophy on.

Something to note, is that reducing suffering is very different from the avoidance of pain.

Reducing suffering means doing the things today that will reduce unnecessary pain in the future. Even if what you're doing is painful in the present.

It's the difference between skipping your workout or pushing through. Because both aim at minimizing suffering. But avoiding the short term suffering (completing the workout) guarantees the long term suffering (disease, low energy, mortality)

And so, the first reason to improve your health is to prevent unnecessary suffering in the future.

Because if you're in pain, if you're unhealthy -- you will care.

If you're above 25 % body fat, don't have any energy and can't move around or think clearly -- you will care.

2. The Game Of Life

“Life has no meaning. Each of us has meaning and we bring it to life. It is a waste to be asking the question when you are the answer.” - Joseph Campbell

To act in a way that reduces suffering in the long term makes sense.

But is that all that life is? Is it all that it can be?

I can't help but see how it traps you in seeing life as a chore. Of finding yourself living under constant judgement.

In other words, you live life under a big boss saying "you better, or else". This is your future self or God if you follow religion

You stop doing things just for the sake of it because you have to do them. Life ends up becoming one big chore you have to drag yourself through to escape the suffering of hell.

Improving your situation sure beats hell -- but is that the only reason you should aim upwards? Is life just a game of storing away nuts for the winter?

It's a very pessimistic outlook on life. And trying 'not to suffer too much', isn't that inspiring. It's a necessary part of creating your own philosophy, but it's not all there is.

For the simple fact that things are meaningful. For the fact that it is possible to enjoy the experience of life.

Have you ever listened to the climax in a symphony, where every one of the hundreds of instruments line up -- where the suspense and predictability is perfectly balanced?

As you sit and listen to the final quartet of Beethoven's "Ode to joy" (and if you're not made of stone), a sense of meaning will rush over you — a sense of enjoyment.

The reason people love music, art or movies is because they symbolize meaning.

They are the perfect blend of emotions and logic, chaos and order, death and life. In other words, they symbolize the ultimate human experience. Of living on the edge of your abilities.

Of pushing into the unknown just the slightest.

Of playing the game of life.

Because that is how life becomes enjoyable, how it becomes meaningful. It's how you realize the true meaning of philosophy — the art of living.

Because the greatest work of art you'll ever create is yourself.

And just as a good artwork is one that tells a story, and one that reaches outside what you expect. A meaningful and enjoyable life is one that pushes you to the edge of your abilities.

More scientifically, your brain cal tell when you're on this edge,

It releases a wonderful cocktail of all positive emotion molecules to motivate you to continue. In other words, it's flow (but we've already talked about that).

Reducing suffering is a fundamental brick you need in your foundation, but it's not all there is.

Just as the brush and canvas are necessary for the paining, but they're not the art itself.

I haven't found anything to refute this 2nd philosophical axiom. To live on the edge of your abilities. Because it's how you do the very thing every single person wants -- enjoy life.

This is why you should bother improving your health.

Because it allows you to experience life.

And by pushing yourself in the domains of health:

• Activity

• Diet

• Sleep

Life becomes meaningful and enjoyable because you're living on your edge. Because humans are not really happy unless they're progressing towards a goal.

And the funny thing is that what the goal is, doesn't really matter. I recently started tracking every single gym session I do. And the feeling of getting and extra rep in feels amazingly meaningful and enjoyable.

To make this more actionable:

Make an effort to improve yourself in all the 4 domains of life, health, wealth, relationships, happiness.

Not because you're not good enough, but because the process of pursuing them makes life meaningful. It also reduces your future suffering and finally allows you to experience life. It gives you the tools to live your life to its fullest.

Because with improved skills in health, wealth, relationships and happiness you can do that much more.

Think of an artist creating a painting.

He can't express himself fully, unless he has disciplined himself enough to learn the skills of painting.

In exactly the same way, to create the artwork of your life, you need to discipline yourself to learn the required skills.

The point of art is the art itself.

The point of music isn't to reach the end. If that were the case, the best musicians would be those who played the fastest. You would go a concert only to hear one chord.

It is simply meaningful by itself.

And so, the point of life is life itself.

Survival needs are necessary for life, just as the brush and the canvas are necessary for the painting.

Reducing suffering is a necessity — but it's not all there is.

The real art is how you use it — how you live your life.

3. Realizing The Game Is A Game

With the 2 fundamental building blocks of your philosophy:

• Reducing suffering

• Enjoying life

There is still one thing that stops almost everyone.

Some are more influenced by it than others, but everyone is to some degree.

If you don't solve this with your philosophy, you can't really you anything. It will always lie dormant in your mind, bubbling up as excuses, causing you to suffer and never creating the artwork of your life.

And I wouldn't recommend that.

What I'm talking about is fear.

How you choose to deal with it will determine how high of a tower you can build. Everyone has their way of managing it. Some rage through it, some gather up courage, some accept it and some let go of it completely.

Fear can bubble up in many ways — but the root of it is always the same...

The fear of death.

When it comes down to it, the only fear that exists is the fear of death. This is something that every philosophy has to deal with.

Fundamental religions talk about an afterlife, stoic philosophy accept it, oriental philosophy incorporates it.

You can choose whichever way you like, but they all intersect at one point.

Let me paint you a picture.

The goal of almost every philosophy or religion is built on the 2 fundamental axioms we've gone over:

Reducing suffering by sacrificing the present for the future and playing the game of life to its fullest

But to the degree you can do this, is directly correlated to degree of your incorporation of death in life.

Christianity pictures the afterlife, and people live on the hope that in death they will find salvation. They're working for that goodie at the end of the line.

Stoic philosophy completely accepts what is and sees death as a natural part of life. The stoics even sees it as a privilege, and as such devotes his life to fulfilling his potential while he can.

But both ways of thinking build on the idea that life is something to be taken seriously.

That you better do what you're told and not squander it. That doomsday is coming and you've got to deal with it.

But another way of thinking is the Buddhist view:

The approach of seeing life as a game.

Of not taking it seriously, and as you would play a game — master and enjoy it as much as possible.

When you play a game, you may very well be so swept up and involved that you forget yourself.

Think about a game of basketball.

All that you see is your teammates, all you think about is the present moment and the only thing you're working towards is getting the ball through the net.

In that moment, nothing else matters. You are totally involved in something as silly as throwing a rubber ball in a basket -- yet it feels like the most meaningful thing you could ever take on.

But in the back of your mind, you always know it's a game.

And in exactly the same way — you can approach life.

It gives you sort of metaphysical courage. You can play the game of life and get swept up in it. You can get so immersed in it that you forget yourself and start gripping your metaphorical chair. But you always have the sense in the back of your mind — that it's all a show.

That this isn't really what it's all about.

The ideal man according to Buddhism, is one that can live on 2 levels at once.

One who can play the game of life and get immersed in it — all the while realizing that he’s it. He is the whole darn cosmos playing a game that it isn’t.

And that allows him to truly master life, because the risk of death disappears. He still feels fear, but he knows that it’s just a part of the game. Just as you get frightened by a very captivating movie.

Whatever way you choose to do it is fine, but you need to incorporate death into your artwork. The idea that one day you will put down your brush forever.

And let someone else pick it up.

When you build a strong enough foundation with:

• Reducing suffering

• Pursuing enjoyment and meaning

• Incorporating death

You can start building your ship because you know that the destination doesn't matter as much as the journey.

You improve yourself not because you need improvement, but because it's meaningful, enjoyable and the most fun game you can play in this life.

That my friends, is the reason you should improve your health (and life in general).

To experience life, living on the edge of your abilities and creating the artwork of your life.

That was a lot of metaphors.

If you’ve read this far, your attention span is in the top 1%. Thank you for spending your mental resources.

Subscribe to the newsletter to not miss out on future posts and I'll see you next week.

Peace.

-Simon