Safe
Daily Meditation 562–9/10/2023
Unwashed fruits and veggies.
Chemically cleaned fruits and veggies.
Red meat. White meat. Wild meat.
Rice. Beans. Greens.
Apple seeds.
Tap water. Filtered water.
Free-weights. Weight machines. Bodyweight workouts. Walking.
Desk jobs. Standing jobs. Computer jobs. Physical labor.
Homeschooling. Public schooling.
Boxing. Jogging. MMA.
Life is full of little “optimizations” we can scale up or down in terms of what we, individually, perceive as “safe” or “unsafe.”
But, here’s the rub:
Life just isn’t safe.
It’s currently safer than it’s ever been in history, but it’s not safe. It’s not really meant to be overly safe.
It is when we are at the edge of safety that we best test our competence.
When our immune system is challenged.
When we spar with someone only just better than us.
When lift weights just a bit higher than we usually do.
When we do a job that is just a little bit beyond our skills…
It is when we are only a little unsafe that we become greater…Or only just fail and then can refine our skills to overcome the next time.
Nothing is truly, perfectly safe.
Even if you store-bought, wonderfully cleaned and plastic bagged apples, there’s still not a 0% chance you don’t get one that some bitter, angry applepicker didn’t inject with poison.
Even if you drink your tap water filtered, there’s not a 0% chance you accidentally drink some other contaminant.
Pursuit of too much safety won’t make you life better. It might, in fact, make it worse.
Be safe, certainly, but don’t make it something you focus too much upon lest you become too neurotic and anxious.
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These are distillations from my coming book “YouDaimonia: the Ancient Philosophy of Human Flourishing.”
