“If You Are Ruled By Mind, You Are A King; If By Body, A Slave”

This quote from Cato the Elder is pretty self-explanatory. Are you beholden to the physical material desires of your body? Or are you beholden to the ideas and morals of your mind? There are much more limitations on what your body can endure than your mind.

Further, if we allow our impulses to rule our lives we become slaves to those impulses. Our base impulses incentivize us towards actions that are not in our best interests. They drive us to seek immediate pleasure, rather than delay gratification for long term benefit.

We should also remember that our physical selves are limited in ways that our mind is not. Our physical selves are connected to our basest instincts. Instincts that are not connected to reason and temperance. The mind allows us to rise above our base instincts and truly make a change in our lives.

Do not misunderstand though. It is critically important to keep a healthy body. You cannot completely disassociate yourself from you body. It is essential to who you are. But taking control of your mind allows you to over ride the negative impulses from your body. The reverse is much more difficult.

It should be noted that in this quote, the body is representative of the natural needs that we have. The mind is intrinsically a step above the body in this sense. The body simply represents the natural urges that we have. The mind represents how we understand what these urges are, and how we overcome them.

As I have noted before, it is critical for one to be able to be settled in their mind. Your mind is the ultimate arbiter of whether you are happy or not. Because it allows you to choose whether you are happy. Your perception is your reality. You could be in a terrible situation, but if you believe you should be happy, if you find the positives, you will be happy. If you are in a great situation but do not realize it, then you will not benefit from it.

You have much less control over the negative and positive feelings you get from your body. You have complete control over the negative and positive feelings from your mind. If you are tough enough mentally, you can overcome any challenge.

“If you are ruled by mind, you are a King; if by body, a slave.” Only when you have mentally overcome something your body alone could not, will you understand how true these words are.