For me it's not so much Attia specifically but the treadmill (ha!) of trying to keep up with entire wellness / longevity space. It's never enough. There's always something new to chase or that we're doing wrong and will definitely kill us this week. Until it's something else next week.
That's all by design, of course, to hold your attention and keep you spending.
The vast majority of us fail the basics -- cardio, strength training, a reasonable diet. If you get those down you're so far ahead of others. I don't feel burned out about working those basics in my life at all, but I'm 100% burned out on this hyper-optimization that is always changing and always just out of reach.
Total optimization is out of reach, of course. "No one here gets out alive," as Jim Morrison said.
Matt, thank you so much for reading and for your very thoughtful comment.
I completely agree with everything you've said. The health industry has become one where everything is complicated to profit. But in reality it's an 80/20 distribution (though likely closer to 90/10): if you get the basics right, as you point out, you're in a very very good position. In other words, the 10% of actions (well-rounded exercise, a reasonable diet, enough sleep) will drive +90% of the health and wellness gains there are to reap.
Like you, the basics give me energy. But when I start to hyper-optimize, the practices that should be adding energy to my life begin to drain it instead. To learn that lesson, I had to go to the extreme end of the optimization spectrum.
To Jim's quote, we're all going to die. And we should be careful that we don't spend too much of the time we do have on this planet trying to delay that date... especially if it sucks the joy, fun, and peace out of our day-to-day life.
So agree if we get the basics down we are so far ahead of the others but isn't the whole purpose of this journey is to live as healthy and long as we can irrespective of the rest?
Well said, Matt. A focus on living longer without ensuring the stuff that makes up your days is enjoyable is missing the forest for the trees. Having more days alive doesn't matter if you don't get anything positive from your days.
To me, the goal is to live as healthy and long as we can SO LONG AS our lives are filled with joy, excitement, peace, adventure, and fun. If the pursuit to live longer takes those things away, what are we living for?
"But my Dad had dislodged a brick at the bottom of my foundation." This is what the best Dads do. They take that brick away, but what isn't so obvious is that they then lay it down in a new spot to give you a head start when you're ready for a next new foundation.
You are absolutely living up to your promise for honest and useful stories being shared Jack. I don't know who would fund the research since there would be nothing to sell based on the result, but I'd be willing to bet that self-honesty is a significant factor of longevity. And even if not, you improve the quality of life for yourself and others by promoting this kind of self-awareness.
You're so right, Rick. That is a great way of thinking about it that had not crossed my mind. I'm going to add that to the mental library for the day I might become a Dad. And maybe text my own dad to thank him for laying the brick down for a new foundation rather than smashing me over the head with it.
That means a great deal to me coming from you, thank you. You're right in that no one would research it, most likely, but I agree. I would bet that so many ways of being in the world have a massive impact on longevity that are never discussed: self-honesty and humility, humour and laughter, lightness and playfulness, taking one's self not too seriously. The opposite of those traits certainly make your life miserable, and probably shorten it too. I must try to not forget the importance of those as I walk the path.
Thanks, as always, for showing up and supporting. It means a great deal to me, my friend.
It's always a pleasure to read your writing and I love the chance to engage in a substantive conversation. Reading your reply it occurred to me that it would be an interesting world if we were more focused on extending the longevity of others than ourselves. In which case, "self-honesty and humility, humour and laughter, lightness and playfulness, taking one's self not too seriously" would probably be the best way we could increase the life expectancy of the people around us.
Thank-you, Rick. On "substantive conversation": I think that might be the best way to measure your success as a writer. To hell with views and likes and open rate. But do you engage the right people in interesting, progressive conversation that stretches and develops who you are? That, to me, seems like a much more worthwhile aim than striving for metrics.
I could not agree more with what you have said. When we change our perspective from self serving (me first) to in service of others (you first), life gets better. And if we can treat others with those traits you quoted, I think we would increase the lifespan and healthspan (quality of life) of everyone we come in contact with.
And when we give, we tend to receive back what we have given.
God I wish I had learned what you just said WAY earlier in life. I am truly ecstatic to hear someone arrive at this conclusion way earlier in the process than I did. I hope you get another ten decades to exercise and share your wisdom. :)
It seems you fell for the silver bullet..LOL We all have at one time or another, fell for the silver bullet.
I've been in the health, fitness, wellness, longevity, whatever you want to call if, for 42 years. You name the "guru" of longevity and I've likely read, or listened, to every word they've said.
What I've come to realize is, no one, today, is saying anything that's new, that we haven't known for at least the last 60 years. Yeah, there's a few guys, who enlightened some information on certain aspects, but not a lot of new information/data. Sinclair is a good example. He has some additional information on NAD+, but nothing really earth shattering. Most likely, the biggest change, or new information, that's come about is the understanding that genetics plays a lesser role in longevity than previously thought. Lifestyle, due to its impact on epigenetic, plays the large impact on lifespan and health span.
What we know, and have known for decades, is that VO2 max, Strength/muscle mass, ROM (Range of Motion/mobility), BMI, good nutritional habits, are all critically important to longevity and health span. We know, and have known, being lighter in your old age is better. You remain more stable, mobile, and resilient.
But life has to be lived. As you pointed out, in your story, one can become so obsessed with living longer that they don't, actually, get to live. Decades ago I adopted a 90/90/90 rule. If 90% of the time, I do 90% of what I know I should do, I'm 90% better.
Today, when I look at my busy schedule, and I am busy dealing with clients all day, I devote about 1.5 hours of my day, 5 days per week, doing self-care (nutrition and exercise). I'm 64 years old and am in excellent health and fitness. The plus is, I get to live. I don't worry about having the burger and fries, or some fried chicken, or pizza, or cake, that's what my 10% is for. That 10% allows me 36.5 days per year, where I can go off plan. Might it cost me a little time? Maybe...maybe a few months or a year. But the ROI on living is far better.
Stephen, there is so much goodness in your comment. Thank you for reading and for leaving such thoughtful, insightful words here.
The realization that no one is saying anything new is such a keen takeaway. If you look at the health space, people are trying to get recognition by either being controversial or trying to find new ways to package and deliver information. Very little, as you point out, is new information. Lifestyle is critical and you nailed all the major things we should be thinking about in regards to physical fitness: VO2 max, strength/muscle mass, mobility, and resilience.
I love your 90/90/90 rule. I'm going to steal that going forward... it's such a great way to balance the discipline required to live a healthy lifestyle while leaving some room for living and enjoying life (not to say you can't enjoy the disciplined parts of your lifestyle, because you absolutely can).
With your active, healthy lifestyle and balanced approach to living, you are the 64 year old I aspire to be. And by the sounds of it, you may have been around the sun 64 times, but the age of your body is a hell of a lot younger than your peer group of 64 year olds.
Thank you for sharing your opinion here -- it means a great deal to me.
I loved this piece! It resonated deeply with me. We all have skeletons in our closets and make both good and bad choices every day. Ultimately, it's up to the world to decide if we've left it a better place. Peter's work has had a tremendous impact on both me and my clients, but using common sense is essential to staying grounded while still making progress and having fun along the way. Dads are the only real superheroes. Kudos to yours!
Thank you, Doychin! Peter's work has been incredibly impactful for me too. I've learned a great deal from him that I still apply in my life to live healthier and, hopefully, a little longer.
The danger for me and for many others I observe who follow figures like Attia, Huberman, and the rest, is that rather than learning and filtering with common sense, people go whole hog. They try to be exactly how these people present themselves through their content. It's about finding that middle ground of making progress without loosing yourself in the process, as you so eloquently pointed out.
Thanks again for reading and leaving such a kind, considerate comment here. I appreciate it!
Thanks Jack for this essay. I wanted to ask about a thread that runs through your essay: How confident are you that we cannot take the "good" ideas from a person and ignore the "bad"? In particular, I'm asking about this part of your essay: "You cannot adopt a singular piece of a person. You can’t cherrypick virtues while ignoring faults. If you want to be like someone, you have to take all of them."
I agree that both are intertwined in a particular person and that you shouldn't expect to be able to simply mine the good without effort. But it seems reasonable to me that we could sometimes succeed! After all, isn't that part of the attraction in reading books? When reading nonfiction in particular, I'm often looking for different ways of being that resonate with me. I don't necessarily think I need to take the whole of the person.
Thanks for sharing your journey with Attia though. I found the parts about asking more questions very instructive, and you're lucky to have someone like your father to ask them!
Jeremy, thanks so much for reading and for your thoughtful comment here. I always love when someone intelligently and kindly pushes back against an idea... it's great to see :)
I think there is a key distinction here: trying to learn from someone versus trying to BE someone. If you want to be as good as Peter Attia or Michael Phelps or LeBron James at what they do, you have to become them. ALL of them. And that level of performance comes with the good and the bad. You can't just take some of it.
On the other hand, if I want to learn from Peter Attia while passing everything he says through a personalized filter of useful to me/not useful to me, you're right. You can take the good and leave the bad.
In regards to longevity, I see many more people taking the first approach. They go whole hog and become completely infatuated with everything. They aren't trying to learn from Attia, they're trying to be him. And you can't be him without taking the obsessiveness, perfectionism, and neuroticism.
In both cases, though, you are sacrificing. In the first case, you are becoming that person and loosing yourself. In the second case, you're sacrificing performance (you likely won't be as good as them unless you become them).
To me, the conclusion here is to learn from others while never loosing the true essence of you. No one is as good at being you as you are. At least that's my take, for now. Would love to hear your thoughts. Thanks so much for reading and for your very thoughtful rebuttal. You're helping me be a better thinker!
Thank you for sharing your thoughts Jack. Your response made me think of that John Muir quote: "When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe." You make a good point; it's probably foolish to think that we can isolate the greatness of some of these people without doing everything they did.
That being said, say you want to be as high performing as a person you admire, yet you know they have some parts of their personality which aren't as good. Could it be that by ignoring/improving on those aspects, we could actually reach an even higher level of performance than they did?
I guess my question distills to this: How many different pathways are there to the performance of (Insert high performing person)? If it's essentially one, then I agree with you. But if there are many paths, then this at least opens up the possibility of circumventing the "sacrifice" in your second case you sketched out. It's a story I'd like to believe, though I may be totally wrong! :)
I think your general point though is definitely worth reflecting on. I often learn first by copying others. In this phase, it's like I'm trying to "be" the person. But the important thing is to eventually develop my own practice, which I suppose involves letting go of being that person and being my own.
I hadn't heard that quote before but it's fantastic, thank you for sharing it.
I've come to believe that everything has sacrifices. As the saying goes, there are no solutions, only trade-offs. In the case of imitating high performers, I don't think it's a logical problem. Recognizing the faults of going down a path doesn't mean you will ignore those faults when you start to walk the same path. But I also think we are talking about extreme examples here (the freak athletes, the CEOs, the one in a millions type person) and the more extreme the example, the less likely that it will apply to our own life.
But of course, we can certainly learn from the mistakes of others. Like you said before, one of the beautiful things about books is learning about where others flawed so we can try to avoid their mistakes. I'm still undecided on whether learning the mistakes of others actually enables us to avoid making the same ones... at large, we seem to be a species that really only learns from slamming our own heads against the wall. I say this tongue in cheek because of course we can learn from books. But even if we read everything wise ever written, we will still inevitably err.
Copying others is still a great way to learn. It can be enormously helpful so long as you don't lose the unique essence of you in the process. The silver lining to everything we're talking about here is that there is no one right answer. Everything, besides a handful of immutable laws of physics, is partially true, existing somewhere on a spectrum.
Thanks for responding so thoughtfully and contributing to productive discourse, helping to expand my brain a little bit for today.
Thanks Jack for engaging with me on this! You've made me reflect, which I appreciate. I think you're right that learning from mistakes inconveniently seems to require that they be *our* mistakes. I think about this in the context of sports I coach. It's one thing for me to tell my players a bunch of instructions to avoid mistakes. It's quite another for them to feel it in their bones and understand what will happen.
What I appreciate most about our discussion (and the rest of your writing) is that these matters rarely have one answer. Instead, they have nuance, which makes them more complicated but also more interesting to think about!
I knew I found my tribe when Attia said don't talk to me about supplements, medications, even nutrition until you have your exercise wheelhouse in order. I have always exercised and I love it so this was music to my ears.
I agree with comments I've read here so far that it is so hard to keep up with the longevity space and all of its optimization so I've quit trying and have become comfortable where I am. I don't evangelize, I don't harp, I don't even suggest. I have decided the best thing I can do is live by example. If anyone is interested I will tell them what I do but, if not, I keep it mostly to myself.
Fortunately I have a few in my life who are interested but most are not and that is OK.
As for Attia, I recognize his obsessive personality and work at not becoming that person but I admire him greatly and am so grateful for all he has taught me. I can't think of any one person I've learned more about health than from Peter Attia.
I love that approach too, Jane. Exercise, nutrition, and sleep take the cake when it comes to health. All the rest are so much less important and are talked up likely to get us to buy things we don't need, like many of the supplements on the market.
I admire the way you have decided to approach this whole longevity space: learning but being comfortable with where you are, willing to share with others what you've learned but never trying to cram information down anyone's throat. That is beautiful. I wish I had taken the same approach when I went a little overboard with the optimization of everything.
Like every human that has ever walked the face of the Earth, Attia has both admirable traits and faults. He is someone to be learned from but not imitated without a healthy dose of personalization and common sense. That is my take at least, and the approach I am following going forward (for now).
Thanks so much for reading and leaving such a thoughtful comment here. I greatly appreciate you.
Amazing work bringing this one to life. A super relatable story for me too...as we've discussed many times the relentless optimization lifestyle has its pros and cons, and it's hard to stay in balance and enjoy life when doing anything that rigid, from my experience. Thoroughly enjoyed supporting you and looking forward to what's to come following this one.
Thanks so much, Jeremy. I would not be anywhere near as proud as I am of this essay without your kind, thoughtful, and extremely helpful edits on the first three drafts. Turns out, good writing--or at least doing the best writing you are capable of--is realllyyyy hard work.
It almost seems that to figure this health stuff out and develop your own, enduring life philosophy towards it, you have to go to hell and back. Multiple times. I've gone so extreme with so many different types of health and fitness approaches. But each time I do, I eventually come back to centre and have a little bit better of personalized life philosophy and approach towards health, exercise, and wellness.
Thanks for your support and friendship. Means a lot to me.
Feeling this as I was fan-boying Attia too. I wrote on my 'stack about this. Tldr - I was just using all my spare time doing the longevity stuff and detracting from the present (ie time with family). Thanks for this I really like your work.
That’s a great realization to have. The longevity stuff is great and important but it should be a positive add to your life, not a negative drain. And it certainly shouldn’t take away from family.
I’m having a similar realization with technology right now. I spend way too much time on my computer and phone and way too little time living, interacting with the real world. I feel a heavy “productivity debt” each day I wake up, a compulsion to spend so much time working. But life is meant to be lived and that cannot be done from behind a screen. Slowly trying to teach myself to not feel anxiety when I spend a day not working or being “productive.”
Thanks a ton for reading and leaving a comment. So happy to hear you enjoyed this piece. Have a great one.
Very interesting post! I relate to it, as there was a time I used to be pretty interested in health, and wished for the best optimization. Though I lacked the discipline to apply all the techniques.
So there was a despair, the despair of not being good enough even in health, and that created suffering.
I know that many people say 'health is the most important thing', but there is such a thing as caring for health too much, that it actually becomes unhealthy.
Emilie, thank you so much for reading and for this lovely comment :)
I completely agree in that excess of anything becomes it's opposite. I relate to that feeling of despair, of feeling like I'm not doing enough compared to the people in the internet no matter how much I do.
Health is the most important thing because without it we have nothing. But taking a stranglehold approach is probably not the path to our best health. As you eloquently wrote, an overly obsessive focus eventually becomes unhealthy. The middle way, a way of progressive balance, is probably the best solution to live while maintaining good health.
Jack - thanks for your vulnerable writing, it sounds like you’ve been through quite a transition.
Genuine question… do you think Attia fooled you or you fooled yourself?
I’m not as familiar with him (or the other longevity experts) as you are. But have followed some of his advice, finding it valuable. And I find health and longevity a worthy goal.
I wonder if it’s less about them tricking us, as much as they’re hitting on a deep-seated fear (death), and giving answers. I.e. “if you want to improve your longevity, here are solutions.” Many of us are just desperate for the answers.
You could argue they are exploiting us, but it feels more like we are exploiting ourselves.
Hey Rick, thanks so much for reading and for this thoughtful comment. It's always great when someone respectfully and intelligently challenges my writing and helps me expand my thinking -- so I appreciate you doing that.
I am a firm believer in taking 100% ownership over my life. So sure, I fooled myself. Ultimately, I am always accountable for my actions and what I choose to believe. Attia does put out great content that can be very useful if applied secularly without taking it to such an extreme that it dominates your life, drains your ability to enjoy your days, and leaves you feeling permanently inadequate because you've never done enough or could be living more optimally.
The larger problem with Attia and those similar is the imbedded assumption in their work that optimizing your health is the most important thing you should do no matter the costs. What follows is a hyper-fixation on a constantly expanding list of To Dos... with each podcast that comes out there is a new exercise to try, a new blood test to get, and so on. In moderation, these things are very important to pay attention to. But taken to the extreme, they can consume you and turn your life into a furnace of anxiety as everything in your environment is either helping or hurting your longevity, and the longevity of those you love.
It's still a problem I haven't fully developed my thoughts around. So I appreciate you pushing me to expand here. I'll summarize by saying this: Optimization will not save you. An 80/20 approach to health will take you very far. Beyond that, you have to squeeze ten times as hard for a tenth of the juice.
Thanks again for dropping into the comment section, Rick. Much appreciated!
I am 100% with you about optimization not saving us.
I have similar thinking around WORK... where our culture has become so obsessed with optimizing that local maximum, that we discount everything else (which could be more important). This has left us over-worked, but under-lifed.
One way to thread the needle on this debate is that the culture has been perfectly designed to "convince us to exploit ourselves."
So yes we do it to ourselves, but the culture pushes us towards that outcome.
You may appreciate this podcast about the philosopher Byung-Chul Han, who theorizes that we've all become projects in ourselves. And we aren't being exploited, but conditioned to exploit ourselves.
I agree with what you're saying, very well put. You summarized it perfectly with this: "We do it to ourselves, but the culture pushes us towards that outcome."
Thanks for the discussion for for sharing the podcast -- saved it for future listening!
You have to put things back into their context when you get inspired by someone’s principles. This happened recently when I read the way Derek Sivers was technically independent. I thought that was cool and I would apply it to my own life. But the more I was thinking of the implementation, the more I had questions about how this would apply to my life. Later that day, I decided to read more about his life and realized he has one kid, doesn’t seem to be in a relationship, and works on his own. Which is very different from my married life with a kid (wanting more) and who needs to work with others. So I disregarded the whole adventure except a few tidbits that are applicable to my life.
Also, I’d add that this does not only apply to health. Everyone seems to want to optimize every second of their lives, and that can lead to some very unhealthy behaviours and frustration. I wish people were pushing contentment alongside accomplishment instead of only accomplishments.
Kenny, thank you so much for reading and leaving such a wise comment.
You are so right. With the massive influence of the internet, there are a million directions you can be pulled. So many people doing cool, interesting things. So many people with such strong conviction that how they're moving through the world is the right way. It's so easy to replace the authentic parts of you with fragments of other people. Your example with Derek Sivers, someone I also look up to in many ways, perfectly demonstrates this problem. But the only real competitive advantage anyone has in the world is being the most authentic version of themselves. We should strive to learn from others, not become them.
I also love your point on contentment. If you never feel like you have enough, your days will become a furnace of worry and anxiety as you slip into a pit of despair and feelings of insufficiency and inadequacy.
I greatly appreciate your comment here. Thanks for for helping me become a better thinker.
I totally agree with being pulled in all directions. I’m feeling this deeply nowadays and I’ll need to reclassify my values and core principles. That would help sift through what is noise and what is signal in this crowded world.
I feel it’s easier to decided what to try out when you have a solid set of principles.
The contentment piece is a hard one because I truly believe we’re wired to always go after the next thing. It’s a delicate balance and paradox to ride!
Thanks for writing this piece and being so vulnerable in it!
I can definitely resonate with that. The world is so crowded. Personally, I don't read or watch the news and spend zero time on social media (besides Substack). Those practices help me ignore a lot of noise and tune into a stronger frequency of my internal signal... though it is still very easy to loose it in other ways.
For me, contentment isn't about laziness or sloth. It's about knowing what enough is for you and being at peace with the work you do each day, rather than constantly questioning if you could have done more. But you are so right: like many things in life, it is a delicate balance and we are constantly toeing the line.
Thanks for reading and for sparking this great discussion. Just subbed to your newsletter, excited to read your work!
I've stopped watching news as well. But social media is a hard one for me because all the needs it tackles (social connection, expression, learning, validation, etc.)
Great point on contentment especially about removing the questioning about "What if I could have done more?" There is great power in accepting what you've done and being at peace with it.
Thanks for subscribing. I've subscribed to yours too. Looking forward to more conversations :)
Thanks for being so open in this piece, Jack! I too have been down many rabbit holes with Attia, Huberman, and others. Thankfully, I seem to always catch myself right before going down a cliff of optimization at every turn. There comes a point of still needing to enjoy life. I mean, at the root, Attia wants to extend his life and health as long as he can to enjoy as much as he can. What's the point if you aren't enjoying it? In my mind, there are a lot of small things you can do to drastically improve health. For example, cutting out soda, limiting alcohol, limiting deserts. But in no way is it a complete exclusion if you enjoy those indulgences. Making small changes like that provide probably 80-90% of the gains. The extra work that the hyper-optimizers do like Attia and Tim Ferriss only add a minute amount of additional benefits. If that last 5-10% is sucking your happiness, the supposed health benefits don't seem to outweigh the mental and social costs. At least in my mind!
Jacob, thank you so much for reading and for this incredibly kind and thoughtful comment.
I wholeheartedly agree with your philosophy towards health, wellness, and living a good life. As you said, there's no point in working for better health if you aren't enjoying your life. But paradoxically, having good health, particularly exercising every day, enables you to have a good life because of the enormous benefits to your mood. Doing an 80/20 analysis then making small changes, such as those you highlighted in your comment (really, it comes down to cutting out crap in your diet, exercising daily, and sleeping enough), will drive most of the benefits there are to be reaped. The additional, incrementally small benefits that come from hyper-optimization take a hell of a lot of work and reduce the joy of your life. You said it all very well in your comment!
Thanks again for reading and leaving such a concise and well-worded takeaway. Means a ton to me!
Thank you for showing the other side to Attia. I appreciate it. I have been on the same Attia health rabbithole for the past month and I manhalfway through the book going through the tactics and have been thinking about what it must be like to hang out with someone like Attia and how it might end up being a little annoying trying to have a good time with the guy. I might end up telling him to "live a little", but that would end up offending somone like him so I probably won't. But as I go down this rabbithole it's become more important to be mindful of when I'm Attia and when I'm myself and not to lose myself when I'm gaining knowledge from him. I appreciate your exposition on Attia and what you think of it. You basically answered the questions I started asking myself a few weeks ago. Apprecuate it.
Vibhav, thank you so much for reading and for your comment here.
I got a good chuckle from your reaction to reading Outlive. I would have been a pretty annoying guy to hang out with too when I was in that hyper-optimized period of my life. I love this insight you draw: "to be mindful of when I'm Attia and when I'm myself and not to loose myself when I'm gaining knowledge from him." Such a fantastic takeaway. There is so much we can learn from Attia and other internet figures but we never want to lose ourselves in the process. That's something I need to remind myself of daily.
So glad that this piece found you at the right time and thanks again for leaving such a thoughtful comment.
“You cannot adopt a singular piece of a person. You can’t cherrypick virtues while ignoring faults. If you want to be like someone, you have to take all of them.” Stunning essay Jack and a welcome reality check on the ‘always optimizing’ hustle. Your dad’s “where’s the love” line is golden.
Thanks so much for reading and for leaving such a kind comment, John. Always love to hear which parts of the essay stood out, so thanks for letting me know. I appreciate you, greatly.
I don't know if it's a type if person I attract but I've noticed that anyone interested in these types of podcasts end up ENTHRALLED and totally swept away. Apart from personality traits it's also a matter of choosing to live that kind of way, and like you say drag people in your life into it as well. I'm in science and still I find these podcasts dry as hell
I completely agree, Jane. You make an astute diagnosis: few people are taking these podcasts with a grain of salt, learning a bit, and continuing to live their OWN lives in a more health conscious way. Many seem to be drowning themselves in everything the optimizers put onto the internet. Consumed entirely until nothing is left but a focus on optimization, forgetting why they started in the first place. That’s certainly what I did.
Thanks so much for reading and leaving a comment here. I appreciate you :)
...i remember it mostly as a bit by Denis Leary on "No Cure For Cancer" (admittedly a problematic comedy special in that his entire persona and most of the bits have been accused as having been stolen from Bill Hicks) in which he made fun of Jim Fixx (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Fixx) a running and fitness enthusiast who died at 52 years old while jogging...turns out he had a precondition he couldn't run away from...health is important...but so also is life...as always, impressed by your relationship with your dad and your brother, inspiring, commendable, honest and nourishing...well done dudes...
Ahh yes, I've heard of Fixx. If I recall, that's when people came to the conclusion that running must not be good for you (not a very scientific diagnosis, to say the least). Maybe he had familial hypercholesterolemia or hyperbetalipoproteinemia or elevated Lp(a) (damn right I'm using those words without care as to whether you understand what I'm saying).
Life is very important. I'd say it's more important than health because if your life sucks, what are your trying to live longer for?
Thanks for reading and always showing up in the comments. Your words mean a ton to me, so thank you for the praise. I take it humbly.
Jack, I feel this post down in my bones.
For me it's not so much Attia specifically but the treadmill (ha!) of trying to keep up with entire wellness / longevity space. It's never enough. There's always something new to chase or that we're doing wrong and will definitely kill us this week. Until it's something else next week.
That's all by design, of course, to hold your attention and keep you spending.
The vast majority of us fail the basics -- cardio, strength training, a reasonable diet. If you get those down you're so far ahead of others. I don't feel burned out about working those basics in my life at all, but I'm 100% burned out on this hyper-optimization that is always changing and always just out of reach.
Total optimization is out of reach, of course. "No one here gets out alive," as Jim Morrison said.
Matt, thank you so much for reading and for your very thoughtful comment.
I completely agree with everything you've said. The health industry has become one where everything is complicated to profit. But in reality it's an 80/20 distribution (though likely closer to 90/10): if you get the basics right, as you point out, you're in a very very good position. In other words, the 10% of actions (well-rounded exercise, a reasonable diet, enough sleep) will drive +90% of the health and wellness gains there are to reap.
Like you, the basics give me energy. But when I start to hyper-optimize, the practices that should be adding energy to my life begin to drain it instead. To learn that lesson, I had to go to the extreme end of the optimization spectrum.
To Jim's quote, we're all going to die. And we should be careful that we don't spend too much of the time we do have on this planet trying to delay that date... especially if it sucks the joy, fun, and peace out of our day-to-day life.
So agree if we get the basics down we are so far ahead of the others but isn't the whole purpose of this journey is to live as healthy and long as we can irrespective of the rest?
No, I don't think so.
At some point the obsession and optimization overtakes your mental well-being and the enjoyment of the life you're supposed to be living.
Well said, Matt. A focus on living longer without ensuring the stuff that makes up your days is enjoyable is missing the forest for the trees. Having more days alive doesn't matter if you don't get anything positive from your days.
To me, the goal is to live as healthy and long as we can SO LONG AS our lives are filled with joy, excitement, peace, adventure, and fun. If the pursuit to live longer takes those things away, what are we living for?
"But my Dad had dislodged a brick at the bottom of my foundation." This is what the best Dads do. They take that brick away, but what isn't so obvious is that they then lay it down in a new spot to give you a head start when you're ready for a next new foundation.
You are absolutely living up to your promise for honest and useful stories being shared Jack. I don't know who would fund the research since there would be nothing to sell based on the result, but I'd be willing to bet that self-honesty is a significant factor of longevity. And even if not, you improve the quality of life for yourself and others by promoting this kind of self-awareness.
You're so right, Rick. That is a great way of thinking about it that had not crossed my mind. I'm going to add that to the mental library for the day I might become a Dad. And maybe text my own dad to thank him for laying the brick down for a new foundation rather than smashing me over the head with it.
That means a great deal to me coming from you, thank you. You're right in that no one would research it, most likely, but I agree. I would bet that so many ways of being in the world have a massive impact on longevity that are never discussed: self-honesty and humility, humour and laughter, lightness and playfulness, taking one's self not too seriously. The opposite of those traits certainly make your life miserable, and probably shorten it too. I must try to not forget the importance of those as I walk the path.
Thanks, as always, for showing up and supporting. It means a great deal to me, my friend.
It's always a pleasure to read your writing and I love the chance to engage in a substantive conversation. Reading your reply it occurred to me that it would be an interesting world if we were more focused on extending the longevity of others than ourselves. In which case, "self-honesty and humility, humour and laughter, lightness and playfulness, taking one's self not too seriously" would probably be the best way we could increase the life expectancy of the people around us.
Thank-you, Rick. On "substantive conversation": I think that might be the best way to measure your success as a writer. To hell with views and likes and open rate. But do you engage the right people in interesting, progressive conversation that stretches and develops who you are? That, to me, seems like a much more worthwhile aim than striving for metrics.
I could not agree more with what you have said. When we change our perspective from self serving (me first) to in service of others (you first), life gets better. And if we can treat others with those traits you quoted, I think we would increase the lifespan and healthspan (quality of life) of everyone we come in contact with.
And when we give, we tend to receive back what we have given.
God I wish I had learned what you just said WAY earlier in life. I am truly ecstatic to hear someone arrive at this conclusion way earlier in the process than I did. I hope you get another ten decades to exercise and share your wisdom. :)
Jack,
It seems you fell for the silver bullet..LOL We all have at one time or another, fell for the silver bullet.
I've been in the health, fitness, wellness, longevity, whatever you want to call if, for 42 years. You name the "guru" of longevity and I've likely read, or listened, to every word they've said.
What I've come to realize is, no one, today, is saying anything that's new, that we haven't known for at least the last 60 years. Yeah, there's a few guys, who enlightened some information on certain aspects, but not a lot of new information/data. Sinclair is a good example. He has some additional information on NAD+, but nothing really earth shattering. Most likely, the biggest change, or new information, that's come about is the understanding that genetics plays a lesser role in longevity than previously thought. Lifestyle, due to its impact on epigenetic, plays the large impact on lifespan and health span.
What we know, and have known for decades, is that VO2 max, Strength/muscle mass, ROM (Range of Motion/mobility), BMI, good nutritional habits, are all critically important to longevity and health span. We know, and have known, being lighter in your old age is better. You remain more stable, mobile, and resilient.
But life has to be lived. As you pointed out, in your story, one can become so obsessed with living longer that they don't, actually, get to live. Decades ago I adopted a 90/90/90 rule. If 90% of the time, I do 90% of what I know I should do, I'm 90% better.
Today, when I look at my busy schedule, and I am busy dealing with clients all day, I devote about 1.5 hours of my day, 5 days per week, doing self-care (nutrition and exercise). I'm 64 years old and am in excellent health and fitness. The plus is, I get to live. I don't worry about having the burger and fries, or some fried chicken, or pizza, or cake, that's what my 10% is for. That 10% allows me 36.5 days per year, where I can go off plan. Might it cost me a little time? Maybe...maybe a few months or a year. But the ROI on living is far better.
Just one old man's opinion.
In Good Health,
Stephen Ashcraft
Stephen, there is so much goodness in your comment. Thank you for reading and for leaving such thoughtful, insightful words here.
The realization that no one is saying anything new is such a keen takeaway. If you look at the health space, people are trying to get recognition by either being controversial or trying to find new ways to package and deliver information. Very little, as you point out, is new information. Lifestyle is critical and you nailed all the major things we should be thinking about in regards to physical fitness: VO2 max, strength/muscle mass, mobility, and resilience.
I love your 90/90/90 rule. I'm going to steal that going forward... it's such a great way to balance the discipline required to live a healthy lifestyle while leaving some room for living and enjoying life (not to say you can't enjoy the disciplined parts of your lifestyle, because you absolutely can).
With your active, healthy lifestyle and balanced approach to living, you are the 64 year old I aspire to be. And by the sounds of it, you may have been around the sun 64 times, but the age of your body is a hell of a lot younger than your peer group of 64 year olds.
Thank you for sharing your opinion here -- it means a great deal to me.
I loved this piece! It resonated deeply with me. We all have skeletons in our closets and make both good and bad choices every day. Ultimately, it's up to the world to decide if we've left it a better place. Peter's work has had a tremendous impact on both me and my clients, but using common sense is essential to staying grounded while still making progress and having fun along the way. Dads are the only real superheroes. Kudos to yours!
Thank you, Doychin! Peter's work has been incredibly impactful for me too. I've learned a great deal from him that I still apply in my life to live healthier and, hopefully, a little longer.
The danger for me and for many others I observe who follow figures like Attia, Huberman, and the rest, is that rather than learning and filtering with common sense, people go whole hog. They try to be exactly how these people present themselves through their content. It's about finding that middle ground of making progress without loosing yourself in the process, as you so eloquently pointed out.
Thanks again for reading and leaving such a kind, considerate comment here. I appreciate it!
Thanks Jack for this essay. I wanted to ask about a thread that runs through your essay: How confident are you that we cannot take the "good" ideas from a person and ignore the "bad"? In particular, I'm asking about this part of your essay: "You cannot adopt a singular piece of a person. You can’t cherrypick virtues while ignoring faults. If you want to be like someone, you have to take all of them."
I agree that both are intertwined in a particular person and that you shouldn't expect to be able to simply mine the good without effort. But it seems reasonable to me that we could sometimes succeed! After all, isn't that part of the attraction in reading books? When reading nonfiction in particular, I'm often looking for different ways of being that resonate with me. I don't necessarily think I need to take the whole of the person.
Thanks for sharing your journey with Attia though. I found the parts about asking more questions very instructive, and you're lucky to have someone like your father to ask them!
Jeremy, thanks so much for reading and for your thoughtful comment here. I always love when someone intelligently and kindly pushes back against an idea... it's great to see :)
I think there is a key distinction here: trying to learn from someone versus trying to BE someone. If you want to be as good as Peter Attia or Michael Phelps or LeBron James at what they do, you have to become them. ALL of them. And that level of performance comes with the good and the bad. You can't just take some of it.
On the other hand, if I want to learn from Peter Attia while passing everything he says through a personalized filter of useful to me/not useful to me, you're right. You can take the good and leave the bad.
In regards to longevity, I see many more people taking the first approach. They go whole hog and become completely infatuated with everything. They aren't trying to learn from Attia, they're trying to be him. And you can't be him without taking the obsessiveness, perfectionism, and neuroticism.
In both cases, though, you are sacrificing. In the first case, you are becoming that person and loosing yourself. In the second case, you're sacrificing performance (you likely won't be as good as them unless you become them).
To me, the conclusion here is to learn from others while never loosing the true essence of you. No one is as good at being you as you are. At least that's my take, for now. Would love to hear your thoughts. Thanks so much for reading and for your very thoughtful rebuttal. You're helping me be a better thinker!
Thank you for sharing your thoughts Jack. Your response made me think of that John Muir quote: "When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe." You make a good point; it's probably foolish to think that we can isolate the greatness of some of these people without doing everything they did.
That being said, say you want to be as high performing as a person you admire, yet you know they have some parts of their personality which aren't as good. Could it be that by ignoring/improving on those aspects, we could actually reach an even higher level of performance than they did?
I guess my question distills to this: How many different pathways are there to the performance of (Insert high performing person)? If it's essentially one, then I agree with you. But if there are many paths, then this at least opens up the possibility of circumventing the "sacrifice" in your second case you sketched out. It's a story I'd like to believe, though I may be totally wrong! :)
I think your general point though is definitely worth reflecting on. I often learn first by copying others. In this phase, it's like I'm trying to "be" the person. But the important thing is to eventually develop my own practice, which I suppose involves letting go of being that person and being my own.
I hadn't heard that quote before but it's fantastic, thank you for sharing it.
I've come to believe that everything has sacrifices. As the saying goes, there are no solutions, only trade-offs. In the case of imitating high performers, I don't think it's a logical problem. Recognizing the faults of going down a path doesn't mean you will ignore those faults when you start to walk the same path. But I also think we are talking about extreme examples here (the freak athletes, the CEOs, the one in a millions type person) and the more extreme the example, the less likely that it will apply to our own life.
But of course, we can certainly learn from the mistakes of others. Like you said before, one of the beautiful things about books is learning about where others flawed so we can try to avoid their mistakes. I'm still undecided on whether learning the mistakes of others actually enables us to avoid making the same ones... at large, we seem to be a species that really only learns from slamming our own heads against the wall. I say this tongue in cheek because of course we can learn from books. But even if we read everything wise ever written, we will still inevitably err.
Copying others is still a great way to learn. It can be enormously helpful so long as you don't lose the unique essence of you in the process. The silver lining to everything we're talking about here is that there is no one right answer. Everything, besides a handful of immutable laws of physics, is partially true, existing somewhere on a spectrum.
Thanks for responding so thoughtfully and contributing to productive discourse, helping to expand my brain a little bit for today.
Thanks Jack for engaging with me on this! You've made me reflect, which I appreciate. I think you're right that learning from mistakes inconveniently seems to require that they be *our* mistakes. I think about this in the context of sports I coach. It's one thing for me to tell my players a bunch of instructions to avoid mistakes. It's quite another for them to feel it in their bones and understand what will happen.
What I appreciate most about our discussion (and the rest of your writing) is that these matters rarely have one answer. Instead, they have nuance, which makes them more complicated but also more interesting to think about!
I knew I found my tribe when Attia said don't talk to me about supplements, medications, even nutrition until you have your exercise wheelhouse in order. I have always exercised and I love it so this was music to my ears.
I agree with comments I've read here so far that it is so hard to keep up with the longevity space and all of its optimization so I've quit trying and have become comfortable where I am. I don't evangelize, I don't harp, I don't even suggest. I have decided the best thing I can do is live by example. If anyone is interested I will tell them what I do but, if not, I keep it mostly to myself.
Fortunately I have a few in my life who are interested but most are not and that is OK.
As for Attia, I recognize his obsessive personality and work at not becoming that person but I admire him greatly and am so grateful for all he has taught me. I can't think of any one person I've learned more about health than from Peter Attia.
I love that approach too, Jane. Exercise, nutrition, and sleep take the cake when it comes to health. All the rest are so much less important and are talked up likely to get us to buy things we don't need, like many of the supplements on the market.
I admire the way you have decided to approach this whole longevity space: learning but being comfortable with where you are, willing to share with others what you've learned but never trying to cram information down anyone's throat. That is beautiful. I wish I had taken the same approach when I went a little overboard with the optimization of everything.
Like every human that has ever walked the face of the Earth, Attia has both admirable traits and faults. He is someone to be learned from but not imitated without a healthy dose of personalization and common sense. That is my take at least, and the approach I am following going forward (for now).
Thanks so much for reading and leaving such a thoughtful comment here. I greatly appreciate you.
Amazing work bringing this one to life. A super relatable story for me too...as we've discussed many times the relentless optimization lifestyle has its pros and cons, and it's hard to stay in balance and enjoy life when doing anything that rigid, from my experience. Thoroughly enjoyed supporting you and looking forward to what's to come following this one.
Thanks so much, Jeremy. I would not be anywhere near as proud as I am of this essay without your kind, thoughtful, and extremely helpful edits on the first three drafts. Turns out, good writing--or at least doing the best writing you are capable of--is realllyyyy hard work.
It almost seems that to figure this health stuff out and develop your own, enduring life philosophy towards it, you have to go to hell and back. Multiple times. I've gone so extreme with so many different types of health and fitness approaches. But each time I do, I eventually come back to centre and have a little bit better of personalized life philosophy and approach towards health, exercise, and wellness.
Thanks for your support and friendship. Means a lot to me.
Feeling this as I was fan-boying Attia too. I wrote on my 'stack about this. Tldr - I was just using all my spare time doing the longevity stuff and detracting from the present (ie time with family). Thanks for this I really like your work.
That’s a great realization to have. The longevity stuff is great and important but it should be a positive add to your life, not a negative drain. And it certainly shouldn’t take away from family.
I’m having a similar realization with technology right now. I spend way too much time on my computer and phone and way too little time living, interacting with the real world. I feel a heavy “productivity debt” each day I wake up, a compulsion to spend so much time working. But life is meant to be lived and that cannot be done from behind a screen. Slowly trying to teach myself to not feel anxiety when I spend a day not working or being “productive.”
Thanks a ton for reading and leaving a comment. So happy to hear you enjoyed this piece. Have a great one.
Very interesting post! I relate to it, as there was a time I used to be pretty interested in health, and wished for the best optimization. Though I lacked the discipline to apply all the techniques.
So there was a despair, the despair of not being good enough even in health, and that created suffering.
I know that many people say 'health is the most important thing', but there is such a thing as caring for health too much, that it actually becomes unhealthy.
Emilie, thank you so much for reading and for this lovely comment :)
I completely agree in that excess of anything becomes it's opposite. I relate to that feeling of despair, of feeling like I'm not doing enough compared to the people in the internet no matter how much I do.
Health is the most important thing because without it we have nothing. But taking a stranglehold approach is probably not the path to our best health. As you eloquently wrote, an overly obsessive focus eventually becomes unhealthy. The middle way, a way of progressive balance, is probably the best solution to live while maintaining good health.
Jack - thanks for your vulnerable writing, it sounds like you’ve been through quite a transition.
Genuine question… do you think Attia fooled you or you fooled yourself?
I’m not as familiar with him (or the other longevity experts) as you are. But have followed some of his advice, finding it valuable. And I find health and longevity a worthy goal.
I wonder if it’s less about them tricking us, as much as they’re hitting on a deep-seated fear (death), and giving answers. I.e. “if you want to improve your longevity, here are solutions.” Many of us are just desperate for the answers.
You could argue they are exploiting us, but it feels more like we are exploiting ourselves.
Hey Rick, thanks so much for reading and for this thoughtful comment. It's always great when someone respectfully and intelligently challenges my writing and helps me expand my thinking -- so I appreciate you doing that.
I am a firm believer in taking 100% ownership over my life. So sure, I fooled myself. Ultimately, I am always accountable for my actions and what I choose to believe. Attia does put out great content that can be very useful if applied secularly without taking it to such an extreme that it dominates your life, drains your ability to enjoy your days, and leaves you feeling permanently inadequate because you've never done enough or could be living more optimally.
The larger problem with Attia and those similar is the imbedded assumption in their work that optimizing your health is the most important thing you should do no matter the costs. What follows is a hyper-fixation on a constantly expanding list of To Dos... with each podcast that comes out there is a new exercise to try, a new blood test to get, and so on. In moderation, these things are very important to pay attention to. But taken to the extreme, they can consume you and turn your life into a furnace of anxiety as everything in your environment is either helping or hurting your longevity, and the longevity of those you love.
It's still a problem I haven't fully developed my thoughts around. So I appreciate you pushing me to expand here. I'll summarize by saying this: Optimization will not save you. An 80/20 approach to health will take you very far. Beyond that, you have to squeeze ten times as hard for a tenth of the juice.
Thanks again for dropping into the comment section, Rick. Much appreciated!
Appreciate the detailed and thoughtful reply.
I am 100% with you about optimization not saving us.
I have similar thinking around WORK... where our culture has become so obsessed with optimizing that local maximum, that we discount everything else (which could be more important). This has left us over-worked, but under-lifed.
One way to thread the needle on this debate is that the culture has been perfectly designed to "convince us to exploit ourselves."
So yes we do it to ourselves, but the culture pushes us towards that outcome.
You may appreciate this podcast about the philosopher Byung-Chul Han, who theorizes that we've all become projects in ourselves. And we aren't being exploited, but conditioned to exploit ourselves.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/4i1cHIuY2ZUNrp07IDgr7N?si=3e7fcc5f742b470f
Always enjoy a good debate! Cheers.
I agree with what you're saying, very well put. You summarized it perfectly with this: "We do it to ourselves, but the culture pushes us towards that outcome."
Thanks for the discussion for for sharing the podcast -- saved it for future listening!
You have to put things back into their context when you get inspired by someone’s principles. This happened recently when I read the way Derek Sivers was technically independent. I thought that was cool and I would apply it to my own life. But the more I was thinking of the implementation, the more I had questions about how this would apply to my life. Later that day, I decided to read more about his life and realized he has one kid, doesn’t seem to be in a relationship, and works on his own. Which is very different from my married life with a kid (wanting more) and who needs to work with others. So I disregarded the whole adventure except a few tidbits that are applicable to my life.
Also, I’d add that this does not only apply to health. Everyone seems to want to optimize every second of their lives, and that can lead to some very unhealthy behaviours and frustration. I wish people were pushing contentment alongside accomplishment instead of only accomplishments.
Kenny, thank you so much for reading and leaving such a wise comment.
You are so right. With the massive influence of the internet, there are a million directions you can be pulled. So many people doing cool, interesting things. So many people with such strong conviction that how they're moving through the world is the right way. It's so easy to replace the authentic parts of you with fragments of other people. Your example with Derek Sivers, someone I also look up to in many ways, perfectly demonstrates this problem. But the only real competitive advantage anyone has in the world is being the most authentic version of themselves. We should strive to learn from others, not become them.
I also love your point on contentment. If you never feel like you have enough, your days will become a furnace of worry and anxiety as you slip into a pit of despair and feelings of insufficiency and inadequacy.
I greatly appreciate your comment here. Thanks for for helping me become a better thinker.
I totally agree with being pulled in all directions. I’m feeling this deeply nowadays and I’ll need to reclassify my values and core principles. That would help sift through what is noise and what is signal in this crowded world.
I feel it’s easier to decided what to try out when you have a solid set of principles.
The contentment piece is a hard one because I truly believe we’re wired to always go after the next thing. It’s a delicate balance and paradox to ride!
Thanks for writing this piece and being so vulnerable in it!
I can definitely resonate with that. The world is so crowded. Personally, I don't read or watch the news and spend zero time on social media (besides Substack). Those practices help me ignore a lot of noise and tune into a stronger frequency of my internal signal... though it is still very easy to loose it in other ways.
For me, contentment isn't about laziness or sloth. It's about knowing what enough is for you and being at peace with the work you do each day, rather than constantly questioning if you could have done more. But you are so right: like many things in life, it is a delicate balance and we are constantly toeing the line.
Thanks for reading and for sparking this great discussion. Just subbed to your newsletter, excited to read your work!
I've stopped watching news as well. But social media is a hard one for me because all the needs it tackles (social connection, expression, learning, validation, etc.)
Great point on contentment especially about removing the questioning about "What if I could have done more?" There is great power in accepting what you've done and being at peace with it.
Thanks for subscribing. I've subscribed to yours too. Looking forward to more conversations :)
Thanks for being so open in this piece, Jack! I too have been down many rabbit holes with Attia, Huberman, and others. Thankfully, I seem to always catch myself right before going down a cliff of optimization at every turn. There comes a point of still needing to enjoy life. I mean, at the root, Attia wants to extend his life and health as long as he can to enjoy as much as he can. What's the point if you aren't enjoying it? In my mind, there are a lot of small things you can do to drastically improve health. For example, cutting out soda, limiting alcohol, limiting deserts. But in no way is it a complete exclusion if you enjoy those indulgences. Making small changes like that provide probably 80-90% of the gains. The extra work that the hyper-optimizers do like Attia and Tim Ferriss only add a minute amount of additional benefits. If that last 5-10% is sucking your happiness, the supposed health benefits don't seem to outweigh the mental and social costs. At least in my mind!
Jacob, thank you so much for reading and for this incredibly kind and thoughtful comment.
I wholeheartedly agree with your philosophy towards health, wellness, and living a good life. As you said, there's no point in working for better health if you aren't enjoying your life. But paradoxically, having good health, particularly exercising every day, enables you to have a good life because of the enormous benefits to your mood. Doing an 80/20 analysis then making small changes, such as those you highlighted in your comment (really, it comes down to cutting out crap in your diet, exercising daily, and sleeping enough), will drive most of the benefits there are to be reaped. The additional, incrementally small benefits that come from hyper-optimization take a hell of a lot of work and reduce the joy of your life. You said it all very well in your comment!
Thanks again for reading and leaving such a concise and well-worded takeaway. Means a ton to me!
Thank you for putting the time in to put this together, really appreciated the read! Glad I’m not the only one who has had similar thoughts.
Thank you for showing the other side to Attia. I appreciate it. I have been on the same Attia health rabbithole for the past month and I manhalfway through the book going through the tactics and have been thinking about what it must be like to hang out with someone like Attia and how it might end up being a little annoying trying to have a good time with the guy. I might end up telling him to "live a little", but that would end up offending somone like him so I probably won't. But as I go down this rabbithole it's become more important to be mindful of when I'm Attia and when I'm myself and not to lose myself when I'm gaining knowledge from him. I appreciate your exposition on Attia and what you think of it. You basically answered the questions I started asking myself a few weeks ago. Apprecuate it.
Vibhav, thank you so much for reading and for your comment here.
I got a good chuckle from your reaction to reading Outlive. I would have been a pretty annoying guy to hang out with too when I was in that hyper-optimized period of my life. I love this insight you draw: "to be mindful of when I'm Attia and when I'm myself and not to loose myself when I'm gaining knowledge from him." Such a fantastic takeaway. There is so much we can learn from Attia and other internet figures but we never want to lose ourselves in the process. That's something I need to remind myself of daily.
So glad that this piece found you at the right time and thanks again for leaving such a thoughtful comment.
I do feel like this post found me at the right time 📿
“You cannot adopt a singular piece of a person. You can’t cherrypick virtues while ignoring faults. If you want to be like someone, you have to take all of them.” Stunning essay Jack and a welcome reality check on the ‘always optimizing’ hustle. Your dad’s “where’s the love” line is golden.
Thanks so much for reading and for leaving such a kind comment, John. Always love to hear which parts of the essay stood out, so thanks for letting me know. I appreciate you, greatly.
I don't know if it's a type if person I attract but I've noticed that anyone interested in these types of podcasts end up ENTHRALLED and totally swept away. Apart from personality traits it's also a matter of choosing to live that kind of way, and like you say drag people in your life into it as well. I'm in science and still I find these podcasts dry as hell
I completely agree, Jane. You make an astute diagnosis: few people are taking these podcasts with a grain of salt, learning a bit, and continuing to live their OWN lives in a more health conscious way. Many seem to be drowning themselves in everything the optimizers put onto the internet. Consumed entirely until nothing is left but a focus on optimization, forgetting why they started in the first place. That’s certainly what I did.
Thanks so much for reading and leaving a comment here. I appreciate you :)
...i remember it mostly as a bit by Denis Leary on "No Cure For Cancer" (admittedly a problematic comedy special in that his entire persona and most of the bits have been accused as having been stolen from Bill Hicks) in which he made fun of Jim Fixx (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Fixx) a running and fitness enthusiast who died at 52 years old while jogging...turns out he had a precondition he couldn't run away from...health is important...but so also is life...as always, impressed by your relationship with your dad and your brother, inspiring, commendable, honest and nourishing...well done dudes...
Ahh yes, I've heard of Fixx. If I recall, that's when people came to the conclusion that running must not be good for you (not a very scientific diagnosis, to say the least). Maybe he had familial hypercholesterolemia or hyperbetalipoproteinemia or elevated Lp(a) (damn right I'm using those words without care as to whether you understand what I'm saying).
Life is very important. I'd say it's more important than health because if your life sucks, what are your trying to live longer for?
Thanks for reading and always showing up in the comments. Your words mean a ton to me, so thank you for the praise. I take it humbly.