A good day is predicated on the meaningful reinforcement and progression of your masteries in Body, Mind, and Spirit(BMS).
A good day makes you feel fulfilled, not necessarily happy. You can feel happy eating cake all day but excess happiness can be unproductive like the excess calories from eating cake all day. Cake will make you happy while it slowly kills you, then you eat more and more to try and find that happiness like drinking salt water to quench your thirst–you thirst for fulfillment, not happiness.
Pleasure cannot be fulfilled so it is impossible to provide fulfillment.
You cannot “check the box” for pleasure. There is no peak with a view; pleasure provides a jagged, unrewarding mountain range without sustenance.
Walking forward on the path in Body, Mind, Spirit
Make progress in Body, Mind, Spirit(BMS) every day. This is how you have a good day.
Exhaust each domain daily so you may sleep well. You sleep better when you have exhausted the domains of the self wisely.
Engage with loved ones which includes engaging with the self.
Help others—the shared path of humanity. The path of life that we all walk, sharing that with others who add to that path.
CONTROL
A good day is one where you have as much manual control over your existence as possible. This means controlling your body, mind, and spirit to your fullest capacity. But we aren’t going to talk in generalities, here is exactly what we mean when we say control over each of these domains.
Body
Stillness – we aren’t fidgeting because we tamed our domains with breathwork, spirit conditioning, maybe prayer, and body training which typically involves and needs some kind of training first thing in the morning, like yoga, or a walk. The Morning routine is crucial.
Mind
We have meditated and controlled our breath so that our thoughts are under our control–we are observing our thoughts and managing them as opposed to being managed by them.
Spirit
Breath is switched to manual, not automatic; all breathes are deep and controlled, no shallow breathing. We have massaged our spirits with our morning routine and our spirits are burning bright with our spirit conditioning so we can walk the path.
When we are not controlling our BMS, we are not controlling our DESTINY.
Think of the classic parable of the elephant and the fly. We’ll shorten and summarize it.
An elephant is peacefully eating. A fly begins to buzz inside of his ear, trying to bother the elephant. But the elephant remains unbothered.
The fly asks the elephant, “Are you deaf? How are you not bothered?” The elephant replies, “No! I can eat in peace because my 5 senses have not betrayed my peace.”
The fly asks how this is possible. The elephant responds by explaining that because he is in control of his mind and his thoughts, he is unbothered. He can direct his focus wherever he wants and in this moment, his focus is directed on his food.
The fly responded to the elephant, “I get it now! My mind will be in constant chaos if I let my mind become controlled by my senses and the outside world, instead of controlling my mind myself.”
Gain control then maintain control.
HOW TO HAVE A GOOD REST DAY
Every day will be something new and different, and most days should be spent on the path. However, when you’ve walked on the path consistently and made hard progress, you will need to rest. The rest you need is much less than what you think it is. One day and two nights a week are plenty: ie: Friday night, and all of Saturday. This may even be too much, as resting all of Saturday may be a waste of time compared to what could be done on the path, especially if you are working for a corporation that demands 40 hours of work or more a week, or doing some kind of hard labor.
Understand that you do not need a “rest day” if you have exhausted only one domain. If you did hard labor, your body and spirit may be taxed, but your mind may not be touched at all; so you can still pursue mastery in the domain of mind.
The key to having a good rest day is to not violate core tenets of your code. For example, if you’re an alcoholic, you should not have alcohol on your rest day. If you’re following nofap, you should not touch yourself on a day off the path. If you’re dieting, a cheat item is okay; eating 7,000 calories of sugar and fat is not “self-care”, it is self-sabotage.
So even on our rest day, we want to maintain complete control over our Bodies, Minds, and Spirits. This control is a way of life that we carry in the present and into the future, including all future lives.
It is a constant practice.
A rest day is productive if you recover. A rest day is a tragedy if you self-sabotage yourself.
Have a good day by walking the path and staying true to your code.