Mens Sana in Corpore Sano

In this time of the year, when the tough winter loosens its grip and light is coming back, you see people crawling out of their burrows. Young and old, men and women, terrorise the streets with their colourful T-shirts and their white legs. Jogging, skeelering or biking, they all want to fulfil their New Year’s resolutions, work for a slim line, a better health, or a better performance in the next race with friends. I am one of them.

Mens Sana in Corpore Sano is Latin for “a healthy mind in a healthy body” and is an excerpt from a poem of the Roman poet Juvenal (Juvenalis). At secondary school, we ironically adopted the phrase as the non-official motto of our school, because of the relatively extensive sports programme we used to have there. The phrase would fit well into a Spartan gymnasium and suggests a healthy mind and healthy body need to be obtained by hard work. Some fitness rooms indeed resemble an industry hall, not to say a medieval torture chamber. The poet Juvenal however, indicated we have to pray (orandum est) for a healthy mind in a healthy body, (rather than for wealth, power, eloquence, or children). Health of body and soul is therefore not only a task but also a mercy and the lesser sportsmen among my friends will welcome this view.

It needs to be said that sports has never been as necessary as today. Working 40-hours a week behind a computer in a landscape office is not good for your mental and physical health. Our work biotope does not evolve in a healthy direction and the longer we stay in this biotope, the more Juvenal's recommendation becomes valid.

In Search of Praise

March is Compliment Month, therefore we could elaborate a little theory on compliments before moving over to well-founded practice. After all, we had made a New Year’s resolution that we would work on our mildness. Lent is a good time to implement change in our life.

In a time where expectations tend to be sky-high, we may get a little depressed from the difference between these expectations and our realisations. It may become difficult to maintain a positive image of ourselves and we may start longing for a little compliment for the hard work we have been doing. But praise is a scarce good and our work environment sometimes resembles a desert where the dwellers are all desperately looking for a little drop of recognition. A compliment is therefore very powerful and if you give someone a compliment, that someone may be eternally grateful. And compliments can be given for free, so why is it so difficult to give compliments?

One answer is that it is difficult to mean compliments. It is difficult to sound honest because it is difficult to be honest. In a time like ours, where our self-esteem is at stake, we may be too busy with our own image and we may expect too much from others, therefore tend to focus on their weaknesses. Giving compliments requires modesty and modesty paradoxically, requires a positive self-image.

Giving compliments is good for your own recognition. You don’t expect reciprocity though, and you shouldn’t. You will somehow always share in the joy of your praise. The receiver has all interest in returning some esteem to you. After all, the value of your compliment does not only depend on its content, but also on your credibility as a giver, therefore the receiver has a clear interest in supporting your credibility. Other people may not always agree with the compliment you give and they might even become jealous, but at least they realise that you sometimes praise someone. And someday, they may also enjoy such a rare moment of praise. They may even want to become your friend.

I also refer to my blog: “The Importance of Being Gentle”.