The Importance of Mental Athleticism

“The athlete … never surrenders his rational self-control to impulses of diet or leisure, nor does he abandon his thought-out program.” –Peter Masters

This is a fascinating quotation. Consider the analogy Masters chose to employ; he chose an active type of individual to speak on the mind. And he is right. Everything — all physical action — which flows forth from an athlete is the result of prior, organized, and disciplined thought. Without prior thought, orderly action cannot exist. A man’s actions are the products of his thoughts. Are the actions of a man chaotic? Then his thinking is chaotic. Even a predominantly sedentary individual — such as a writer! — can derive mental riches from such a quote. In the absence of rational self-control, and through the abandonment of a thought-out program, there can be no writer. Masters himself is an intellectual! His analogy applies to the active man as well as the sedentary man, for it is the centrality of the mind which is uppermost. Stephen Hawking was just one example of this truth. As for an athlete, go and watch a few minutes’ footage of Michael Jordan playing basketball, and behold the very systematic execution of his thought!

See my book Keeping a Sound Mind in a Chaotic World for more on this topic:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/keeping-a-sound-mind-in-a-chaotic-world-brandon-r-burdette/1128799549?ean=9781720380313

Or here:

https://www.amazon.com/Keeping-Sound-Mind-Chaotic-World/dp/1720380317/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1532920433&sr=8-3&keywords=brandon+r+burdette&dpID=412sCu6mO3L&preST=SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40&dpSrc=srch