“A healthy mind in a healthy body.”
— Juvenal
When you decide to run for exercise you don’t expect much other than sore calf muscles and tired lungs. You don’t expect to discover your purpose in life, or to somehow work through a worry that has plagued you for months. But oddly enough, some 30 minutes into a run, a voice from nowhere can descend – rational, optimistic, measured, hopeful – and suddenly you have some clarity.
ASICS, the running, or “a healthy mind in a healthy body”. The phrase derives from a satirical poem by Roman poet Juvenal, who argued that our ambitions for wealth, power, and personal beauty would lead to disappointment, and so, instead, we should pray for a healthy mind in a healthy body. He seemed to want to remind us to prioritise the stuff that matters.
