Keep the engine, not the showpiece

Two ways people get this wrong. One person treats the body like a machine to flog — no real food, no real sleep, fuel it on caffeine and spite and act surprised when it seizes. The other turns the body into a second job: the gym before the warehouse, the strict regimen, the obsession with the frame itself until it eats the hours and the mind it was supposed to support. A stocker too wrecked to think straight, and a guy so devoted to his training that nothing else gets any of him. Opposite mistakes, same blind spot.

Seneca said to care for the body simply, as the thing that carries the mind — feed it for health, work it enough to keep it sound, and stop (Letters 15, paraphrase). Overstuffing it dulls you. Overtraining it just swaps one tyranny for another. The body is the instrument. You tune an instrument so you can play; you don't spend the whole concert tuning.

That's the week's middle ground. Burnout isn't only neglect. It's also misplaced devotion — pouring everything into the vessel and leaving nothing for what the vessel was meant to hold.

Keep the body in good repair, then get on with the work and the life. It's a means, well worth tending, and never the point.