First, Do No Harm — It’s Excellent All-Around Advice

Applying the Hippocratic oath to daily life

Image by the author.

We’ve all heard of the Hippocratic oath, right? The popular conception of it goes something like this:

First, do not put flaming hot pokers into your patient’s eyes.

Nor feed them live bees.

Nor use a chainsaw to cut out splinters.

More generally, it is stated like this: First, do no harm.

And you know what? This advice is surprisingly general. It not only applies to Dr. Shaq Big-Freaking-Hands O’Neal before he gives you a prostate exam. It applies to all sorts of situations.

Here, let me show you some examples.

1. Diet

When it comes to diet, the hippo oath means your first step towards getting your diet under control is to stop eating like a warthog — a warthog that has tumbled off a cliff in the savanna and inexplicably landed in a McDonald’s dumpster. It means you’re better off not stuffing a dozen cheeseburgers into your laughing hole than starting to add some lettuce to your deep-fried trans-fat-infused asbestos crackers.

First, do no harm: remove the obvious artery-clogging diabetes-inducing crap first. Only then start wondering about whether kale or quinoa is healthier.

2. Fitness

When it comes to gaining muscles and a body so sexy that you’ll proudly bake it at the nearest beach, the hippo oath means not doing deadlifts with a spine so curved that it looks like a question mark’s d*ck.

It means not grinding away your joints and tendons as if you were dragging them along a highway paved with broken glass. It means rolling your eyes at bullshit like “no pain no gain.” It means training in a way that won’t turn you into a bloated ex-jock who blew his knees.

First, do no harm: exercise in a way that will allow you to exercise for the rest of your life.

3. Knowledge

When it comes to acquiring knowledge, the hippo oath means not reading and watching things that actively gnaw holes into your brain. It means not subscribing to conspiracy-spewing pseudoscience-puking…