A French Philosopher’s Morning Checklist for An Empowered Life

Her list has relevance to our lives even after a full century.

We gain the strength of the temptation we resist. — Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Simone Weil has fascinated me for the better part of my life. It all started when I heard she was the ‘female Albert Camus’ but now I believe more people ought to know her by her name. When I read Nobel Laureate Andre Gide had christened her the “Patron Saint of All Outsiders”, I felt she would resonate with the modern world on an even more spiritual level.

One of the most useful things I found while reading Weil’s work was a page from her journal, which she revised many times after having written it. In that, it was a non-static checklist that she was engaging with over a long time and meant to be for her personal use. But why this piece stood out amongst all else is because of its relevance even after more than a century.

In her journal, Simone Weil wrote “A List of Temptations (to be read every morning)” as a checklist for realigning with one’s best self. Some call it a complete moral framework that reflected her desire to reform others and herself to be a better human being. She believed reform on the individual level would make people happier and more efficient in challenging unfair systems that govern our lives.

Here is her list, which anyone can integrate into their daily rituals to live a more disciplined and empowered life.

Resist: The Temptation of idleness (by far the strongest)

While the definition of “idleness” has changed many times over in the past century, Weil’s advice is relevant now more than ever. It’s easy to scroll for kilometers on social media or jump into a bottomless YouTube Blackhole while our own life passes us by like a haze. This happens because we trigger reward centers in our mind and get dopamine surges through virtual success.

Triggering rewards like this pacifies our brain’s sense of urgency without being profitable to our physical life. And so we decide to be sedentary every moment of our life without sensing it. This is a reminder to not let the world lull us into sleepwalking through the entire course of our lives — only to jolt awake and realize we missed it by the end.

When revisiting this checklist, Weil added why idleness will consume us like quicksand.

“Illusion that time, of itself, will bring me courage and energy…. In fact, it is usually the contrary (sleepiness). Say to yourself: Will it suffice, suppose I should remain always what I am at this moment?”

She leaves us with a burning question that can build urgency whenever we feel like procrastinating. If the next moment doesn’t arrive, will you be satisfied with the effort you’re making to improve life in the present moment?

Resist: The Temptation of inner life

An excerpt from Simone Weil’s list says:

“Deal only with those difficulties which actually confront you. Allow yourself only those feelings which are actually called upon for effective use or else are required by thought for the sake of inspiration. Cut away ruthlessly everything that is imaginary in your feelings.”

An “inner life” could be the paralyzing fear of future, paranoia of those we don’t know or even daydreaming instead of actively working towards the life we want. All of these lock us in our head and separate us from the physical act of living life.

Our gut-feeling might be useful to us in some circumstances, but it is not to be relied on like a compass needle in all matters. We should base our deduction and inferring skills on the objective world as things play out in front of us. As a philosopher, Simone Weil was ahead of her time because this tip correlates with modern psychology.

In psychology, the “inner life” can pertain to a term called “rumination” which is a negative-thought cycle people often tap into and find impossible to snap out of. We do it by imagining the worst outcome and keep building a network of memories that support the possibility of our worst fears coming to life. Recent studies find strong associations between anxiety and depression with those who “ruminate” making it a habit you should watch out for.

Resist: The Temptation of self-immolation

Next, the French philosopher and social activist asks people to stop being self-sacrificial. To be ready to lay down your own life or harm yourself in order to appease to a cause or a person adds nothing to the cause but takes away a lot from the value of your own life.

“Never promise and never give to others more than you would demand from yourself if you were he.”

If you give something significant for the benefit of someone — Weil urges to first run it past your own judgement, and whether you in their position would find it justified to demand something like this. The heroism that comes at the cost of losing a part of yourself is not noble, but rather cruelty towards yourself.

We must remember that we belong to and have the biggest responsibility to do right by ourselves before anyone else. To preserve our ideas and our belief of good — we first have to preserve our own well-being.

Resist: Temptation to dominate

In our need to fix things, lead people to their better selves in life and take control of how things are — we often stray towards being bossy. But when we buy into the illusion that we are superior to others, we close our eyes to the error of our own ways. We abandon all self-accountability and no longer have an accurate sense of self-awareness.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, one of the best people to exemplify Weil’s belief, said:

“Love does not dominate, it cultivates.”

He believed in opting for an inward belief system rather than imposing it on others. He also separated religion from the so-called upholders of religion because he believed human beings are prone to violence and fallacy.

In Weil’s Anthology, she says,

“All friendship is impure if even a trace of the wish to please or the contrary desire to dominate is found in it.”

Unless human beings are humble and honest, they cannot form genuine bonds. She believed those who respect the distance being two distinct creatures, places between two people, can appreciate other people more in a relationship.

Resist: Temptation of perversity

Often when our suffering goes beyond a certain threshold, our first instinct is to reciprocate the pain to the one who inflicted it on us. In our emotionality, we let go of all etiquette and pay no regard to the fact that the person on the other end is also a human being.

But a crime committed in response to a crime is also just as bad. Instead of dismantling evil from the root, it triumphs one evil over another. It causes fear, not resolution of systems of oppression. For this reason, it is perhaps the most popular tenet of all on her list. She writes:

“Never react to an evil in such a way as to augment it.”

She added a few days later:

“Refuse to be an accomplice. Don’t lie — don’t keep your eyes shut…”

A witness to perversity is just as bad as the one committing it. We must stop being silent spectators when other people suffer or we are complicit in their oppression. Only waiting our inevitable turn.

On reading this, I realized Weil believes that humans have immense potential. Often, far more than they realize. And great men are set apart from common people when they realize this potential. Then their present conditions are no longer a liability for them. In her notebook, Simone writes:

“The whole art of willing (will-power) consists in taking advantage of the moment before the struggle begins to contrive in advance that one’s objective situation at the moment when one is weak shall be as one desires it to be…”

This might be why her “List of Temptations” exists in the first place — to prepare people for life before they are hit with situations that might shake the very foundations of who they are. In some ways, Weil’s list is for self-preservation as much as it is for self-empowerment.

But if holding onto your core values and morality when you are tempted isn’t the most powerful act of defiance, then I don’t know what is.