“Philosophy calls for simple living, but not for penance. It’s quite possible to be simple without being crude.” Seneca, Moral Letters.
If you’re in the habit of noticing your failings and short-comings, and then getting all worked up and annoyed with yourself, then you are undoing all the good work achieved through noticing in the first place. Whatever you have noticed, accept this as a revelation, an insight, an awareness that has been raised, and, while still maintaining your calm and objective detached point of view, choose what you will do with this new-found knowledge.
Don’t beat yourself up or carry around with you this knowledge as some sort of burden, or bind your own hands. Instead, live more freely in the knowledge.
