How does a man live a good life? And how can one achieve excellence to the utmost of their ability?

These two questions have been grappled with and grasped for thousands of years, yet no one has searched into the meaning of these questions more than the philosophers of Ancient Greece. After listening to the happiness lab podcast with Dr. Laurie Santos, the episode, Happiness Lessons of the Ancients, really got me thinking about Plato’s vision of the human psyche. In particular, my favorite analogy to explain the nature of the soul, aka the tripartite, is through the chariot allegory. This allegory reveals the true nature of man, and what must be done to achieve arete (excellence), Andreia (manliness) and, as a product of the two, eudaimonia (human flourishing).