Dear Readers,
Here is the latest Monday Muse with a meditation from the Dying Every Day series, a perennial reminder, insight, and a reflection to consider.
Be wise and be well this week!
💀 Dying Every Day
The Dying Every Day series delivers meditations on the art of living (and dying). Each meditation provides a quote, a selected passage (from an original Stoic text), and a daily exercise to contemplate.
“Not being able to govern events, I govern myself, and if they will not adapt to me, I adapt to them.”
— Montaigne, Essays
Selected Reading
In this week’s meditation, we explore the art of happiness through a selected reading from Seneca.
Difficulties of time and place confront even those who are wealthy and well-equipped for pleasure, thwarting their intentions. No one can have everything he wants. What a person can do is give up wanting what he doesn’t have and use cheerfully the things that are available. …
In short, I have instantly put my mind to a sort of test, and a particularly straightforward and accurate test at that. For when the mind has prepared itself and made a resolution to be patient, we have no clear indication of its true resolve. The most reliable proofs are those that come on the spur of the moment, if the mind views troubles not only dispassionately but serenely, without resentment and without complaint, and if it makes up for whatever is missing by not wishing for it and reflects that while something may be lacking in its routine, in itself it lacks nothing.
With many things, we only realize how superfluous they are when they begin to run short. We were using them not because we had to but because they were available. How many things we acquire only because other people have bought them or because they are in other people’s homes! Many of our problems stem from the fact that we live by conforming to other people’s standards, following fashion instead of taking reason as our guide. […]
+Adapted from On the Conflict Between Pleasure and Virtue
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Daily Exercise
Consider reflecting on what it means to be in control of oneself. As Montaigne points out, we cannot govern the world, but we can govern ourselves (or adapt to the circumstances of life). How can you remember to focus on the art of self-control this week?
📌 Perennial Reminder
The virtues of persistence and resilience are widely lauded. Stories of how people brushed off failure to eventually triumph are the favorite folk stories of our time. … But persistence in thinking is not a virtue because it will inevitably lead you to eventual triumph. Rather, the refusal to give up is a commitment to keep living an intellectually engaged life even in the absence of final answers. For Homo sapiens, thinking is part of what it means to live a fully human life and not just a means to an end. […]
Source: How to Think Like a Philosopher by Julian Baggini (a previous podcast guest)
💡 Perennial Insight
The only thing that stands in our power to achieve is to make the most advantageous use possible of the personal qualities we possess and, accordingly, to follow such pursuits only as will call them into play, to strive after the kind of perfection of which they admit and to avoid every other; consequently, to choose the position, occupation, and manner of life which are most suitable for their development. […]
Source: The Wisdom of Life by Arthur Schopenhauer
🛋️ Perennial Reflection
This week’s passages led me to reflect on the notion of progress, specifically on how easy it is to underestimate what’s possible with a little persistence.
One of the heartbreaking things in life is our tendency to settle (or to place false limits on our potential). The Trappist monk Thomas Merton once observed, “The biggest human temptation is to settle for too little.”
It’s easy to forget what is possible for our lives. Even the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius needed reminding. In his Meditations, he wrote to himself,
If you find something very difficult to achieve yourself, don’t imagine it impossible — for anything possible and proper for another person can be achieved as easily by you.
The art of self-control is largely about understanding the power of small, consistent, and incremental steps. As Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, once said, “Well-being is attained little by little, and nevertheless is no little thing itself.”
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Thank you for reading; I hope you found something useful.
Until next time, be wise and be well,
J.W.
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You might appreciate this pòcast:
https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/N27uhIa15Ib