🖌️ The Way of Change, Free Will, Relationships, and Pathless Paths
Monday Muse (October 2nd, 2023)
Greetings Readers!
Here is the latest Monday Muse with a morning meditation, perennial reminder, question, and recommendation(s) to consider.
Be wise and be well this week!
📿 Morning Meditation
This week’s morning meditation is courtesy of The Wisdom School podcast (Apple or Spotify). Today’s meditation is a short selected reading (delivered in a Lectio Divina style) inspired by the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.
📌 Perennial Reminder(s)
But my research has led me to suspect that the deterministic view of self-determination (namely, that there is no such thing) might just be wrong. Not only might we have free will, we might have radical, even inescapable free will—meaning that we can’t help but make choices, on a daily and even moment-to-moment basis. That is what our minds evolved to do. And these choices can have a profound effect on the course of our lives—even when, at first glance, they appear very simple or minor. […]
Source: Freely Determined by Kennon Sheldon (Listen to the conversation).
💡 Perennial Question(s)
The condition that is usually said to trump all others in importance is the strength and number of a person’s relationships. Good relationships make people happy, and happy people enjoy more and better relationships than unhappy people. This effect is so important and interesting that it gets its own chapter—the next one. For now, I’ll just mention that conflicts in relationships—having an annoying office mate or room-mate, or having chronic conflict with your spouse—is one of the surest ways to reduce your happiness. You never adapt to interpersonal conflict; it damages every day, even days when you don’t see the other person but ruminate about the conflict nonetheless. […]
Source: The Happiness Hypothesis by Johnathan Haidt (Learn more)
🔥 Recommendation(s)
This week's recommendation is a recent episode of The One You Feed podcast with Eric Zimmer (a previous podcast guest). The episode I’m recommending is titled How to Find Your True Path with Paul Millard (author of The Pathless Path).
🎧 Recent Podcast(s)
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Thank you for reading/listening; I hope you found something useful.
Until next time, be wise and be well,
J.W.
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