Perennial Meditations

Navigating our way through life is a perennial challenge. But does it have to be? One can discover what the most remarkable thinkers had to say on virtually any topic within minutes. Although read any book on living a good life, and you’ll find what seem to be contradictions.Take this passage from Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, “Our actions may be impeded . . . but there can be no impeding our intentions or dispositions. Because we can accommodate and adapt. The mind adapts and converts to its own purposes the obstacle to our acting. The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.” [...]***If you're interested in a deeper dive, you can subscribe to In Search of Wisdom, a conversational podcast that interviews leading thinkers in search of timeless lessons for daily life. You can also read articles on ancient lessons for modern life at the PERENNIAL publication on Medium.Follow Perennial Leader Project:Twitter: twitter.com/searchwisdompodInstagram: instagram.com/searchwisdompodCheck out our YouTube ChannelSign-up for The PATH, our free newsletter (short reflections on wisdom). This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit perennial.substack.com/subscribe

Is it possible to know too much? According to Leo Tolstoy (regarded as one of the greatest writers of all time), “It is better to know a few good and necessary things than many useless and mediocre things.” Basic knowledge is necessary to be a human being; until a person has acquired this knowledge, all other knowledge is harmful, stressed Tolstoy.In A Calendar of Wisdom, Tolstoy wrote, "It is better to know several basic rules of life than to study many unnecessary sciences." [...] ***If you're interested in a deeper dive, you can subscribe to In Search of Wisdom, a conversational podcast that interviews leading thinkers in search of timeless lessons for daily life. You can also read articles on ancient lessons for modern life at the PERENNIAL publication on Medium.Follow Perennial Leader Project:Twitter: twitter.com/searchwisdompodInstagram: instagram.com/searchwisdompodCheck out our YouTube ChannelSign-up for The PATH, our free newsletter (short reflections on wisdom). This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit perennial.substack.com/subscribe

When we search for practical wisdom today — we are wise to look to Buddhist teachings. What distinguishes the Buddha’s teaching from other religious approaches to the human condition is its directness, thoroughness, and practical nature.The Buddha explained, "The teaching begins by calling upon us to develop a faculty of careful attention." [...]***If you're interested in a deeper dive, you can subscribe to In Search of Wisdom, a conversational podcast that interviews leading thinkers in search of timeless lessons for daily life. You can also read articles on ancient lessons for modern life at the PERENNIAL publication on Medium.Follow Perennial Leader Project:Twitter: twitter.com/searchwisdompodInstagram: instagram.com/searchwisdompodCheck out our YouTube ChannelSign-up for The PATH, our free newsletter (short reflections on wisdom). This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit perennial.substack.com/subscribe

Is the fear of death inevitable? In the classic Denial of Death, Ernest Becker stressed, “The idea of death, the fear of it, haunts the human animal like nothing else; it is a mainspring of human activity — designed largely to avoid the fatality of death.”Although 2,000 years before Becker, the philosopher Epicurus asked, “Why should I fear death? If I am, then death is not. If Death is, then I am not.” [...]***If you're interested in a deeper dive, you can subscribe to In Search of Wisdom, a conversational podcast that interviews leading thinkers in search of timeless lessons for daily life. You can also read articles on ancient lessons for modern life at the PERENNIAL publication on Medium.Follow Perennial Leader Project:Twitter: twitter.com/searchwisdompodInstagram: instagram.com/searchwisdompodCheck out our YouTube ChannelSign-up for The PATH, our free newsletter (short reflections on wisdom). This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit perennial.substack.com/subscribe

Today's reflection comes from a portion of The PATH weekly email meditation we send every Monday, and it's on potential. One of the heartbreaking things about humans is our tendency to settle, to place false limits on our true potential. The theologian Thomas Merton said, “The biggest human temptation is to settle for too little.”In Meditations, Marcus Aurelius wrote this 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.” [...]***If you're interested in a deeper dive, you can subscribe to In Search of Wisdom, a conversational podcast that interviews leading thinkers in search of timeless lessons for daily life. You can also read articles on ancient lessons for modern life at the PERENNIAL publication on Medium.Follow Perennial Leader Project:Twitter: twitter.com/searchwisdompodInstagram: instagram.com/searchwisdompodCheck out our YouTube ChannelSign-up for The PATH, our free newsletter (short reflections on wisdom). This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit perennial.substack.com/subscribe

Are you on the path to becoming who you truly are? The American essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson believed, “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” If you're interested in a deeper dive, you can read articles on ancient lessons for modern life at the PERENNIAL publication on Medium or check out our YouTube Channel.Follow Perennial Leader Project:Twitter: twitter.com/searchwisdompodInstagram: instagram.com/searchwisdompodSign-up for The PATH, our free newsletter (short reflections on wisdom). This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit perennial.substack.com/subscribe

How do we know virtue is the only good?  Although the Stoics and Epicureans agreed on finding tranquility in life, they differed drastically on the topic of virtue.In Letter 76, titled Only the honorable is good, Seneca wrote,This is called virtue; this is the honorable and the sole good of the human being. Since only reason perfects a human, only reason makes him perfectly happy. But that by which alone he is made happy is his sole good. We say, too, that those things which proceed from virtue and are connected with it — that is, all the activities of virtue — are themselves goods.Seneca warned Lucilius, “If you accept the view that something besides the honorable is good, then every virtue will have a hard time.” Virtue cannot be maintained by looking beyond itself. If so, it is contrary to reason — which virtue depends. [...]If you're interested in a deeper dive, you can read articles on ancient lessons for modern life at the PERENNIAL publication on Medium or check out our YouTube Channel.Follow Perennial Leader Project:Twitter: twitter.com/searchwisdompodInstagram: instagram.com/searchwisdompodSign-up for The PATH, our free newsletter (short reflections on wisdom). This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit perennial.substack.com/subscribe

Is there any greater wisdom than the ability to adapt? The poet Goethe said, “Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for changes.” The greatest thinkers throughout history have all stressed the wisdom of change.In his Meditations, Marcus Aurelius wrote, "Is someone afraid of change? Well, what can ever come to be without change?" [...]If you're interested in a deeper dive, you can read articles on ancient lessons for modern life at the PERENNIAL publication on Medium or check out our YouTube Channel.Follow Perennial Leader Project:Twitter: twitter.com/searchwisdompodInstagram: instagram.com/searchwisdompodSign-up for The PATH, our free newsletter (short reflections on wisdom). This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit perennial.substack.com/subscribe

What if regrets are inevitable? According to the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, regret is entirely unavoidable. In Either/Or: A Fragment of Life, Kierkegaard explained, "I see it all perfectly; there are two possible situations — one can either do this or that. My honest opinion and my friendly advice is this: do it or do not do it — you will regret both." [...]If you're interested in a deeper dive, you can read articles on ancient lessons for modern life at the PERENNIAL publication on Medium or check out our YouTube Channel.Follow Perennial Leader Project:Twitter: twitter.com/searchwisdompodInstagram: instagram.com/searchwisdompodSign-up for The PATH, our free newsletter (short reflections on wisdom). This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit perennial.substack.com/subscribe

"All I know is that I know nothing, and I’m not even sure about that, said the philosopher Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592). Montaigne was said to have adopted these words as a mantra for life. In his more than one hundred Essays, Montaigne covered topics connected mainly to the question of — How to Live. [...]If you're interested in a deeper dive, you can read articles on ancient lessons for modern life at the PERENNIAL publication on Medium or check out our YouTube Channel.Follow Perennial Leader Project:Twitter: twitter.com/searchwisdompodInstagram: instagram.com/searchwisdompodSign-up for The PATH, our free newsletter (short reflections on wisdom). This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit perennial.substack.com/subscribe