Greetings Friends!
A quick note before we begin:
The Perennial Leader Project’s weekly email is now the Monday Muse! Each week, subscribers receive a short email with reminders, questions, and recommendations. I’ll only share it here on Substack occasionally; if you’d like it every Monday — subscribe here.
The term muse has a couple of meanings:
(1) a state of deep thought
(2) a source of inspiration
Hopefully, these Monday emails (in a small way) can be a source of both contemplation and inspiration for the art of living! Lastly, the new format for the Monday Muse is inspired by Sunday snippets from What Is Stoicism? 🌷 which I highly recommend (and Tim Ferris’s Five Bullet Friday).
Be wise and be well this week!
🖌️ Monday Muse | Life is Short, Perennial Habits, and Other Good News
🔖 Perennial Reminder(s)
"We think of limitations (especially death) as things that disrupt our freedom precisely because they remove possibilities. Paradoxically, limit gives birth to freedom. ... The game of life must contain boundaries. And a good thing too. While we are seemingly squeezed by our lack of unlimited possibilities (i.e., our short lives), an unlimited being is squeezed in other ways: it would simply not have any means to enjoy a meaningful existence as we do. It is an existence as boring as the game with no rules in which there is nothing to act against and nothing to act for." [...]
Source: Life is Short by Dean Rickles (Listen to the conversation here).
💭 Perennial Question(s)
The poet Mary Oliver famously asked, "What is it you plan to do with this one wild and precious life?" Now picture that life without any constraints. As Rickles points out, "Unlimited time would imply that all possible outcomes could occur at some point, so that choice would not even be a coherent concept—it would simply dissolve into the boundless."
🔥 Recommendation(s)
This week's recommendation is a recent episode of Ryan Holiday's podcast, The Daily Stoic, with Lori Gottlieb (author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone ). The conversation explores how we change ourselves (and see the world).
🎧 Latest Podcast Episode(s)
Our Sundays with Seneca episode explored A Refuge from Worldly Distractions, and on In Search of Wisdom, we discussed The Wisdom of Stillness.
🦉Upcoming Course(s)
If you're interested in learning more about the art (and science) of habit change. I encourage you to check out the new Perennial Habits course starting this week (the course is free for Perennial Meditations members).
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Thank you for reading; I hope you found something useful.
Until next time, be wise and be well,
P.S. Feel free to comment, ask questions, or make suggestions!
Love the format, thanks for the mention!