Mind Over Body, Choice Decisions, & The Inevitable
Wednesday Wisdoms for October 23, 2024
Welcome to Wednesday Wisdom, our 3x3 Newsletter where I distill worldly advice for better living with 3 quotes, 3 observations, and 3 questions.
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Mind over Body
🤨 Quote
“When the body is shattered by the mighty blows of age and our limbs shed their blunted powers, our wits too become lame and our tongues and our minds start to wander’s.”
Lucretius
Source: On the Length of Life
Observation 🧐
There is the old adage you’re only as old as you feel.
As we age, our body naturally starts its gradual decline. We don’t move as fast as we used to, we lose some of our strength, we watch as our bodies start to sag.
We just don’t feel like we did when we were younger.
And this can easily creep into our mindset. We can begin to tell ourselves we’re old. We can refuse to do things because our bodies ache, or we don’t physically, and in turn mentally, feel up to it.
But this is what weakens the mind and drags it down with the body.
Instead, the mind has the ability to stay sharp over the body. It has the ability to control the body and convince it otherwise.
Rather than leaning away from doing activities because of the way we feel, we should lean into them. By doing so, we get our body moving, we get blood circulating, we release endorphins, but most importantly, our mind is strengthened and we prove to ourselves we can overcome the feeling of the body.
🤔 Question
What would you do if for a single week you were not allowed to say no to activities?
Choice Decisions
🤨 Quote
“Part of the art of mapping a complex decision is creating a full-spectrum portrait of all the variables that might influence your choice. But part of that mapping process is also coming up with new choices.”
Steven Johnson
Source: Farsighted
Observation 🧐
Aging is inevitable. We’re all going to encounter it, many of us already have.
Yet it is something in our youth we did not see coming. The aging process is something we think about, something we know about, but not something we can truly imagine.
It’s a slow progression, sneaking up on us little by little each day.
But perhaps one of the hardest aspects of aging is not the fact that we must come to terms with the things we did or did not do, rather, we begin to have to decide what we will do with the limited time remaining.
Life itself is a series of finite choices. As we age, the number of choices we can make begins to rapidly diminish as our time on the planet decreases.
We begin to look back on our lives and realize how much time we wasted on things that held no real value to us.
And it is from this change in perspective that each of us today can take hold and embrace life’s
Looking at life through the lens of limited choices left to make helps focus the individual on what matters most.
And it is through these choices that we will decide the kind of life we wish to have to the end.
Because these are the decisions that truly count now.
🤔 Question
What will you do with the remainder of your time?
Beneath the paywall this week we explore the wisdom of W. Somerset Maugham. Click below to support and get access.