Asking the Most of Ourselves
Living a meaningful life
Thank you to Jennifer Arndt, a Mindset Shifts U group member, for creating this outstanding graphic and bringing home a central point of the next book we will read together.
Like Jennifer, we strive to live a “meaningful life” rather than “a superficial stress-filled life.” Burkeman and Seneca will help us find our way.
Like his work on anger, Seneca's “On the Shortness of Life” thoroughly dismantles our flawed approaches to time, revealing a surprisingly contemporary perspective. Seneca isn't selling an ancient time management technique.
Given the NFL playoffs, are you eagerly looking forward to the next round? Perhaps MLB’s spring training or the next season of your favorite TV show is not coming soon enough for you.
Many of us have something in common with ancient Romans. Seneca observed some people found the “intervening time burdensome” between “gladiatorial” or other shows or amusements “and they want to skip over the days in between.”
People are still people, aren't they? You might notice how often your mind is not present and wonder how you are using your days.
Seneca doesn’t want us to “reach life’s end,” and “realize, too late, that [we’ve] been busy for a long time doing nothing.” For those who “neglect the present, and fear the future,” Seneca writes, “life is very brief and anxious.”
Like Marcus Aurelius, Seneca believed philosophy could help us navigate everyday challenges. Philosophers, Seneca wrote, can have an important place in our lives:
None of them [philosophers] will diminish your years, but each will share his own years with you. With none of them will conversation be dangerous, friendship life threatening, or cultivation of them expensive. From them you’ll take whatever you wish; it will be no fault of theirs if you fail to take in the very fullest amount you have room for.
What happiness, what a fine old age lies in store for the person who’s put himself under the patronage of these people! He’ll have friends whose advice he can seek on the greatest or least important matters, whom he can consult daily about himself, from whom he can hear the truth without insult and receive praise without fawning, and who will provide a model after which to fashion himself.
Timeless wisdom and inspiration from Seneca will be enhanced by our study of Oliver Burkeman in his Four Thousand Weeks. Burkeman integrates wisdom from Seneca and many others, and I will, too, in my overviews. Like Seneca, Burkeman avoids offering a temporary, ineffective time management system.
Later in 2025, we will use the same approach of considering a modern writer alongside classical wisdom as we study Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essays.
I was incredibly grateful and humbled to receive
Barry Brownstein ‘s accessible yet original public explorations of the thoughts and works of various philosophers are of consistent great value, inviting us towards a more rich understanding of the individual soul in society and ways to love and forgive the self and others while always asking the interesting surprising possible most of ourselves. Highly recommend!
Jen reports “taking [ideas considered at Mindset Shifts U] with me into many situations.” The study of philosophy allows us to uncover, as Jen writes, “the interesting surprising possible most of ourselves!”
We are “surprised” by our potential because it only reveals itself when it is allowed to emerge. As we have seen, philosophy helps us strip away what is false to discover what is true.
Has demanding the most of others ever brought you peace of mind? Isn’t it time to ask the most of ourselves?
I invite you to join me, Jen, Jennifer, and the rest of the group in considering life-affirming ideas.
Our study of meaningful philosophy may lead you to say, as Seneca did, “I spend my time with the very best company. No matter where, in which time they lived, I send my thoughts to be with them.”
Week beginning Jan 25th: Seneca, “On the Shortness of Life”
Week beginning Feb 1: Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks: Intro, Chapters 1 and 2
Week beginning Feb 8: Chapters 3, 4
Week beginning Feb 15: Chapters 5, 6
Week beginning Feb 22: Chapters 7, 8
Week beginning March 1: Chapters 9, 10
Week beginning March 8: Chapters 11, 12
Week beginning March 15: Chapters 13, 14
Week beginning March 22: Afterword and Appendix
This is my favorite modern translation of “On the Shortness of Life.” It contains other Seneca essays we will work with down the road. The volume is relatively expensive; the Kindle edition is often on sale, but not right now. This is a fine second choice, but it lacks some essays the first choice contains, and the formatting is not as reader-friendly. Another option is one of the many public domain translations available at Amazon.
The schedule above may be slightly adjusted to fit the group's needs as we proceed.
That really is a brilliant graphic. Thank you Jennifer Arndt!
I found that in making a habit of spending some time in the best company, over a mattter months, many of the distractions simply fell away.
Thanks Prof Brownstein.