Butterflies are magnificent creatures.

So fragile and petite. 
They fly in a whimsical, dancing manner on the breezes, feinting around any attempts to grab them or interfere.

For some, they migrate thousands of miles to their places they were hatched, lay eggs, and then the offspring will travel back the thousands of miles to hibernate.

What an incredible and wonderful gift nature has in them.

We have the power to capture.
To ensnare.
Or to crush.

We could grab them with a net to watch them in a jar or a box, if we so wished.

But should we?

Just because we have power to do things…

To spend money
To cheat on a spouse
To ignore spirituality
To capture a butterfly (or anything)…

…Doesn’t mean we should.

Discernment is an important skill to develop.
It is a brother of discipline.

The ability to know you have free will — which is an understanding of right and wrong and which behaviors align where — but to know better than to do X, Y, or Z is of greater power than abusing power.

Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.

Follow for daily philosophical meditations.

These are distillations from my coming book “YouDaimonia: the Ancient Philosophy of Human Flourishing.”