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For all its flags, acronyms, and marble corridors, the European Union runs on the surprisingly simple idea that no major law should pass without the consent of both Europe’s citizens and its governments. That principle is the backbone of the EU’s decision-making system, often called the “Ordinary Legislative Procedure.” It isn’t fast, and it isn’t elegant, but it was designed for a continent that has spent centuries arguing. In practice, it means that every major policy, from regulating AI to banning single-use plastics, must be shaped jointly by the European Parliament (representing the people) and the Council of the EU (representing the member states). The result is slow-moving but unusually stable legislation, built to survive shifting governments and national politics.

Most EU laws begin with the institution you rarely hear about: the European Commission. It’s the EU’s civil service and engine room. The Commission drafts proposals after months of consultations, studies, and negotiations with industries, NGOs, and national experts. Once drafted, the proposal is handed to the Parliament and the Council, who amend it, argue over it, strip sections out, or strengthen it. This is where Europe’s balancing act plays out as larger states like Germany and France have influence, but smaller countries like Malta or Estonia still wield real power because each national government has a seat at the table. Thanks to the Lisbon Treaty, if one-third of them object to a draft law on the grounds that Brussels is overreaching, they can trigger a “Yellow Card.” It forces the Commission to pause, justify itself, and sometimes back down entirely. Parliament, meanwhile, negotiates through political groups, from the center-right EPP to the Greens and the Left, creating alliances that sometimes cut across national lines. The two institutions then enter “trilogues,” a series of closed-door negotiations where the final text is hammered into shape.

When a law finally passes, it becomes binding across all 450 million people in the EU but implementation remains largely in the hands of national governments. Brussels sets the destination, member states choose the route. This explains why the same directive can feel different in Portugal and Poland. It also explains the EU’s unusual resilience as no single leader can unilaterally rewrite the rules. Slow, consensus-driven, occasionally maddening but remarkably effective for holding together the most ambitious political union in modern history.

Epicurus has been badly misremembered. Today his name is almost a synonym for luxury and indulgence, yet the real Epicurus lived more like a monk with a garden than a hedonist with a wine cellar. Born in 341 BCE on the island of Samos, he believed the universe was made of atoms, the gods were irrelevant to daily life, and happiness came from something far simpler than pleasure: the absence of fear and unnecessary desire. His school, ‘The Garden’, welcomed women and enslaved people and taught that most human misery doesn’t come from what we lack, but from what we wrongly think we need. To Epicurus, philosophy wasn’t an abstract exercise but rather therapy.

At the heart of his teaching was a simple, powerful equation that pleasure equals stability. Not the sugar-rush pleasure of feasts or parties, but the calm that comes when the mind is untroubled and the body is free from pain. He divided desires into three categories: natural and necessary (food, shelter, friendship), natural but unnecessary (fancy foods, luxuries), and empty desires (status, fame, limitless wealth). Happiness, he argued, came from fulfilling the first category, enjoying the second in moderation, and refusing the third entirely. Most of the suffering people inflict on themselves evaporates once they understand what actually brings lasting satisfaction. For Epicurus, the good life was built not on abundance, but on clarity.

His most radical idea at the time was that the highest human pleasure is friendship. Epicurus believed that a shared meal with trusted companions did more for well-being than any material success. Modern psychology agrees with Epicurus as studies show that strong social bonds predict happiness more accurately than income or career milestones. He also taught that fearing death was irrational stating that when death comes, we no longer exist to experience it, and while we exist, death is not present. Freed from that fear, people can focus on living well rather than clinging anxiously to more time. Epicurus never commanded armies or ruled empires yet two thousand years later his blueprint endures. Simplify your desires, nurture your friendships, quiet your fears, and happiness stops being a mystery.

If you want to understand why anything moves, stops, or refuses to budge, you start with Isaac Newton. In 1687, he distilled the machinery of the universe into three ideas so clear that every rocket launch, car crash, and falling apple still obeys them. These laws are the grammar of the physical world, the invisible system running beneath every sport, every tool, and every step you take.

Newton’s First Law is the law of inertia: an object keeps doing what it’s already doing unless something pushes or pulls it. A hockey puck skates effortlessly across ice because almost nothing slows it down. The Second Law quantifies that: force = mass × acceleration. In simple terms, the heavier something is, the harder you must shove it to change its motion. That’s why a loaded truck accelerates slowly while a bicycle leaps forward. The Third Law is the most counterintuitive and the most elegant: every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Rockets rise because they push exhaust downward just as you walk because your foot pushes the ground backward and the ground pushes you forward with equal strength.

What makes Newton’s laws remarkable is not their age but their permanence. Three centuries later, they still underpin engineering, flight, architecture, and nearly all of classical physics. They tell you why seatbelts save lives (your body wants to keep moving forward), why lifting weights gets harder as plates stack up (more mass needs more force), and why birds can fly (action and reaction working in harmony). These laws are simple enough for a child to grasp yet powerful enough to send robots to Mars. Newton didn’t just describe motion in the simple way the laws appear but rather he gave humanity the operating manual for the physical world.

We hope you enjoyed today’s edition. Thank you to everyone reading, sharing, and helping A Little Wiser reach new people every week. We value every reader so please reply and tell us a lesson you’d love to see soon!

Until next time…. - A Little Wiser Team

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