The secret of happiness, you see, is not found
in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less.” - Socrates
—
In that one little line, Socrates summed up one of the
major problems with our modern society, and offered a simple solution.
Pretty brilliant, I’d say.
In fact, he negated the need for me to write more, but
stubborn as I am, I will proceed. I’d like to talk about this capacity to enjoy
less.
Is it difficult to enjoy less? No, not really, but it
takes a change in mindset, which as with many such changes takes time and
adaptation.
If you enjoy chocolate ice cream, as I do, when
confronted with a tub of it would you also enjoy eating as much of the tub as
possible? I know that’s what many of us do when faced with delicious food.
But what if you learned to enjoy just a few bites of
the ice cream? And with each bite, savor the flavor, the coldness, the
creaminess, the chocolatiness. (Yes, that’s a word, spell-checker – I made it
up.)
If you love clothes, instead of buying more and more
each weekend, can you learn to cull your wardrobe into a few qualities,
beautiful pieces that you can wear often, and enjoy more?
The same applies with anything we love … including
online reading and communicating (email, Twitter, Facebook, forums). We often
seem obsessed with more of it. But instead, consider reading just the quality
stuff, and if a blog or Twitter feed doesn’t deliver quality consistently,
consider dropping it.
Learn to love less television, movies, chatter,
spending, shopping, and eating out, junk food, technology, consumption,
productivity. You get the idea.
When you focus on enjoying less, you focus on full
enjoyment. You learn to be content with little, and when you do that, a life of
happiness is at your disposal.
The only limit to your happiness, then, is how
much you can learn to enjoy less.
This post originally appeared at mnmlist.com
Your views are most welcome...
No comments:
Post a Comment