Money Makes You Miserable?
Art of Money has a post called ‘How to be wealthy in 5 minutes‘. Spoiler: it prompts you to focus on the wonderful things in life now, and stop wanting things so much. Jon, I was expecting a giveaway! Just kidding. I agree. Constantly wanting things can be wearying and disturbing.
Example: Check out this video of a teenage girl, who gets a flash new car for her 16th birthday, having an uber-tantrum because it’s not what she wanted.
But is it wrong to want things? The philosopher Schopenhauer, who was always a bit of a downer, said that life is like a pendulum that swings between the desire of wanting something (which he considered suffering) and the ambivalence/boredom that comes when you get what you want. High times at Schopenhauer’s School of Fun!
Still, I don’t think wanting is a bad thing per se. Maybe if you spend your life hankering after a red sports car, but if your goals relate to doing and not having, well I can’t see the harm. Being in a constant state of Zen would get old after a few minutes.
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Wednesday, June 27th, 2007 at 5:36 pm
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