When I look around, I see so many people constantly racing against time. Parents, in their drive to climb the career ladder, often miss out on the precious moments of their children’s childhood. I also see relationships faltering because people are so focused on chasing something elusive in the future — something that never seems to be enough. In the process, they miss out on living and loving the people around them in the present.
I learned a bit late, but learned well, that rushing through life is rarely worth it. Life is too short to be wasted in the fast lane. It is meant to be savoured at a leisurely pace. I have lived both ways — spent eight years in the fast lane of my career, only to discover the joy and fulfilment that comes from slowing down over the next thirteen.
Now, this relentless desire for more — more money, more stuff, more status — is not a new problem. It is as old as humanity itself. For generations, we have believed that bigger houses, higher incomes, and more possessions would bring us happiness.
Even in ancient Rome, a wise philosopher named Seneca pondered this. He saw the lavish lives of the wealthy — golden roofs, luxurious purple garments, marble floors — and asked, “Does this truly make them rich?”
In his Letters to Lucilius, he wrote –
It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor. What difference does it make how much there is laid away in a man’s safe or in his barns, how many head of stock he grazes, or how much capital he puts out at interest, if he is always hankering for what is another’s and only counts what he has yet to get, never what he has already? You ask what is the proper limit to wealth? It is, first, to have what is necessary, and, second, to have what is enough. Nothing satisfies greed, but even a little satisfies nature. Therefore, Epicurus has wisely and truly said: ‘If you shape your life according to nature, you will never be poor; if according to people’s opinions, you will never be rich.’ It is the mind that creates our wealth; and this goes beyond the gold roof, purple clothes, and marble floors.
True wealth, Seneca advises, is not measured by the abundance of material possessions but by the contentment of the mind. The relentless pursuit of excess only deepens our sense of lack. At the same time, a life guided by simplicity and self-sufficiency offers a richness that “gold roof, purple clothes, and marble floors” can never provide.
As we accumulate more, the pressure to sustain and grow that wealth can overshadow the initial joy it brings. The time and energy spent acquiring and maintaining possessions can lead to a cycle of discontent, where the pursuit of more becomes insatiable.
Wealth can also create a sense of isolation, as relationships may be strained by the demands of maintaining a certain lifestyle or by the superficial connections it sometimes creates in our lives.
Moreover, the trappings of wealth can distract us from life’s deeper, more fulfilling aspects, things like simple pleasures, meaningful relationships, and inner peace. But as great thinkers and philosophers have repeatedly advised us, true contentment often lies not in material abundance but in appreciating what we have, living within our means, and focusing on what truly matters.
In this light, the pursuit of wealth for its own sake can become a hollow endeavour. It may leave us richer in possessions but poorer in spirit.
Anyways, like Seneca, the revered Indian mystic and poet Sant Kabir also often spoke about the futility of material pursuits and the importance of contentment. Here is couplet (doha) from him that relates to this idea –
साईं इतना दीजिए, जा मे कुटुंब समाए,
मैं भी भूखा न रहूं, साधु न भूखा जाए।
This translates to –
O Lord, give me just enough to sustain my family,
So that I am not hungry, nor any guest goes unfed.
Taking a leaf from Seneca’s and Kabir’s books, let’s learn to pause and reconsider what truly brings us fulfilment. Let’s understand that, ultimately, it is not the external trappings of wealth that define our happiness but the inner peace that comes from knowing we have enough.
The Sketchbook of Wisdom: A Hand-Crafted Manual on the Pursuit of Wealth and Good Life.
This is a masterpiece.
– Morgan Housel, Author, The Psychology of Money
What I’m Reading
The Most Important Question of Your Life
It is easy to dream about living a perfect life, where you are happy, successful, loved, and admired. We all want the good things, and we often imagine our lives filled with joy, wealth, and meaningful relationships. Everyone wants these things, but simply wanting them is not enough to achieve them.
The real question is not about what you want from life, but what pain you’re willing to endure to get there. What challenges are you prepared to face? What sacrifices are you ready to make? Because it is in the struggle, in the willingness to embrace discomfort, that our true desires are tested and ultimately realized.
Mark Manson writes more about this in his excellent article on the most important question of your life.
***
Becoming Antifragile
Life is uncertain, and often random. Things that we think should happen, often don’t. And things we think should not happen, often do. Most of it makes sense after the fact. But when we are facing life’s randomness, we curse it. We think we’ve been dealt an unfair hand, except when things are going our way.
However, the good thing about the randomness of life is that it provides us with the ability to become better at dealing with, well, randomness. Again, in Taleb lingo, randomness provides us with the opportunity to become antifragile – things that get better when exposed to shocks, volatility, randomness, disorders, stressors, risk, and uncertainty.
Taleb writes in his wonderful book Antifragile –
This is the central illusion in life: that randomness is risky, that it is a bad thing—and that eliminating randomness is done by eliminating randomness.
Artisans, say, taxi drivers, prostitutes (a very, very old profession), carpenters, plumbers, tailors, and dentists, have some volatility in their income but they are rather robust to a minor professional Black Swan, one that would bring their income to a complete halt. Their risks are visible. Not so with employees, who have no volatility, but can be surprised to see their income going to zero after a phone call from the personnel department. Employees’ risks are hidden.
We generally suffer from a misconception about stability in our work lives. Many people think that having a steady job with a regular paycheck is the safest option, but this sense of security can be misleading. In reality, these jobs often hide risks that can suddenly appear, like being laid off with little warning. We have seen a lot of that in the past few years, both in India and outside.
On the other hand, people who work in professions where their income varies — like artisans, freelancers, or small business owners — might not have the same stability, but they are used to dealing with ups and downs. This makes them more resilient when unexpected challenges arise.
The lesson is that true security does not come from avoiding uncertainty but from learning to handle it and even benefit from it. Instead of fearing randomness, embrace it and become stronger because of it. In short, become antifragile.
***
True Wealth
Continuing with Taleb’s Antifragile, one of the chapters that interests me particularly is titled Via Negativa. Here, Taleb argues that the solution to many problems in life is by removing things, not adding things.
For example, here is a list of things Taleb counts as constituents of true wealth that are all about subtracting things (via negativa) from life than adding –
- Worriless sleeping
- Clear conscience
- Reciprocal gratitude
- Absence of envy
- Good appetite
- Muscle strength
- Physical energy
- Frequent laughs
- No meals alone
- No gym classes
- Some physical labor
- Good bowel movements
- No meeting rooms
- Periodic surprises
I could check twelve from this list (let the ones I didn’t check remain a secret). What about you? What in the list remains getting checked for you?
What I’m Thinking
We spend our lives chasing happiness, only to realize it’s found in the journey itself. The beauty lies not in reaching our destination but in the growth, connections, and moments we experience along the way.
***
Every person we meet is fighting a battle we know nothing about. Kindness and empathy are the most powerful weapons we possess in this shared struggle called life.
***
The universe is vast beyond comprehension, yet our actions, no matter how small, create ripples that shape the world around us. We are both insignificant and immensely powerful at the same time.
Book Recommendation
‘Jonathan Livingston Seagull’ is one of my best-read fables. It is about a seagull who is trying to learn about life and flight, and is also a discourse about self-perfection.
Jonathan, the seagull, dreams of flying better than a seagull has ever flown, instead of spending his days looking for scraps of food. As the author, Richard Bach, writes –
Most gulls don’t bother to learn more than the simplest facts of flight—how to get from shore to food and back again. For most gulls, it is not flying that matters, but eating. For this gull, though, it was not eating that mattered, but flight. More than anything else, Jonathan Livingston Seagull loved to fly…This kind of thinking, he found, is not the way to make one’s self popular with other birds.
I have been deeply inspired by the story of Jonathan, in my own pursuits of flying free and higher instead of spending my days running after ‘scraps’. I suggest this book to you if you feel you have reached a ceiling or barrier in your personal life, or if you wish to make some needed changes in your life, or if you are wanting to follow your gut instinct but are too afraid, or if you feel that there is something more to life than what you are being told.
Fly free, fly high is the core message of this book. I’ve not looked down after I read it.
If you have not read it yet, or even if you have and it has been a while, give Jonathan Livingston Seagull a try. It might just change the way you look at your own life’s flight.
Quotes I’m Reflecting On
You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still, and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.
– Franz Kafka
***
Sometimes our light goes out, but is blown again into instant flame by an encounter with another human being. Each of us owes the deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this inner light.
– Albert Schweitzer
***
Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.
– Rainer Maria Rilke
That’s all from me for today.
Let me know your thoughts on this issue of The Almanack of Good Life newsletter, and ways I can improve it. Also, if you have ideas or resources you think I can share in future letters, please email them to me at vishal[at]safalniveshak[dot]com.
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~ Vishal
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