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“Not happy he who thinks himself not so.”

This quote is one that Seneca quotes (from an unknown poet) in Letters from a Stoic, though Seneca’s original quote is:

“a man is unhappy, though he reigns the world over, if he does not consider himself supremely happy.”

And I think Seneca is absolutely correct.

If we cannot be happy with our lot in life now, when can we be?

I guarantee that if you say, “I’m happy when I get this car or this house, etc., “ when you get what you want, the goal posts will move even more.

“What a shame it is to get what we wanted”. – anonymous

I heard the above quote somewhere, yet I can’t remember the source.

But it points to the fact that we tend to vastly overestimate how we will feel when we achieve a given goal.

Seneca also talks about how the best part of a work of art is the painting and not the underwhelming feeling of it being finished and then moving on to the next piece of artwork. 

Finishing anything is such a small part of the whole process.

Seneca also wrote that when children are raised, seeing them flourish in the world as adults is pleasant, but it’s a byproduct of raising and caring for them in infancy.

And that it’s the raising and caring for children in their infant years that is looked upon most fondly ( I hear this echoed amongst many parents).

The Takeaway is that we should be happy with what we have. Yes, it’s fine to have goals and strive for them, but chronically being unhappy with your lot in life and always wanting more is a disease.

We should care more about sowing and less about reaping.

Things can always be better, but they can also be worse. If we want peace, we need to think of the latter.

A quick story:

Almost a year ago, I had wrist surgery to repair torn cartilage.

For the first six months after surgery, all was going well, then as I was pulling my car door (which I’ve done many times after surgery), I felt a pull and as a consequence pain in my wrist.

This pain has continued even while I write these words, and it’s looking ever more likely I’ll need to undergo wrist surgery again.

I’ve been feeling down in the dumps and repeating in my mind, “I just want my wrist to be normal again”.

But this has been making me suffer more.

So, I’ve thought to myself, “There is always someone worse off than me.”

I think of the poor children in Gaza, god bless them, who are suffering unimaginable horror and going through much worse than I.

When I think about my injury in this context, it’s made my wrist pain much more sufferable. 

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