What is the good life?

Three centuries before Christ, Greek philosophers debated what made the good life. Perhaps the most convincing view came from Epicurus, who took his own advice and lived very happily.

I don t know how I could imagine the good life, he said, if I take away the pleasure of taste, if I take away sexual pleasure, the pleasure of hearing, or the sweet emotions caused by seeing beautiful forms.

Epicurus said that all we need for happiness is:

• Food, shelter, clothes

• Friends

• Freedom

• Thought

To live one s entire life in happiness, he said, the greatest by far is the possession of friendship a handful of true friends. He took a house out- side Athens and moved in with seven friends. Never eat alone, he advised, eating with friends is much better.

Epicurus circle valued freedom. To avoid unpleasant work, they formed a commune. They grew cabbages, onions, and artichokes, and relished their independence. They exchanged ideas and wrote books. Life was simple, far from lavish, but fully satisfying . Luxurious food and drinks, Epicurus said, do not produce freedom from harm or a healthy condition. We must regard wealth beyond what is natural as no more use than water to a container that is full to overflowing.

Epicurus and his friends believed that less is more . Contrast this with the modern more with more compulsion. A recent survey of AOL subscribers asked how much more money they would need for them to be free of worrying about money. It turned out that those with incomes over $100,000 thought they needed far more money than those with incomes under $40,000. The high earners were five times more likely to say they needed at least another $90,000 annual income. This should tell us that once we pursue more with more, we can never, ever win, never be satisfied.

It is not innate greed that propels us toward wanting more with more. It is the structure of modern life and its compelling, insidious assumptions. Modern life insists that success is a matter of more money, that more money means more work, that there is only a fast track and a slow track, and that the fast track requires us to lay out huge effort for huge rewards. We worry about how we re doing, we work more than we want, we buy more than we can value, and we cut ourselves off from the simple joys of romantic love, family, friends, and abundant time.

But what if it really is possible to get more with less? Then we can experience the marvelous parts of modern life ” the challenge of exciting work, the discovery of our talents, material plenty ” while also relishing control of our time and rich personal relationships. We square the circle by focusing on our high-value activities ” those of high value to other people and to ourselves ” and cutting out the trivial ones. We simplify, we purify, we intensify , and we relax, all at once.

More with more is like the emperor s new clothes. Everyone professes that this is the way to live, although nobody who searches their own soul can really see the point. We are all swept along by near-total unanimity that the emperor s outfit is magnificent . Yet within each of us lurks the ability, at any moment, to blurt out what we really know and feel: that the emperor is in the altogether. More with more leads to less fraternity and happiness; more with less leads to a life of higher quality, worth, and deep personal satisfaction.

Since the pursuit of more with less runs counter to modern life, we must make a deliberate decision to step off the more with more treadmill. Why does this seem so difficult?

There are perhaps three reasons:

• Our desires are infinite and contradictory. We are restless, ambitious, and conditioned to think that more is better.

• We compare ourselves to other people. As some friends become richer, we don t want to fall behind. If the neighbors have a new car, I want one too, even though I m perfectly happy with the old one. Even if I m lucky enough to own a yacht, I ll notice that the owner of the next berth has just bought a bigger one with more powerful radar.

• Many of us believe that ambition , effort, and striving are good, that we must develop our abilities and reach for the stars. We feel guilty if we are not competing, struggling to go further.

You can leave the treadmill with a light heart, however, since:

• The vast majority of our desires don t lead to more than fleeting happiness. To be happy we need to focus our demands, boiling them down to the few that are most important to us and result in our happiness. When other desires come along we exclude them, not because they are the work of the devil , but because we know they won t make us happy. We stop worrying. We simplify.

• Comparing our goods to the neighbors is as old as humanity ” Adam and Eve surely compared their fig leaves , and Moses tenth commandment forbade hankering after the neighbor s house, wife, houseboy, au pair, ox, or ass ” but the consumer society raises the temptation to an art form. The advertising and marketing industry has rendered us addicted to joyless comparison and acquisition of goods ” our economy revolves around the pointless, never-ending race for more.

  If we must compare ourselves to our neighbor, is it better to compare relative wealth or happiness? Moses should have said, Come on friends, covet anything you like, but realize that it s been scientifically proven that possessions don t lead to happiness. Now, would you rather have lots of houses , slaves, and cattle, or be happy?

  Do you have too few possessions or too many? Would your long- term happiness be greater if you added complexity or if you simplified? Do you use all your possessions? For one answer, look in your closets ” have you simplified your wardrobe to the point where it contains only clothes you wear frequently, or is it stuffed with the 80 percent of clothes you wear less than 20 percent of the time?

• Stretching and cultivating ourselves is good: we become happier , more individual, and more use to other people. But striving to the point that we re stressed out, time poor, snappy, and unhappy is stupid. We do more good when we are relaxed and focused. We add most to the happiness of those we love when we are happy ourselves. We are happiest when we simplify our lives down to the essentials that work best for us.

  
  Figure 13: The happiness point for possessions

  
  Figure 14: The happiness point for effort and striving

The happiness point is the degree of effort and striving that makes us happiest in the long term. Where are you on the curve? Would you be hap- pier and more developed with more striving, or with less?

To jump off the treadmill requires a clean break ” decisive action to reject the worries and complexity of modern life, crafting instead our own simple, good life, confident that we can create more with less.

Ann Finds The Simple, Good Life

Ann s a close friend. In her twenties, she was a successful account executive in advertising. At 29, she made an abrupt shift. She quit her job and has never had another. For 10 years she s simplified her life down to the things she wants to do, creative activities of one kind or another.

I was having fun in advertising, she told me, and making good money. One day I sat down and asked myself what I really wanted to do with my life. The answer was clear. I wanted to paint, to sculpt, to write music and play the piano. Learn how to play other instruments. Pursue my own projects.

I didn t want to climb the corporate ladder, get stuck in traffic to and from the office, work for a boss, run the rat race. Better to work at home, control my time, be free to walk in the sunshine, see a friend. Above all, develop my creative side, see where that took me.

I moved out of my big house. Bought a one-room, pretty studio, with a great mezzanine floor beneath a skylight. Parents went nuts, especially Dad. They d made sacrifices so I could go to university, were very proud of my progress, my lifestyle. Didn t understand I had to follow my own path , didn t want to die rich but with the music still inside me. Kept asking me where the money was going to come from.

A good question. When I d earned good money, I spent a lot. Had some savings but they went for the deposit on my studio. But I soon found that I didn t need to spend much. No expenses going to work, didn t need my flash sports car, expensive clothes to impress clients . No need to eat in fancy restaurants . The first year after I quit regular work, I made only a third of what I had before. But I paid very little tax, found I could live by selling portraits and sculptures of individuals and families. The point was ” I only did the things I wanted to, I was very much happier.

I tried various ways of making money, but on one condition ” that I had to enjoy it and express myself at the same time. The weird thing is that in the past five years I have begun to make good money again too, while self-employed and doing precisely what I choose.