Humans are not generally satisfied.
There are always improvements to be made,
more is better than less,
excellence is better than mediocrity,
everyone believes he is above average,
unique and important,
deserving as much or more than others.
Desires increase as income increases.
Look at all that extra disposable income!
What can it buy?
A bigger home, a better car, prestige,
status, the envy of others.
Oh, how we love the envy of others.
That is, after all, the unconscious purpose
of social media, isn’t it?
To mine envy for our excellent-deserving-ecstatic lives.
Look where I have been!
Look at my new house!
Look at my cool automobile!
Look at my achievements, my new promotion,
the degrees hanging from my wall!
Look at how amazingly, unbelievably, astoundingly, incredibly happy I am!
How successful I am!
Look at me, look at me, look at me, I am so very, very important!
But there is joy and contentment in mediocrity, in simplicity,
in curbing one’s wants and desires.
There will come a point when all of those accomplishments
and accumulations will have very little meaning
and you will wonder why you ever thought they were
important in the first place. Doubtful?
Oh yes, that day will come.
Better now to practice mediocrity, practice living more simply,
remove the excess, sit quietly by a stream, reflect on what is important,
reconsider your definition of success, if ever you had a
definition of success to begin with.
How will you know when enough is enough
if you haven’t thought about what enough really means?
