Chasing Money, Fame, or Luxuries? Chase This Instead
By: Alex Lago
Tags: Life Lessons, Money, Philosophy, Stoicism, Happiness

Chasing Money, Fame, or Luxuries? Chase This Instead

If it is a waste of time to chase pleasure, what should we chase?

Photo by Photo by Dainis Graveris on SexualAlpha

Some schools of philosophy, such as Epicureanism, would argue that pleasure and avoidance of pain are the highest good.

While I am willing to concede that these things do provide temporary happiness — they fade and soon that becomes replaced by a desire for a newer pleasure.

Likewise, those who spend their time looking for money for the sake of money will inevitably find themselves feeling unsatisfied.

Maybe some have convinced themselves that this desire will fade once a target amount is reached. But in reality, most of us don't have that sort of willpower.

Once we reach our goal of 1,000, we will need 10,000 to be secure. Once we reach 100,000 we will need 1 million and so on.

The Stoics call money, fame, and pride indifferents. This is because they are indifferent to living a happy life. Someone can be poor, unknown, and modest and be happier than someone with all the indifferents.

Stoicism is directly in opposition to Epicureanism. So if pleasure and avoidance of pain are the highest good for Epicureanism than what would Stoicism ask you to adhere to?

Well, first we should discuss why Stoics believe Epicureanism is flawed.

Seeking pleasure and avoiding pain makes us no different than an animal. This is a purely instinctual behavior.

But we have something that separates us from animals: a rational mind.

This allows us to make a choice. This choice is between acting animalistic to acting rationally.

For instance, if someone cuts us off in traffic, our normal response may be to curse at them or stick out our middle fingers. This release and temporary showing of anger feel good at first. But what it really is is us having a lack of control over our world and unable to accept this, we lash out in instinct.

The other choice we have is thinking about the situation rationally. We use the rational mind that we were granted by nature over the other creatures on our planet. We rationalize that we must accept that not everything is in our control. We come to terms with the fact that although the driver has done something to us, it is our perception of the event that causes our grievance and not the action of the driver.

This other choice also involves recognizing that at the end of the day, lashing out is the opposite of expression of control. It means we have no control and are slaves to our environment and to whatever fortune throws at us.

In addition, this negativity and violence will eventually cause us to doubt our morality. It will cause us to question ourselves as to if we are truly good people. This leads to the concept that crime is its own punishment.

Stoics believe that only they can affect their mind. No one else has power over you. Someone may stab or injure you, but they cannot touch your mind. This idea is what makes physical slaves, kings, and what makes physical kings, slaves.

It follows that if you commit an act of violence or revenge over the driver that cut you off, you are not hurting them, you are only hurting yourself. To stray away from your rationality brings you at odds with the greater universe and a God if there was one that intended to give you rationality.

We have the choice of being instinctual and rash, or rational and good.