A satisfied life is better than this
Tiny dose of weekend wisdom
I am on my own trajectory in life. I’m not late. I’m right on time for what I must do for life satisfaction. It’s my mantra for a slow, conscious living. I can’t measure my life by someone else’s standards.
I like what Nietzsche once said, “You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.”
“A satisfied life is better than a successful life. Because our success is measured by others, but our satisfaction is measured by our own soul, mind, and heart.” I can’t find the right attribution for the quote. But it makes sense for this.
The writer Kurt Vonnegut once told his friend Joseph Heller about a billionaire’s party. Vonnegut pointed out that their host had made more money in a single day than Heller’s novel Catch-22 had earned in its entire history. Heller’s response is the whole essay in six words: “Yes, but I have something he will never have — enough.”
I like that.
Epicurus said, “Nothing satisfies the man who is not satisfied with a little”. Cicero said that to be content with what you possess is “the most secure and best of all riches.” They were both right.
Satisfaction is an internal metric.
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You alone know what to measure.
So define your enough. The thing you’re pursuing that, once reached, you will stop. If you cannot name it, you don’t have it; you are stuck on an existential treadmill. Money buys relief and options. It can never buy satisfaction. Those are different things, and the confusion costs people decades of regrets. Success is visible, so it gets rewarded. Satisfaction is private. But it’s the most important metric. Do life right.
You can win and still lose.
A successful life gets you recognition. A satisfied life gets you existential meaning. So which one are you pursuing?
More on doing life right
→ This is Einstein’s Strange But Brilliant Formula For Success in Life
→ 7 Rules for Winning at Life, According to History’s Wisest Minds
→ A Great “Why” to Live For Will Make You Unstoppable
Go Well.
