It's not by pursuing but by abandoning our desires that real satisfaction can be found.
Emotions Are Judgments
Epictetus: People are disturbed not by things, but by the views they take of things.
The Endless Treadmill
Robert Kurzban: The hedonic treadmill is evolution's way of keeping the carrot just out of reach, motivating you to do more useful and adaptive things.
Everything Must End
Buddha's first discourse: 'Whatever is subject to origination is all subject to cessation.'
Pause Before Reacting
Psychologist Rollo May: Human freedom involves our capacity to pause between the stimulus and response and in that pause, to choose the one response toward which we wish to throw our weight.
External Success Is Prison
Seneca: When you see a man repeatedly taking up the robe of office, or a name well known in public, don't envy him; those trappings are bought at the cost of life.
Emotions Defy Control
When it comes to emotions, there is no such thing as moderation. For a start, the pleasant and unpleasant emotions are too intertwined, and have a habit of turning into their opposite.
Practice Makes Permanent
Epictetus: If you want to make something a habit, practice it. If you do not want to make it a habit, do not do it, but get in the habit of doing something else.
Aging Is Nature's Way
Buddha: I am of nature to grow old; I cannot avoid aging. I am of nature to become ill; I cannot avoid illness. I am of nature to die; I cannot avoid death.
External Control Is Illusion
If the Stoics are right, the great majority of our hopes and plans—in fact almost anything we want and pursue, as well as everything we fear and wish to avoid—are misguided, as they are based on faulty assumptions that things outside ourselves can be good or bad.
