Ego

Ego exists in human nature, and it manifests as ignorance, greed, and desire to name a few. The ego-consciousness fights, often triumphantly, against the individual’s actual self; it bears arms to keep a self-construct derived from external impositions in power over the individual.  

Advertisement

Special

“What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.” – Pericles

All human life is special regardless of occupation, status, achievements, material acquisition, and any other socially derived label.  Living is courageous.  Individuals must learn not to fear or run away from it, but instead embrace it wholeheartedly.  

Freedom

Exercising mental and intellectual freedom is blissful.  Unlike other animals human beings have the psychological capacity to think and develop reason.  Although other animals’ instincts only concern them with survival in terms of securing water, food, shelter, and protection from predators to feel content humans have a more sophisticated mind, which has the tools to elevate one’s level of living.  

Money #2

“Happiness resides not in possessions, and not in gold, happiness dwells in the soul.” – Democritus

Money cannot buy meaning, purpose, or significance; it cannot buy our legacy as we recall it on our deathbeds.  Money pays for bills.  Any job or number of jobs can pay for bills.  Bills will get paid.  So, if survival is more or less guaranteed, then the next question is why do we survive or for what do we survive for?  

Attachment

“One day you will disappear on a funeral pyre — just into nothingness, as smoke. Don’t get attached to anything. This attachment takes you away from your real being; you become focused on the thing to which you are attached. Your awareness gets lost in things, in money, in people, in power. And there are a thousand and one things, the whole thick jungle around you, to be lost in. Remember, non-attachment is the secret of finding yourself, then awareness can turn inwards because you don’t have anything outside to catch hold of. It is free, and in this freedom you can know your self-nature.” – Osho

Stress

“All he really knew was that if he stayed here he would soon be the property of things that buzzed and snorted and hissed, that gave off fumes or stenches. In six months, he would be the owner of a large pink, trained ulcer, a blood pressure of algebraic dimensions, a myopia this side of blindness, and nightmares as deep as oceans and infested with improbable lengths of dream intestines through which he must violently force his way each night.” – The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury

Money

“The great source of both the misery and disorders of human life, seems to arise from over-rating the difference between one permanent situation and another…” – The Theory of Moral Sentiments by Adam Smith

How much is enough?  There are common themes coat-tailing  the issue of money.  First, money is necessary for survival, which is an argument I concede.  However, the problem I see following that logic is that many people have not distinguished the difference between “want” and “need” for themselves.