Time vs. Money: Why Peace Lasts Longer Than Happiness

We can make more money, but we cannot make more time.  This is a fundamental truth about life.  

In order to avoid suffering there are basic needs that must be met.  These needs include food, water, shelter, clothing, healthcare, etc.

All of these needs require resources that are obtained through some kind of job where you exchange labor for money.  This takes a significant amount of your time.

This requires dependence on other people, economies, laws, and many other things in order to procure the needed money to buy the needed resources to survive.

The time commitment needed to survive, the lack of control that comes from dependence, and the inability to influence all of our outcomes leads to suffering.

This means that what you trade is going to exceed what you get in return.  The money you get paid for working will never exceed the value of the time you give up; because, you are trading something non-renewable (your time) for something renewable (money). 

All this is just to survive and have the basic things needed to reduce suffering.

This does not stop the aging process.  This will not keep you from dying one day.  It is merely a bandage for day-to-day life.

This is why pessimism is closer to the true nature of reality than optimism.  Because in the end you are running on a wheel to survive, but you can't run on it forever.  You are just delaying the inevitable.

Thus making peace with reality makes more sense than trying to achieve happiness.  The contentment that comes from happiness is temporary for ephemeral beings.  Seeking peace is more lasting because one can find peace in even the most deplorable places–––where happiness is absent.  

Life becomes a test of equanimity, not pleasure.  One can train themselves to become strong in moments that test them.  

Resignation is the best way to achieve these ends.  You don't need to be successful in any conventional sense because conventional success is merely a social construction.  

To resign from convention is to become nonconformist in nature.  This will look like failure to everyone else.  

Conventional success appears universal because it means chasing all the things others desire, but the ethos of failure is unique to the subject.  

In the end, all one can say they are doing is surviving.  You cannot survive forever, only delay the inevitable outcome–––the inevitable failure.  

Failure is the final gasp of existence.

Clinging to things leads to attachment.  And attachment, when life and everything in it is temporary, is a recipe for disappointment. 

Reduce the things that you cling to and you will find the path to survival simpler and more enjoyable.  The material things that keep people in the rat race are the things to avoid.  For they will lead to your ruin.

A simple life with few wants and commitments, where strength comes from within, where peace comes from a sound mind is the way to reduce suffering.  This is all you can do with life, all you can do with failure.