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.  

Savoring the Present: Finding Meaning on the Edge of Non-Being

When I walk through a neighborhood I'm struck by the polarity of being and non-being.  All these homes were built to house people; presumably they were meant for families.  

I pass a new house.  It seems to be full of possibilities.  The kind of place you'd imagine children and young couples.  

A little further you come across an older home with a construction crew onsite.  The home is being remodeled.  Many families have come and gone in this house.  It is being updated, so that it can begin again.

Towards the end of the street I come to an old dilapidated house.  The weeds have grown up all around the front yard—obscuring the porch, windows, and doors.  The roof has caved in and a tree has fallen on the back patio.  The paint is chipped and faded.  The wood along the trim is rotten.  There are no families here, only an empty shell where memories were once made.

Families, much like the homes that house them, come and go.  The people start out new, grow old, and end up empty shells—their identities lost to eternity.  

They leave artifacts behind.  With communities remembering their legacies for a time.  Influence may out live them, but in the end this is all temporary.  Even legacies fade into oblivion.  

And much like the old house I stand in front of, I will eventually fade into obscurity.  I will be absorbed by the earth that I once walked upon.  I will fade into non-being.

How do I come to grips with being in a state that is inching towards non-being?

All I can do is savor each inch as it passes in front of me.  This is the marrow of existence.  The art of becoming.  

I am always changing into something else.  This is why I must acknowledge the present moment as the only true reality.  If I don't I will miss the seasons as they change on this long walk through life.

I must acknowledge the interconnected nature of everything.  This is the true freedom.