Growing up, I wanted an impressive life.

I was ambitious, smart, and capable. Yet, what I wanted to be - was just impressive.

Wise people will already to start to see a problem.

It’s a lack of clarity.

I was lucky enough to be interested in technology. I was genuinely excited and smart to understand it well and had a natural inclination towards understanding complex systems.

This got me on a path that was lucky to be in the right place at the right time with the right skills that allowed me to build a career of impressive accomplishments at some of the greatest companies in the world.

By every external metric, I lived a comfortable life, did wonderfully exciting things. Yet, I remained unsatisfied.

What did I do?

  • I thought satiation will be achieved with more accomplishments.
  • I started buying things to satisfy more hedonic pleasures
  • Starting indulging in luxurious experiences

Wise people will once again see the folly of my beliefs.

The dissatisfaction never left.

And that’s all because of a lack of clarity, knowing what I want.

Reading through Stoic and Hindu philosophy, I now question if it’s even the want that’s at the root of the discontent.

Seneca said:

It is not the man who has too little who is poor, but the man who is always after more. … Natural desires have a limit, but those which spring from false opinion have nowhere to stop.

Closer to home, Anthony de Mello said:

You don’t have to add anything in order to be happy; you’ve got to drop something.

Epicurus said:

If you wish to make Pythocles rich, do not add to his store of money, but subtract from his desires.

Epictetus said:

Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.

Marcus Aurelius said:

Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.

These are all parallels to Hindu philosophy as well. Hinduism states our true nature - is Sat-chit-Ananda: complete, perfect and blissful. Suffering / discontentment and the resulting dispassion: vairagya is a result of latching our happiness to external, changing things. The way to attain peace then is to drop attachments and aversions: raga and dvesha.

The Gita, Upanishads and the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali all talk about giving up material desires, not to covet and practicing contentment (_santhosha).

Put another way - it’s the want that’s the cause of discontent. Doing something is usually a path to bliss as your mind is focused on the action - which in itself is a state of contentment.

But attaching outcomes to it now makes that doing a means to an end - a want.

It’s because I gave up my job and prioritized trying to find clarity that I had the time time, the energy and the effort to attain the clarity.

And it’s because of my job that I now have the time and the wherewithal to spend time to attain clarity.

All I can say is that I am glad to be on the path to better understanding this. Practicing it going to be the story of my life for the next half.

I can only pass these learnings on to my son and hope that he has a chance to assimilate and practice some of these earlier than I did.

And I hope that I leave him with the thought that it’s okay to change your dream as you will still end up learning things that are very important.

सर्वे भवन्तु सुखिनः । सर्वे सन्तु निरामयाः । सर्वे भद्राणि पश्यन्तु । मा कश्चिद्दुःखभाग्भवेत् ॥

_Sarve bhavantu sukhinah Sarve santu nirāmayāḥ _  
_Sarve bhadrāṇi paśyantu Mā kaścid duḥkha-bhāg-bhavet   _