Epicurus on possessions and freedom

This is nice

“A free life cannot acquire many possessions, because this is not easy to do without servility to mobs or monarchs.”
– Epicurus, greek philosopher, 341-271 bce.

I enjoyed that besides the bliss of having a simple life with few things, and the worries and enslavement that comes with having too many things – there is also the problematic process of achieving all these possessions. First thing that springs to mind is wrong type of work with wrong types of people and at crosses with your deeper values in life.

Or in general just too much work and too little life and spare-time hobbies.

You could translate the “mobs” to social press and the “monarchs” to bosses, both to which servility is sometimes practical and often necessary – but nevertheless little by little eats your self-esteem and general well-being.

Hidden in there is also the point that freedom from striving towards new possessions is also a freedom from the means to get there. Let go of the race, and you’ll find that the race might actually be the problem.

Marcus Aurelius on happy life

Came across this one as well on another blog  – supporting the simple everyday life philosophy.

“Very little is needed to be happy, it’s all in your way of thinking.”
– Marcus Aurelius.

One could maybe add, that in order to be happy you actually need to have very little. Like animals, humans have not evolved to have very many things, our brains have not been shaped in that kind of environment or to that use. Brings back Aristotle and his view on “natural” and “unnatural” things. If something’s unnatural – it brings you down. According to nature – you get happy.