“When children stick their hand down a narrow goody jar they can’t get their full fist out and start crying. Drop a few treats and you will get it out! Curb your desire — don’t set your heart on so many things and you will get what you need.”
EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 3.9.22
Bonus post time! Not every year has a February 29th, but The Daily Stoic definitely has a post for the 29th. So here it is, because I don’t want you to miss any of the wisdom in this awesome book 🙂
Today’s quote makes me think of the concept of the monkey trap, wherein a primate reaches through a small hole to get some food, but then can’t remove their hand from the hole because they’re still holding onto the food. They can’t understand that they have to let go of some of the food in order to extract their hand. In the end they don’t get anything, because they’re trapped by their own greed. Greedy monkeys get nothing.
It’s an example of the Einstellung effect, wherein we can’t see a (clearly) better way of doing things, because we’ve been conditioned to do something a specific way already and that’s all we can conceive of. We’ve trained our brains toward one thing, and therefore are unable to adapt. Interestingly, if we’d seen the alternative/better way first, or if we’d seen it all by itself, we wouldn’t have any problem adapting to the better solution! It’s only when we are presented with the path that we’re familiar with first that we become blind to the superior path.
In this case, we are blinded to the wisdom of curbing our desire, because we’ve been taught by society that it’s normal and good to ‘want it all’. Why shouldn’t we want everything that life has to offer, we are taught. And so we become accustomed to desiring everything, despite the fact that it’s desire itself that keeps us locked up.
How to break free? Well, we have to want less. We have to stop desiring so much. Easier said than done, of course, but by keeping our eyes on the real prize then we stay focused on what really matters in life — and we increase our happiness and our contentment with what we already have.
