Stillness Is the Key by Ryan Holiday

indulge their endless appetites, whatever they happened to be?
And at least power and sex and attention are pleasurable. The
most common form of lust is envy—the lust for what other people
have, for the sole reason that they have it. Joseph Epstein’s brilliant
line is: “Of the seven deadly sins, only envy is no fun at all.”
Democritus, twenty-four hundred years before him: “An envious
man pains himself as though he were an enemy.”
No one in the sway of envy or jealousy has a chance to think
clearly or live peacefully. How can they?
It is an endless loop of misery. We’re envious of one person, while
they envy somebody else. The factory worker wishes desperately to
be a millionaire, the millionaire envies the simple life of the nine-to-
five worker. The famous wish they could go back to the private life
that so many others would gladly give away; the man or woman with
a beautiful partner thinks only of someone a little more beautiful. It’s
sobering to consider that the rival we’re so jealous of may in fact be
jealous of us.
There is also a “have your cake and eat it too” immaturity to envy.
We don’t simply want what other people have—we want to keep
everything we have and add theirs to it, even if those things are
mutually exclusive (and on top of that, we also want them to not have
it anymore). But if you had to trade places entirely with the person
you envy, if you had to give up your brain, your principles, your
proudest accomplishments to live in their life, would you do it? Are
you willing to pay the price they paid to get what you covet?
No, you aren’t.
Epicurus, again the supposed hedonist, once said that “sex has
never benefited any man, and it’s a marvel if it hasn’t injured him.”
He came up with a good test anytime he felt himself being pulled by a
strong desire: What will happen to me if I get what I want? How
will I feel after?
Indeed, most desires are at their core irrational emotions, and
that’s why stillness requires that we sit down and dissect them. We
want to think ahead to the refractory period, to consider the
inevitable hangover before we take a drink. When we do that, these
desires lose some of their power.