I

February    17th

THE ENEMY   OF  HAPPINESS

“It is  quite   impossible  to  unite   happiness   with    a   yearning    for what    we  don’t   have.   Happiness   has

all that    it  wants,  and resembling  the well-fed,   there   shouldn’t   be  hunger  or  thirst.”

—EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 3.24.17

’ll be happy when I graduate, we tell ourselves. I’ll be happy when I get this promotion, when this
diet pays off, when I have the money that my parents never had. Conditional happiness is what
psychologists call this kind of thinking. Like the horizon, you can walk for miles and miles and never
reach it. You won’t even get any closer.
Eagerly anticipating some future event, passionately imagining something you desire, looking forward
to some happy scenario—as pleasurable as these activities might seem, they ruin your chance at happiness
here and now. Locate that yearning for more, better, someday and see it for what it is: the enemy of your
contentment. Choose it or your happiness. As Epictetus says, the two are not compatible.