Thinking regretfully about the things you do
not have, not only is the easiest way to be unhappy, but
also is the one cause of unhappiness which is most easily
cured. So, since most of us have this unhappy habit to
some extent, let's get on with the easy cure.
Limit your wants. Cut down your wants to the
barest essentials. Be acutely conscious that you do not
really need, you do not really want, but a very few abso-
lutely essential things-which you already have or can
readily obtain. Eddie Rickenbacker with his companions
drifted in life rafts, hopelessly lost in the Pacific Ocean for
21 days. When asked what was the biggest lesson he
learned from this ordeal of terrible suffering, he said: "If
you have all the fresh water you want to drink and all the
food you want to eat, you ought never complain about
anything."
Does this mean you have to be satisfied with
a life consisting only of fresh water and enough food? Cer-
tainly not. But it does suggest that you can avoid unhap-
piness and attain happiness by confining what will make
you contented and happy to the fewest possible necessary
things-then everything else desirable which you obtain
will add to your happiness. It's just as simple as that.
Thus you can go through life adding something
-perhaps a lot of things-to your happiness every day.
Every good thing you do or get-no matter how little-will
add to your happiness. You will be increasingly happy,
because you not only will possess what you have decided
you really need, but you will have a happiness bonus in all
the additional good things you acquire as you daily try to