| Our Secret Longing to Be Good |
| Our time on earth may be far less enjoyable than it should be because of an unfortunate and peculiar idea that has taken hold of our collective thinking: that the ultimate purpose of life is to make ourselves as happy as possible. Encouraged by this now-dominant concept, we’re goaded to try to make as much money as we can, to spend it as lavishly as possible on costly and rare goods, to divert ourselves with a plethora of entertainments and distractions and to get others to cater as often as possible to the maximal number of our wishes and whims. It’s a seductive vision, but the more precise and surprising psychological truth is that human satisfaction has an overwhelmingly different source: it derives from a feeling of being needed by other people. We grow at peace with ourselves the more we can either alleviate the suffering or increase the delight of someone else. With time, we may come to a deeply relieving realisation: that the route to satisfaction lies in vigorously pushing thoughts of ourselves aside for a while in the name of trying to make others less afflicted. From The School of Life |