Wanting more to want less

Although our survival instincts elicit in us a fear of death we need to be realistic. But it’s like the philosopher Epictetus once said, "death is inevitable—where can we go to get away from it?"

All the great writers have commented on the stages we go through (from helpless drooling infant to helpless drooling vegetable).

Didn’t Shakespeare identity seven ages? Youngsters are supposed to have the confident air of immortality and maturity gives us the resources to acquire wealth. But as the Dali Lama warned us, "Man sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”

Most people on the hedonic treadmill aren’t on it for long before looking around for something better. But they often stay on it, day after day, year after year.

When it’s time to think about getting off the treadmill we take stock. We sometimes get wiser as we age; we have acquired maturity (although it is optional: tomorrow I might be immature and grow old disgracefully). We understand who we are (or think we do) and what makes us tick; we know what’s wrong with the world. And with you. So would we exchange all that for no wrinkles and hair (that’s not grey?) Not me, thank you.

If you want to live to be a hundred you have to give up all the things that make you want to live to 100, says Woody Allen. He’s right. I gave up alcohol: I get just the same effect by standing up quickly.

Ok, those of us who have had a few too many trips around the sun know our life is now etched onto our face. And we may not like the way we look. But that’s easily solved: we just don’t bother putting on our glasses when we look in the mirror. Which isn’t a problem because we’ve not only forgotten where we put our glasses, we’ve forgotten why we came into the bathroom in the first place.

While the rest of the world squabbles about who knows best about giving us what we want, those of us who are of a certain age might find a very useful and insightful snippet of ancient Stoic wisdom completely relevant today:

“To want nothing takes the place of pleasure. How sweet it is to have tired of wanting and to have left it behind.”

Not just thin out the padding, the big words, the intellectual weapons intended to make the clever seem more intelligent by making the rest of us look stupid, the superfluous, the sheer complexity of it all. Not just wanting integrity over self-interest, nor even elegant simplicity over noisy arrogance and hubris.

But just not ... wanting. Not to want more. But to desire less.

Those of us getting on a bit now do “get" that.

It comes with getting older.

Which is a great privilege which, unfortunately, is denied to a great many.