“Now I ask you: what can be expected of man since he is a being endowed with strange qualities? Shower upon him every earthly blessing, drown him in a sea of happiness, so that nothing but bubbles of bliss can be seen on the surface; give him economic prosperity, such that he should have nothing else to do but sleep, eat cakes and busy himself with the continuation of his species, and even then out of sheer ingratitude, sheer spite, man would play you some nasty trick. He would even risk his cakes and would deliberately desire the most fatal rubbish, the most uneconomical absurdity, simply to introduce into all this positive good sense his fatal fantastic element. It is just his fantastic dreams, his vulgar folly that he will desire to retain, simply in order to prove to himself–as though that were so necessary–that men still are men and not the keys of a piano, which the laws of nature threaten to control so completely that soon one will be able to desire nothing but by the calendar.”
-Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground (Part I: Chapter 8)
In this short paragraph, Dostoevsky brilliantly describes the fundamental flaw of seeking satisfaction as the end goal of life: It is a fool’s errand.
The closer we get to reaching our own personal utopia of satisfaction, the more dissatisfied we become as we struggle to find meaning in a sea of both material and immaterial possessions that no longer seem to excite us the way they once did. To be human is to endure suffering. If it does not come to us organically, we create it in order to prove to ourselves that we are in fact ‘human’ and not merely a receptacle for the satiation of our desires.
What Is Suffering?
The Buddha referred to the basic human condition of suffering as the First Noble Truth (dukkha).
The world dukkha means “incapable of satisfying” in Sanskrit. Therefore anything that is temporary, conditional or otherwise ephemeral in nature, all falls under the umbrella of dukkha.
This includes any and all material possessions, relationships, as well as your own ego. If you go one step deeper, you will realize that it is not these things themselves that bring you suffering but your attachment to them that does.
This is the Second Noble Truth (samudaya).
Only when we realize that we cannot truly satisfy ourselves with the ephemeral of the dukkha, can we put an end to attachment itself.
When one breaks free from the vicious cycle of craving external novelty as a means to happiness and satisfaction (that never lasts and always becomes replaced by the craving of a new object of desire), a state of nirvana is reached.
This is the Third Noble Truth (nirodha).
The average person blindly lives out their life, seeking satisfaction as an end goal that is to be reached.
You commonly hear people say things like:
“Once I make $100,000/year, I’ll have made it.”
“If I dated that model, I’d die happy.”
“If I owned that Corvette Z06, I’d drive it all day, every day.”
Once achieved, these types of goals prove to be of little or no avail in bringing us any sort of long-term satisfaction.
The guy who makes $100,000/year now shoots for $150,000/year. Because at $150,000/year he’ll have really made it.
The guy dating the model grows tired of her. He’s gotten to know her well enough to take her off of the pedestal he once put her on. Now he’s shooting for his girlfriend’s blonde friend. He’s never dated a blonde. Surely then, he’ll be happy with a blonde model as his girlfriend.
The Corvette owner drives his car like a madman for a few months until the initial dopamine spike that he felt wears off and his new Z06 merely becomes “his car.” Now he wants a Mustang that would bring him way more fun than his Z06.
And thus, a great number of people live their lives like hamsters in a wheel.
Jumping from goal to goal, object to object, hoping that it will bring them long-term satisfaction, but are left scratching their heads as to why they remain miserable, surrounded by a sea of wealth and achievements.
The sad part is that they never realize their enslavement to this vicious cycle.
Say “No” to the Rat Race