Hump day open thread: Enough

Good morning Barflies!

I happened upon this quote yesterday. To say that it slapped me in the face would be an understatement.

I write this piece in the shadow of the announcement that Elon Musk is again going to go through with purchasing Twitter, and of Donald Trump appealing to the Supreme Court over his legal troubles with light treason.

I do believe that people like Musk and Trump operate from a place of emptiness. They have holes where their souls should be, so they try to fill it with things. With money. With possessions. With power.

But it's not just louche billionaires who suffer from this. This is a disease which afflicts too many of us. Too many of us are on this treadmill of getting more, making more. They want to emulate the garish lifestyles they see on television. They think that there but for the grace of God they could be Kardashians. 

Our culture peddles us these mindless ways of being. And we consume them. We take them into ourselves. We think this is what it means to be successful, to be happy.

True happiness is in the opposite direction of the Trumps and Musks of the world. True happiness is being content in who you are, with what you have. True happiness is in being at peace with yourself. Once you have that peace, everything else flows from that. Why? Because without peace, everything else is empty and meaningless. Every dollar you earn, every tchotchke you buy. They dull the emptiness, but don't heal it.

Coming to the realization that "I have enough" is liberating. You're not thinking of the next thing, but being in the present. You are focused on the "now", on yourself, on those around you, on those you love. Nothing but goodness flows from that place, when you're no longer striving for ephemeral things.

Men like Musk and Trump will go to their graves unsettled and unsatisfied. They will depart this existence unloved. They will never realize that what they had was enough, and sink into the ground unfulfilled. 

Don't be like them. Embrace the beauty of "enough". It will change your life.

This is your open thread.