temperament
Desire Is Chosen Unhappiness
The rule
Every strong wish is a promise to stay unhappy until you get it. So choose very few wishes, and choose them with care.
Where it flips
Pushed too far, 'choose few wishes' can drain the drive that builds anything at all. You can give up your way into drift. The fix: keep a small number of chosen, meaningful wishes burning brightly, rather than wanting everything or wanting nothing.
The moment you badly want something, you also agree to stay unsettled until you get it. That is fine for one or two chosen goals. But a mind stuffed with wants is a mind in constant low-level unhappiness. For an investor, this is a warning against wanting everything at once. Every hot stock, every trend, the fastest riches. Pick one or two money goals you truly care about, commit to them, and let the endless other wants go. Fewer wishes, more peace, and, oddly, better focus.
A worked example
Haridya lists ten things she 'must' invest in and always feels behind. She cuts it to one clear goal: a paid-off home in fifteen years. The constant itch of missing out fades, because she stopped making so many unhappiness promises. [illustrative]
How to spot it
- ·few, carefully chosen wants
- ·you feel the 'unhappy until' promise before committing
- ·warning sign: a mind crowded with must-haves
Naval Ravikant · The Almanack of Naval Ravikant