Antoine de Saint-Exupéry gave this famous advice about design: “In anything at all, perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away…” This is about getting to the essential function and beauty of the design in the simplest way.
You could consider an essential life in a similar vein. It’s not about how much wealth you need to provide your well-being, it is about how little wealth you need to provide your well-being. A person who always wants more is poor, whereas a person who thinks he has enough is rich.
“The only truly affluent are those who do not want more than they have.” – Erich Fromm
Humans are naturally curious and crave new things. But new things don’t have to be things; the best things in life are not things. New things could be new skills, new friends, new places, new understanding, new creativity and new experiences. (Read more about ‘The Best Things in Life’ here.) Life is really not about getting ‘stuff’, it is about experience. Having new experiences and creating new memories is the stuff of life.
A noble endeavour is to find a way to be fulfilled with the least footprint. This is about a life that is materially simple but mentally, emotionally and spiritually full. Philosophers and psychologists say that the way to well-being involves pursuing an authentic purpose in life; pursuing wealth and comfort is not an authentic purpose.
We at Econation talk about sufficiency which is really another word for ‘enough’; it is about not having more than you need but it is also not about having too little either. This is known as the Goldilocks Zone of ‘just right’. (Read more about ‘Just Right’ here.)
The problem is that many, if not most, people want more than they need. If you need a lot of money to make you happy I suspect you won’t be happy for long if you get it. This relates to what is called the ‘hedonic treadmill’. As a person makes more wealth, their expectations and desires will also rise, which results in no permanent gain in life satisfaction. Another problem with hedonism (pursuing pleasure and comfort) is that it succumbs to the law of diminishing returns. Meaning that the more you pursue pleasure and comfort the less pleasure and comfort you get from it.