Don’t Get Stuck in a Cookie Jar
Welcome back to Mid-Week Meditations , Lifehacker’s weekly dip in the pool of stoic wisdom and a guide to using its waters to meditate and improve your life.
This week’s choice is Epictetus. He has a lesson for those who seem to “want everything”:
“When children put their hand into a narrow jar of candy, they cannot pull out their fist and start crying. Throw in some treats and you have it! Curb your desire – don’t focus on so many things and you will get what you need. “
discourses , 3.9.22
What does it mean
People want so much that they often get nothing at all, and then they complain about it all their lives. If they let go of just a few desires, they could focus and get what they really care about. Basically, you can’t have all of this. But you can have a few things if you want to focus on them.
What to take from there
I love this quote because its lesson is so simple but incredibly helpful. Life, reality, the universe are the limitations of a treat or cookie jar. This will only allow you to take (or make) a certain amount. If you try to take or do too much, chances are you won’t get anything at all. You cannot go too far or waste your precious time on things that are less important to your overall well-being. These things make your fist too big to get out of the can, and we all spend so much time holding these things, convinced that there is another way to get them all out.
So, you have two options: break the can, fly the cookies all over the place and ruin everything; or just let go of a few cookies and be content with less than what you were able to grab. In every aspect of your life, try to “drop a few treats.” Prioritize the treats that will truly enrich your life – be it work, leisure, or personal life – and then let go of the rest so that it stays in the bank. It is better to have multiple cookies than nothing at all.