The fewer and simpler your desires, the easier it is to meet them, the less you have to work, and the more time you have for hanging out with your friends. In fact, all you need for the good life is some basic security, your health, your reason, and your friends. Epicurus put friendship at the very heart of the good life: ‘Of the means which are procured by wisdom to ensure happiness throughout the whole of life,’ he said, ‘by far the most important is the acquisition of friends.’ It was far more important to him than sexual love, which led to jealousy and all kinds of emotional disturbances;
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