More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
FOR WHAT WILL IT PROFIT A MAN, IF HE GAINS THE WHOLE WORLD AND FORFEITS HIS LIFE?
Recall the kind of feeling you have when you succeed, when you have made it, when you get to the top, when you win a game or a bet or an argument. And contrast it with the kind of feeling you get when you really enjoy the job you are doing, you are absorbed in, the action that you are currently engaged in.
Look around and see if you can find a single genuinely happy person—fearless, free from insecurities, anxieties, tensions, worries. You would be lucky if you found one in a hundred thousand. This should lead you to be suspicious of the programming and the beliefs that you and they hold in common. But you have also been programmed not to suspect, not to doubt, just to trust the assumptions that have been put into you by your tradition, your culture, your society, your religion.
What makes it even worse is the fact that most people are so brainwashed that they do not even realize how unhappy they are—like the man in a dream who has no idea he is dreaming.
If changing the world is your vocation in life, go right ahead and change it, but do not harbor the illusion that this is going to make you happy.
