The Joy of Strength

Adapted from MMM:

Strength is at the root of most joy and weakness is at the root of most unhappiness in a person's life.

Here are a few of life’s most powerful sources of strength and weakness:

* Money is the most acknowledged source of strength in modern society, for it gives you the power to get other people to serve you, and to do so with a smile.

* An Abundance of Money is even more powerful.

* The Desire for Ever-Increasing Material Luxury is a serious weakness. You can never satisfy Luxury – there is always another level of fanciness to attain, and thus he can never have quite enough money.

* Giving is a form of strength. When you say, “I have more than I need, and thus my desire to take should fade away as my desire to help out grows”.

* Taking is therefore a form of weakness.

* Health is a form of strength.

* Physical Strength is the part of health that is mostly ignored in the United States, yet it is the most useful and efficient component.

* Skills are a form of strength. Each thing you learn to do improves your quality of life in astonishing ways, because it makes you stronger. If you are good at your job, you have the ability to earn lots of money. But if this is your only skill, you need to outsource your food preparation, transportation, relationships, entertainment, and the repair and maintenance of everything you own including your own body. If your money supply fails or your hired specialists don’t do their jobs perfectly, your life falters. By insourcing all the basics required for happiness, you build a self-reinforcing resilient mesh of power that makes you happier, wealthier, and more interesting as well.

* Voluntary Discomfort is the secret cornerstone of strength. We build our whole lives around increasing comfort and avoiding discomfort, and yet by doing so we are drinking a can of Weakness Tonic with every morning’s breakfast. Our entire culture teaches us to seek out all possible comforts, and to be unhappy when we don’t have them. And thus, it dooms us to a life of permanent involuntary discomfort, and therefore permanent weakness.