I heard a story about a landowner who went to visit a tribal leader to ask for a piece of land from him. The chief said, “You go west from here, make a mark, and if you can come back before the sun goes down, all the land between here and that mark is yours.
After the sun went down, the landowner hadn’t returned. He died of exhaustion on the road because he had walked too far.
I’m sure the landowner didn’t forget that he had to get back before the sun went down. I’m also sure that more than once he stopped his westward journey and prepared to head back. That’s when he thought: just a few more steps, so he could get more land. Little by little, the desire pulled him farther and farther away.
Many people said that landowner was too greedy. But many people can’t resist the temptation of desire little by little.
A female colleague, when buying a phone, always picked the most fashionable one to buy.
After a few months, a more popular model appeared on the market. The company’s main focus is on the development of new products and services. The pursuit of fashion made her want to stop, and she changed many cell phones in a few years. At one point she lamented that the constant changing of phones had cost her tens of thousands of dollars, but the phone she was using now was not the latest model.
A friend bought a new house before he got married. The house was small, just over 80 square meters, and the renovation was simple, not costing much money. The friend said that for his income, such a size and decoration is reasonable. If he buys a popular 100-square-meter house with luxurious decoration, he will no longer be able to live comfortably in the following years when he has to spend in a controlled and planned way to repay the house. The friend said he felt content after living in the new house, and he would not envy others’ larger and more beautifully decorated houses, let alone the luxury villas of the rich, because that would make him unhappy for the rest of his life.
My friend is a wise man who knows how to say “no” to his desires. The landowner in the story could not resist the temptation and eventually became a man who could not come back. The more people are attracted by their desires, the farther they go, the less they find happiness.