Yes, once I learned to stop striving for things, or to at least reduce the desire to stop striving for things.
The philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer explained it well when he wrote that the human condition is driven by a will to live. This creates an irrational and impulsive striving of the individual. That's not a singular observation either. Darwin in "The Descent of Man" based his theory of evolution upon the same premise that the prime goal of all living beings is to survive. And the driver of that goal is "The Will".
Sounds fairly obvious and quite innocent so far.
However Schopenhauer posited that the Will was a negative force. This is because it created unhappiness. People are always striving for something and if they achieve it, their moment of bliss is short-lived before they replace it with more striving.
Essentially, the Will is insatiable. Ergo, happiness can never be permanently fulfilled. It can be sated for a brief while, before the cycle begins anew.
Schopenhauer coined a phrase "negative happiness", which means the absence of pain. He proposed a way of life influenced a lot by Hindu and Buddhist thought, in which one tries to escape the demands of the Will. For a European audience unfamiliar with those teachings, it is perhaps best reframed as living a life that is satisfactory. (Schopenhauer's work "The World as Will and Representation" covers this very well.
To summarise, Schopenhauer believed in minimalism. Always desiring things was the basis for much mental suffering in life. To reduce that suffering, desire less. (Which is interesting to note that the ancient Hawaiians have a saying : To be rich, make more or desire less).
So reducing your desires and desiring less allows you to focus on things you can control, and ultimately lessens the pain and suffering in the world, as these are the natural states of the world.
Strive less, and feel gratitude for what you have. Maximize those rare moments of true wonder and pure beauty, where you feel pure joy. Those small moments we all live for.
“Pleasure in the beautiful consists, to a large extent in the fact that, when we enter the state of pure contemplation, we are raised for the moment above all willing, above all desires and cares; we are, so to speak, rid of ourselves.” — Arthur Schopenhauer
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