I think it's in human nature to want to have more, to compete with the other and, at some level, to be dissatisfied if someone else has more than you.
Interpretation
The quote reflects the inherent human tendency to desire more and to compare oneself with others, which often leads to dissatisfaction.
Pico Iyer highlights a fundamental aspect of human nature: the instinctual drive to accumulate more and to engage in competition with others. This desire for more can result in a perpetual state of dissatisfaction, particularly when one perceives that others have achieved greater success or possess more than they do. It invokes a reflection on how such competitive instincts can shape our happiness and sense of fulfillment.
In practice
In a discussion on consumerism and societal pressures during a seminar.
Quitting, for me, means not giving up, but moving on; changing direction not because something doesn’t agree with you, but because you don’t agree with something. It’s not a complaint, in other words, but a positive choice, and not a stop in one’s journey, but a step in a better direction. Quitting-whether a job or a habit-means taking a turn so as to be sure you’re still moving in the direction of your dreams.
I think one reason, obviously, that I spend so much time in one place is that I've been lucky enough to travel a lot, and now there are other different, invisible trains that are more interesting to me.
I've never meditated in my life. I don't practice yoga nor any religion. I'm a tourist on the realm of stillness.
We travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate.
I'm no Buddhist monk, and I can't say I'm in love with renunciation in itself, or traveling an hour or more to print out an article I've written, or missing out on the N.B.A. Finals. But at some point, I decided that, for me at least, happiness arose out of all I didn't want or need, not all I did.
The one thing perhaps that technology hasn't always given us is a sense of how to make the wisest use of technology.
You are being suffocated by tradition... Why don't you say, 'I am going to build a life for myself, for my time, and make it a work of art'? Your life isn't a work of art ---it's a thirdhand Victorian whatnot shelf, complete with someone else's collection of seashells and hand-carved elephants.
I quote others only in order the better to express myself.
Since survival is the sine qua non, I now define the "moral behavior" as "behavior that tends toward survival".
To all new truths, or renovation of old truths, it must be as in the ark between the destroyed and the about-to-be renovated world. The raven must be sent out before the dove, and ominous controversy must precede peace and the olive wreath.
We obey people we don't trust, to buy things we don't need, to impress people we don't like, using money we don't have, for gratifications that don't last, killing animals we don't hate, for pleasures that don't satisfy, dreaming of a life we don't deserve, and praying for an afterlife that doesn't exist, we are a stupid species
Either the translator leaves the author in peace, as much as is possible, and moves the reader towards him: or he leaves the reader in peace, as much as possible, and moves the author towards him.
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