I notice that more students these days seem to aspire to wealth and celebrity as prerequisite to a good life they'll love. We'll address that tomorrow in CoPhi with Aristotle. Today's stoic meditation addresses it too. And so did the Beatles.
""Let's pass over to the really rich—how often the occasions they look just like the poor! When they travel abroad they must restrict their baggage, and when haste is necessary, they dismiss their entourage. And those who are in the army, how few of their possessions they get to keep . . ."—SENECA, ON CONSOLATION TO HELVIA, 12. 1. b–2
Hemingway rightly pricked Fitzgerald's infatuation, observing drolly "Yes, they have more money." They do not have demonstrably more virtue, integrity, or happiness. They do tend, these days, to have more indictments and legal fees, and a great deal more to answer for in their conduct.
It's true, money can't buy you love and it can't buy eudaimonia. It won't make you rich in spirit, it won't create the web of mutually sustaining relationships that studies (like that decades-long Harvard project) show to be the real source of human satisfaction with life.
— The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living by Ryan Holiday, Stephen Hanselman
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I think that with the rise of social media and lives being easily accessible due to the created vacuum effect. I was born in '94. I grew up with internet in its infancy. I have noticed generations below me, (even just two years younger) that seek money and celebrity as social status. I feel as if social media has shinned an ugly light on consumerism and the maximalist ideal. It is almost as if grandeur is more socially accepted than enjoying what is. I believe happiness is found in experiences and small happenings sprinkled through your life. I am more of the put your phone down and be in the moment or create memories that will exceed your time here.
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