“If the good doesn’t last, the evil does.”
My grandfather once told me: “If the good doesn’t last, the evil does.”
And he was right.
That’s why all short-term rewards end up being long-term condemnations.
The shorter the good lasts, the worse the remedy.
As my grandfather used to say, “You trade a little well-being for more and more dependence. You become addicted to the solution. And every solution that makes you dependent becomes a problem”.
And this is the trap we most often face in the 21st century.
- Sleeping pills that improve your insomnia by just a few hours and make you addicted to their use for years.
- Entertainment that doesn’t satiate you and takes you from one social network to another, consuming mini-videos that release dopamine but always leave you wanting more.
- Fast food establishments where you go for dinner and two hours later you are so hungry again that you have to eat a sandwich before going to bed.
- Alcohol and substances relieve your emotional stress in the short term but cost you your health in the long run.
As my grandfather used to tell me, “Companies today don’t just want to sell you something; they want you to turn to them as often as possible.”
Everything we do wrong, we do out of love.
One day, I asked my grandfather why he believed that people fall into the traps that life sets for us, and he said, “Out of love, grandson. Human beings do everything out of love. What happens is that human beings are imperfect and sometimes believe something is good when it is not.”
To explain this, my grandfather gave me the following example, “Look AG, people covet attractive partners, mansions, and trips to the Caribbean because they think it will make them happy. They confuse pleasure with happiness, and it’s not the same thing. Pleasure never fulfills you; happiness does.”
I asked him how we could confuse what is good so much, and he answered something that blew my mind.
“The word “benefit” comes from the Latin beneficium and means “good that is done or received.” In turn, beneficium comprises bene (good) facere (to do). That is why we seek material benefit instead of spiritual benefit in everything we do; that is why we seek money, property, and luxury because it is good and beneficial. But it is a trap, and we end up possessed by what we possess. Grandson, happiness is invisible; therefore, it can only be sought in the immaterial, not the material.”
How not to fall into the trap.
Finally, I asked my grandfather how not to fall into the trap, and he said,
“People say they want to have a good life, but that is a lie. They want a life of pleasure and that their vices don’t kill them. And that’s not possible because everything in this world has a price. A good life, grandson, is not needing little but consuming what satisfies you so that you don’t need so much”.
I put his advice into practice and realized the following,
- A day of trekking in the countryside is better than a week of watching Netflix.
- A barbecue with friends is better than spending the evening chatting with strangers on Facebook.
- Finding the right person to turn the word house into the word home with is much better than spending the day looking for sex with dozens of people on Tinder.
So stop consuming anything that relieves you for a short time because you will end up enslaved to that substance, habit, or activity for a long time.
And start looking for real things that don’t make the existential emptiness in your chest bigger every time you consume them.
A virtual hug
AG