The situation
I earn more than twice what I did ten years ago, and I still never feel I have enough. Each pay rise is swallowed within months, and I’m already working late for the next promotion because I’m sure that one will finally make me feel secure. It never does, and I’m starting to wonder whether any number would be enough.
Your situation, reframed
AI interpretationIt is unsettling to reach what you once thought would be enough and find that the feeling has moved further away. The Stoic diagnosis points away from your salary and towards the measure you are using: when the target is set by desire rather than need, every rise moves it on.
The dichotomy of control
AI interpretationYours to act on
- Deciding what enough actually means for you
- How much of each pay rise your spending is allowed to absorb
- Noticing and enjoying what you already have
- What you are working towards besides money
Not yours
- Prices, markets and the wider economy
- Whether the next promotion comes
- What friends and colleagues earn and spend
- Complete security against every future risk
The Stoics said
Verbatim from the source · full citationsSeneca, To Helvia, on Consolation 11
… He who restrains himself within the limits prescribed by nature, will not feel poverty; he who exceeds them will always be poor, however great his wealth may be. Even a place of exile suffices to provide one with necessaries; whole kingdoms do not suffice to provide one with superfluities. It is the mind which makes men rich: this it is that accompanies them into exile, and in the most savage wildernesses, after having found sufficient sustenance for the body, enjoys its own overflowing resources: the mind has no more connection with money than the immortal gods have with those things which are so highly valued by untutored intellects, sunk in the bondage of the flesh. …
Epictetus, Enchiridion 39
The measure of possession (property) is to every man the body, as the foot is of the shoe. If then you stand on this rule (the demands of the body), you will maintain the measure: but if you pass beyond it, you must then of necessity be hurried as it were down a precipice. As also in the matter of the shoe, if you go beyond the (necessities of the) foot, the shoe is gilded, then of a purple colour, then embroidered: for there is no limit to that which has once passed the true measure.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 7.27
Think not so much of what thou hast not as of what thou hast: but of the things which thou hast select the best, and then reflect how eagerly they would have been sought, if thou hadst them not. At the same time however take care that thou dost not through being so pleased with them accustom thyself to overvalue them, so as to be disturbed if ever thou shouldst not have them.
What this means here
AI interpretationSeneca, To Helvia, on Consolation 11
Seneca is writing from exile to console his mother, and part of his argument is that losing his wealth has not made him poor. Wants that come from need are easily met, he argues, while wants that come from appetite behave like the thirst of a fever: the more you supply them, the stronger they grow. That is the pattern you describe. A pay rise that is swallowed within months, and a next promotion that is always the one that will finally feel like enough, are not needs being met but a limit that keeps moving. Within the limits of real need nobody feels poor; beyond them, on his account, nobody ever feels rich.
Translation note: Nature here means our real needs as human beings, as opposed to wants created by fashion, habit or display.
Epictetus, Enchiridion 39
Epictetus offers a simple test. A shoe should fit the foot; once it goes beyond that, there is no natural stopping point, and it becomes gilded, then purple, then embroidered. Your pay rises have gone the same way, each upgrade setting the baseline for the next. The point is not to live in hardship, but to have a measure that comes from your actual life rather than from whatever is next on offer.
Translation note: The body as the measure means your real physical needs: food, shelter, clothing. Purple dye was the ancient world’s most expensive luxury colour.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 7.27
Marcus turns his attention from what is missing to what is already there. Pick the best of what you have, he suggests, and imagine how eagerly you would want it if you did not have it. Then he adds a caution: do not value it so much that losing it would throw you. That balance is the opposite of the treadmill you are on: enjoying what you have, without needing more of it in order to feel safe.
Translation note: Thou hast and hadst are old forms of you have and you had.
The three passages agree that more money cannot cure a feeling that money did not cause. Seneca shows that desire beyond need behaves like a fever thirst, Epictetus gives you a measure that stops the upgrades running away with you, and Marcus shows how to enjoy what you already have without clinging to it. Security, on this view, comes less from the next pay rise than from knowing what enough is and noticing when you already have it. None of this argues against earning well, saving or providing for the people you love; it argues against letting the target keep moving.
One action for today
AI interpretationPractise voluntary discomfort
This week, write down what enough would actually cost you each month: home, food, bills, saving and a few real pleasures, and compare it with what you earn. Then, for the next month, go without one upgrade you would normally make, such as a new purchase, the pricier option or an extra subscription, and notice whether your life is any worse for it. Before your next pay rise arrives, decide in advance where it will go.
A line to carry
“It is the mind which makes men rich …”
— Seneca, To Helvia, on Consolation 11