Be Satisfied With Little

In this insightful and inspiring episode, Dr. Robert Puff explores how happiness is found with desiring less. This is an important lesson, and will help us shape our reality to be one of greater joy, fulfillment, and a sense of inner peace.

Transcript

Welcome to the happiness podcast.

I'm Dr.

Robert Puff.

Happiness,

It can seem so elusive because there's so many parts to it.

So many things have to be in place in order for us to seem to have a perfect day.

When they're in place and things are going well and we like everything that's happening,

Then we say,

That was a good day.

But if something is off and we just don't feel right,

Or we just didn't get what we wanted,

Whatever that may be,

Then we find that happiness is more of a dream than a reality.

Well,

Recently I found this beautiful quote that I want to look at and explore today.

It is from the book called The Way of Tao,

And it says,

Being satisfied with little,

You can gain much.

Seeking much,

You will go astray.

The wise heed this precept,

It could only be so for all people.

Let me read that again.

Being satisfied with little,

You can gain much.

Seeking much,

You will go astray.

The wise heed this precept,

If it could only be so with all people.

I love this saying.

And one aspect of this lesson,

This teaching is that materialism can be the path of suffering.

The other day,

My kids and I were on a short outing and we were near a street called Rodeo Drive,

Which is in Beverly Hills.

I don't know if you've heard of it,

But it's probably one of the nicest shopping areas in Southern California,

If not the world.

Most of the stores I've never even heard of,

But there are a lot of people that are interested in what they had to sell.

I'm not sure many of us could afford what they're selling,

But a lot of people sure wanted to look at what they were selling.

And we all probably know people that get into designer wear clothing.

And it can really be a challenging lifestyle because you're always competing with other people who have nicer labels,

Who have more expensive labels,

And it just never ends.

Or newer labels.

What I mean by that is new outfits come out regularly.

And if you want to keep up,

You got to have the newest designer thing or outfit.

So probably for 99% of the people listening to this podcast,

We won't go down that path mostly because we can't afford it.

But secondly,

We realize that's probably not a good path to go down.

But there's a lot of other ways I believe we can desire things,

Want things,

And those things can cause us suffering.

There's a tendency to think,

Well,

I don't desire stuff if I'm not materialistic,

Then things should go pretty well for me.

And mind you,

This helps.

But there's a lot of ways we can desire things that aren't materialistic.

Perhaps we desire to be famous.

Perhaps we desire to be healthy and have our cancer that we've been diagnosed with to go away.

Perhaps we desire to have our soulmate.

Perhaps we desire to have our kids get into good colleges.

Perhaps we desire to lose 50 pounds.

Perhaps we desire to have this pain to go away.

Perhaps we desire to just get a good night's sleep.

The wants that we have can be endless in a vast array.

Sometimes it can be even subtle.

Perhaps we desire to be happy.

Even that desire to be happy can cause us suffering because it focuses in on what we don't have,

That we're not happy.

So how then can we learn from this saying to not seek so much?

And this is the wisdom of the first part of that saying,

Which says,

Being satisfied with little,

You can gain much.

I believe what that means is when our desires are minimal,

When we truly are living in the present moment with what we have and being satisfied with what life is giving us right now,

Then we gain so much.

We gain happiness.

We gain peace.

We gain joy because we're not in a state of discontent.

We're not wishing things were different.

We're not waiting to be happy when this one thing happens.

We have a tendency to say,

I'll be happy.

I'll be at peace when this thing happens,

When this changes,

When this stops happening.

Again,

Fill in the blank.

And because of that,

We suffer.

When we say,

Life,

I don't need much from you.

Just let me breathe.

Let me get around.

Let me explore the world you've given me,

Whether it be vast and I travel around the world or whether it be very small and I never leave my hometown.

It just doesn't matter because life is so rich and full.

There's always wonderful things we can explore internally and externally with our minds,

With our hearts,

With our souls.

My goal in life has been to explore the world and find people that truly are living exquisite lives.

And in that process of doing that,

What I've found is often the people that have the least are truly the most content people I've ever met.

One of my favorite places where I like to go and explore is monasteries around the world,

All faiths,

All types.

And what I've found there is these men and women who give up so much,

Really give up everything and have nothing,

Are sometimes the most content people I've ever met in my travels around the world.

They truly have the least and yet in their hearts they have the most.

Now not all,

Of course,

Are monks and nuns who are very discontent.

I do feel they're happier there than they would be in the world,

But they still are struggling.

But every once in a while I've met exquisite souls in these places who have truly nothing and yet they shine like the sun.

They're just so radiant.

And I think what's happening here is that when we seek very little,

We just get so much,

Then anything becomes a joy and we don't have any need for things being a certain way.

We're joyful,

We're thankful for whatever life gives us.

And I would say that's what I've found pretty categorically.

It isn't that I haven't met beautiful souls who have a lot,

They're just not attached to the lot they have,

Whatever that is,

Whether it's material,

Whether it's success,

Whether it's just personal things that are going really well in their lives.

They're thankful,

But they're not attached.

They realize that that too may change and that's okay because they're not attached to it when it changes.

They do exceptionally well,

Whatever that may be.

I mean,

Perhaps one of the hardest things I think we can ever deal with is the loss or illness or something happening to our children.

I think that is one of the hardest things life can give us.

But I've still met people who've had tragic things happen to their children who are still content and still happy even with that tragedy.

They're able to do that because they saw their children,

Not as something that they had to have,

But as a gift.

And because they were satisfied with little,

They had gained much in the years they did have with their children,

Even though now they didn't.

We can get over anything as long as we don't hang on too tightly.

When we hang on tightly,

We're going to suffer.

Whether it's something we want or something that we have,

Hanging on to anything causes us to suffer.

When we loosen that grip and start flowing with life and seeing life as a beautiful adventure,

Then what happens is whatever life gives us,

We find contentment,

We find peace,

We will experience happiness.

It will just arise in us naturally because we're not doing things that cause it to dissipate.

We're doing things that cause it to arise in us.

Because I believe at our core,

When we're not attached to anything,

Happiness is our natural state.

But we struggle because of our attachments.

We struggle because of our desires.

We struggle because we try to gain much.

And then that causes us to be unhappy.

So if we truly want to be happy,

If that's why we're listening to this podcast and we really mean it,

I want to end with how we specifically do this.

How do we specifically be satisfied with little?

Well,

First off,

What that doesn't mean is that we can't work towards things.

For example,

If we're having a hard time sleeping,

We're going to work towards figuring out ways to sleep better.

If we're struggling with heart disease,

Cancer,

Or pain,

We're going to work on ways to alleviate these sufferings.

If we're financially struggling and we're going hungry,

Or maybe living on the street,

If we're not careful,

We're going to work on ways to make this different and improve this.

However,

To find happiness,

We need to say,

Okay,

I know I'm going to work on these things.

But if today,

They don't happen,

There's so many other things I can do to find joy and peace with.

And when we have a whole vast array of things we can enjoy,

Like connecting with friends,

Going for a walk,

Just sitting outside and reading a book,

Being in nature,

The longer that list is,

And it's versatile,

And it has a lot of flexibility to it,

Then what happens is when there is something going on that we don't like,

Well,

That's when we have to implement these skills that we're learning here on the happiness podcast.

If we don't like something right now,

And there's really nothing we can do about it,

Like for example,

Let's say we can't sleep and we're just laying in bed,

Or let's say we're in pain and the pain isn't going away.

We've taken aspirin and it's still there.

Then what do we do next?

Because these are the more subtle desires.

These are the more subtle ones.

We get that when we desire our Louis Vuitton purse and we're making minimal wage,

That's going to be the path of suffering,

But it also is a path of suffering when things aren't going the way we want,

And we fight it,

That we suffer there too.

So if we're going to live a life of doing with little,

Living with little,

Then we have to be living with little at the deepest core.

We have to say,

Okay,

I get it.

I need to not be attached to anything.

If right now I have a headache,

If right now I can't sleep,

That's just going to be part of life.

So I'm going to find ways with this headache,

With this lack of sleep to still enjoy my life.

Because when we're satisfied with little,

Anything is okay.

We don't need things to be a certain way.

We realize part of life entails physical pain.

We realize part of life entails discomfort.

We realize sometimes we're just not going to sleep very well.

But when we fight that and we wish we had more,

We're going to suffer.

When we're satisfied with little,

Even if we say,

Okay,

I may only get two hours of sleep tonight,

And that's okay,

Then it is okay because that fighting causes us to suffer.

When we stop fighting and we realize some days are going to be harder than others,

But it doesn't mean it's a bad day.

It just means there's things going on that I wish were different.

But wishing things were different is what can cause us to suffer.

Instead we say,

Yeah,

Maybe it'd be nicer not to have a headache today.

Maybe it'd be nicer to get a good night's sleep today.

But if I don't,

It's okay.

I can still have a beautiful life because I don't need much.

I just need to breathe.

I need to live in the present moment and I need to find beautiful things even when things aren't going the way my desires say they should because I'm letting go of those desires because I'm doing with much less.

I'm satisfied with less.

And that satisfaction with little creates a beautiful life because then whatever we're given is wonderful.

I don't know if you ever read The Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder,

But it's a beautiful series about this family growing up in the prairie.

It's a true story.

But I remember one of the stories in the books was talking about their Christmas celebration where they all thought nothing was going to happen,

But Paul was able to get some candy for each of the children and a few other little things,

Very little things.

And they were all so thankful for what they were given.

We get caught up to and get used to having much and that having much causes us to suffer.

I mean,

If we reached a point that we could perhaps shop regularly on Rodeo Drive,

Would we be happy with a piece of candy for Christmas?

Probably not.

So that's where the path of suffering begins.

When we choose to instead be satisfied with little,

Happiness is all around us and we find it everywhere because we gain so much.

So as we go through life,

As we seek happiness,

Let's keep our desires to the minimal,

Find beauty everywhere and adjust to the changes that life gives us because we don't need life to go a certain way.

Instead,

We flow with life and in flowing with life,

We gain much.

Thank you for joining me on the happiness podcast.

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I would love for you to share your experience with others.

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Org.

That's happinesspodcast.

Org.

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And until next time,

Accept what is,

Love what is.

Reviews

Simple topic but with so much insight. I enjoyed it very much.

Thank you 🙏 This was exactly what I needed to hear!

Wonderful as always. Thank you

Excellent advice! Now to remember & practice your advise daily!! Love your podcasts! 😊

I’m grateful for the message! 😊🙏

Thank you for this insightful talk, with messages that are simple and may be hard to carry out at the same time too. 💗

This really helped. Simple advice, just what my life needs right now

This is terrific. I will return to this talk since it really resonated with me, however, I’ll need frequent reminders to put this into practice. I can be a slow learner! 😉 Thank you for making this available. 🙏

A really simple and very inspiring message. Thank you

Thanks for the reminder to be grateful for the little things in life.

I love this. Thank you. Namaste.

🤗Happiness is a state of mindfulness 🙏🏼 Thank you ❤️

Totally agree..if we look outside ourselves for happiness we will never find it.

Thank you
I really needed to hear this message today and I am grateful

Awesome advice. 🌹

Very relevant to my life. Trying to be happy in the face of illness in the family. But so is everyone.

This episode was excellent, and helped me to understand what I have been doing right, and I didn’t even realize it.