Roger Cunard

According to billionaire investor Charlie Munger, the world is “not driven by greed, it’s driven by envy.” This statement came as part of an on-stage interview in 2022 at the annual meeting of the Daily Journal.

Munger continued:

“The fact that everybody is five times better off than they used to be, they take it for granted. All they think about is that someone else has more now, and it’s not fair that he should have it and they don’t.”

Speaking of his own life, he says:

“I have conquered envy in my own life. I don’t envy anybody. I don’t give a damn what someone else has. But other people are driven crazy by it. 

It’s certainly much, much easier for a succesful 98-year-old billionaire to conquer envy than it is for the rest of us. But it’s a good, practical goal for anyone who wants to be more content and happy in their own life.

So, if you start to feel discontented or unhappy about what you have or where you are in life, try to recognize how amazing everything really is compared to just 100 years ago. And do your best to avoid the comparing yourself and your life to other people you see on Instagram or TikTok.

In his essay “Nature,” Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote that man should “go forth to meet nature, not to make war upon her, but to purify, to rescue, and to ornament.” This idea of cooperating with nature, not fighting against it, is a central theme in Emerson’s writing.

Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and a critic of the countervailing pressures of society, and he is still regarded as one of the most influential thinkers of his time. Emerson’s essays, lectures, and poems expressed his philosophy of self-reliance, individualism, and the power of the individual to perceive truth.

Emerson believed that humans are innately good and that society, with its rules and restrictions, corrupts them. He felt that each person has the ability to find his or her own way in life, and he urged people to follow their own instincts and intuition rather than blindly following the crowd.

Emerson also wrote in “Nature”:

In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, — no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair.

This simple statement sums up his philosophy of life. Emerson believed that nature is the best teacher and that spending time in nature will help us to remember what is truly important in life.

Further to Emerson’s proposition to cooperate with nature, in 2015, Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hahn, provided the following statement to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) about climate change and our relationship to one another and to the Earth:

This beautiful, bounteous, life-giving planet we call Earth has given birth to each one of us, and each one of us carries the Earth within every cell of our body. …

We need to change our way of thinking and seeing things. We need to realise that the Earth is not just our environment. The Earth is not something outside of us. Breathing with mindfulness and contemplating your body, you realise that you are the Earth. You realise that your consciousness is also the consciousness of the Earth. Look around you–what you see is not your environment, it is you.

Part of the solution to our problems — within ourselves and with the environment — is to accept that we are one and the same as our planet. We are not living in the environment, we are an inseparable part of it.

Finally, Alan Watts, an English philosopher, thinker, and writer, sums up this sentiment of interconnectedness with nature in his 1971 television program “A Conversation with Myself”:

But what we call things: plants, birds, trees.. Are far more complicated than neurons, and there are billions of them. And they are all living together in a network. Just as there is an interdependence of flowers and bees, where there are no flowers there are no bees, and where there are no bees there are no flowers. They’re really one organism.

In the same way, everything in nature depends on everything else. So it’s interconnected. And so the very, very many patterns of interconnections, lock it all together into a unity, which is much too complicated for us to think about, except in very simple, crude ways. …

The individual and the universe are inseparable. But the curious thing is, that while that is rather easy to see in theory, very few people are aware of it in the important, strong way that one is aware of blue in blue sky or the heat in fire.

So, next time you can get outside and take a quiet walk in nature, try to actually feel and see what’s happening around you. Remember what’s important, realize you are the Earth, and as Watts surmised, “see in the world everything is happening altogether, everywhere all at once.”

Thank you for reading. Please consider a tip. I’ve partnered with Stripe Climate to combat climate change, and 1% of all donations will help fund carbon removal projects.

Born in central Vietnam in 1926, Zen Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh has dedicated his life to the work of inner transformation and nonviolence for the benefit of individuals and society. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1967 for his work to end the Vietnam War.

In a 2003 interview with Bob Abernethy on PBS Religion & Ethics Newsweekly, he shared some thoughts on the high level of violence in our society and how we can reduce it.

Abernethy: We have violence all around us. As you observe what is going on in the world and in this country, does it seem to you we are becoming more violent?

Nhat Hanh: Yes, the level of violence in society is very high — violence in families, violence in schools, violence on the streets. We do not seem to focus our efforts in order to transform that violence; we are trying to seek violence outside and to invest all our time and energies and money in order to fight violence outside. But we don’t know that violence is there within ourselves, within our society.

There are ways to transform and to reduce the amount of suffering in our families, in our schools; but people have not done much in order to do that. We, as practitioners of transformation and healing — we know how to do it, how to help reduce the level of violence in our families, in our schools. And we don’t need money to do it. We need only people who know how to do it in order to make the plans, and to do it on a national level. I hope that people in this country will begin to think about that seriously and will move quickly in order to help in that direction.

Abernethy: Are there times when it is necessary to use violence in order to protect yourself, or protect your family, or your country?

Nhat Hanh: If you see someone who is trying to shoot, to destroy, you have to do your best in order to prevent him or her from doing so. You must. But you must do it out of your compassion, your willingness to protect, and not out of anger. That is the key point. If you need to use force, you have to use it, but you have to make sure that you act out of compassion and a willingness to protect, not out of anger.

We learned some of the most basic, most important life lessons as a child. Like mine, your parents probably told you many times to clean your room, eat your veggies, go play outside, or turn off the television.

This good advice is still very relevant to us as adults today:

• Clean your room.
• Make your bed.
• Brush your teeth.
• Get to bed early.
• Don’t watch too much TV.
• Go outside and play.
• Eat your fruits and vegetables.
• Don’t eat too many sweets.
• Be kind to animals.
• Share with others.
• Say “please” and “thank you.”

So, if you’re confused about where to start on your path to self-improvement or lost amid a sea of self-help advice, just think back and trust what your mom told you when you were six. She was right then, and she’s right now — turn off the TV and go outside.

In his 2010 memoir, “Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook,” Anthony Bourdain shared his sage advice to young adults:

If you’re twenty-two, physically fit, hungry to learn and be better, I urge you to travel – as far and as widely as possible. Sleep on floors if you have to. Find out how other people live and eat and cook. Learn from them – wherever you go.

As someone who was able to travel the world extensively as a young man, I strongly agree with Bourdain. Travel to gain perspective on the world. Travel to develop empathy for others. Travel to appreciate different cultures, cuisines, and traditions. Travel to become a more confident, independent person.

We all want easy answers and instant results, but there are no shortcuts to health and longevity. You will need to make a healthy lifestyle a priority and do the work to change.

The good news is there are basic, simple building blocks of prevention that have been proven to work across diverse, global populations:

• Eat well. Choose a diet filled with a variety of beans, fruits, nuts, seeds, and vegetables. Avoid processed foods and animal products.
• Move your body. Gardening, surfing, walking, and weightlifting all work to get some important exercise and natural movement in your daily routine. Find something you enjoy that gets your body moving and your heart pumping.
• Get outside. Spend time in nature to boost your immune system, burn a few calories, and connect with our amazing planet. Hike a trail, kayak a river, pick some berries, or sit under a tree and breathe.
• Sleep enough. Get enough deep, quality sleep each night to rest and restore your body and mind.
• Control stress. Whether you laugh, meditate, relax, smile, or stretch, find ways to reduce any anxiety and stress in your daily life.
• Be social. Spend time with family and friends. Join a community of people who share healthy habits.

For better health and a longer life, start anywhere and anyway you can to integrate these preventative measures into your day. But it won’t work unless you make it work.

You can’t change everything in your life all at once. Whatever bad habits or problems you’ve gotten yourself into, it happened slowly, over time. It will take about the same amount of time in reverse to change it.

If you have anxiety or feel overwhelmed, then you won’t respond to an avalanche of information and instruction. It will only make you more anxious when confronted with too many choices and options about what to do, how to do it, and in what order.

So, start small and take it slow. Pick one thing and focus on it.

Build one positive habit at a time – or practice eliminating a bad habit. It may be that you can only do one thing per month, 12 per year. But think about how different your life can be in a year if you can introduce and stick with 12 improvements.

There are no shortcuts, no hacks. You will need to put in the work, and the work takes time. It takes falling down and getting back up again. You will need to begin again several times.

With any habit you work to create or goal you want to achieve, there will be mistakes and setbacks. But when you stumble, when your streak breaks, you must begin again.

When you experience a setback, you will feel defeated and deflated. Acknowledge that feeling, but don’t judge yourself for having faltered. It’s normal to experience setbacks, fall off your horse, or get knocked off course.
Don’t let one setback steal your motivation and unravel all the progress you’ve made. You need to expect challenges, problems, and resistance. From the beginning, set your intention to always get right back on track.

This is a critical moment. You can chose to spiral downward or keep climbing higher. So. as quickly as possible, let go of the embarrassment or frustration or any urge to quit.

Make the next right choice. Start a new streak. Begin again.

For example, if you’re trying to eat a healthier diet, you should, first, never expect to be perfect at every meal, every day. Then, when you eat too much or eat something you shouldn’t have eaten, you can begin the diet again at the next meal.

In mindfulness meditation, learning how to begin again in each moment is a core practice. When you meditate, you will become distracted. You will become lost in thought. But eventually you will notice you are thinking, and as shared by meditation teacher Joseph Goldstein, “In that moment, we recollect the breath, and simply begin again.”

In that moment, we recollect the breath, and simply begin again.

But with anything you attempt, use the failures as opportunities to learn and grow. To succeed, you must learn from the mistakes and move through the difficulties. Those setbacks will make you stronger and may be what you needed to carry you further forward.

However, if failures and setbacks happen too often, then you may have taken on more than you can handle. Do less, until you can do more.

You can start over as many times as necessary — and you may need to start over again, and again, and again. But every day brings a new opportunity to simply begin again.

Clean water means health, income, and education—especially for women and kids. For families in Cambodia, India, Rwanda, and Uganda, having access to clean water also means having more time to farm and earn income.

Learn more and donate at charity: water.