The Wisdom of Life is Schopenhauer's work in his later years. In this book, he discusses things close to secular life: health, wealth, status, attitude towards himself and others, and so on.

Among them, Schopenhauer put forward many enlightening suggestions on how to live better and pursue happiness. Some suggestions apply no matter what class or stage you are in.

Schopenhauer has a famous pendulum theory.

We all want a happy life, but Schopenhauer warned people that the background of life is suffering.

In his view, people are happy at the moment when their desires are satisfied. However, if new desires have not yet emerged, people will soon fall into a state of "boredom". Once a new desire arises, they will fall into mental pain and be busy planning to realize the second desire.

Seemingly pessimistic, in fact, after careful observation, most people really can't get rid of this theory.

Most people have to spend a lot of life and energy to make a living for themselves and their families. Once the material is rich and comfortable, it is troubled by boredom.

I had dinner with friends the other day, and one of them was a real estate agent. In the past five years, he resigned and started his own business, and successively opened four real estate agencies, realizing the initial freedom of wealth in his life.

In our opinion, his life is wonderful, but he said that he feels that life is a bit boring and seems to have no energy.

My friend doesn't understand. I think he just has a stable job, has no new goal desire for the time being, and has fallen into a "boring" stage. At this time, you need to set new goals, or cultivate new interests and strive to broaden your spiritual territory.

Schopenhauer's emphasis on pain in the tone of life is not a passive and pessimistic life, but only to guide people to have a rational and sober understanding of life, not to be afraid of pain, and to learn to pursue happiness peacefully.

Schopenhauer attaches great importance to loneliness. He believes that the quantity and quality of most people's social activities are not proportional, and vulgar social activities will only consume people's time and energy. From this perspective, he said, "The more mediocre and vulgar people are, the more sociable they are-either lonely or vulgar. In fact, there are not many choices in life. "

Schopenhauer's view seems a little biased, but it sounds an alarm for this era of over-emphasis on social interaction. Nowadays, various successful bestsellers teach people to expand their contacts, cultivate eloquence and communication means, and even early education institutions enlarge the development of children's social skills.

It seems that everyone should be a sociable person, and it seems that being keen on socializing has become the standard of success. In fact, this is just a fanatical prejudice.

Even for personal resources, the role of socialization itself has been exaggerated. Some experienced people will find that truly effective social interaction is based on the exchange of resources or complementary values.

Without these, even if you are versatile, you can't maintain quality social resources.

This is especially true from the emotional level. The indulgence brought by social interaction is short-lived and unreliable. No interesting soul can save a poor soul. Only when one's own spirit is rich can one be calm and happy. So Aristotle said, "If you want to be happy, you have to be self-sufficient".

Even a maverick like Schopenhauer emphasizes the importance of health.

He warned people that "nine times out of ten happiness depends on health." "Whether it is interest, promotion, study or fame, everything else must make way for health."

Everyone knows this truth, but when we are strong and safe, we often ignore it. On the contrary, I put everything else before my body, so I pay regular work and rest, a healthy diet and a good attitude.

Fortunately, I realized the importance of health problems before my body collapsed and began to pay attention to my health.

There are also many unfortunate people who have hollowed out their bodies and destroyed their health before gaining external fame and fortune.

In the era of general anxiety, many basic human needs, such as a healthy diet, such as a good sleep, have become luxuries.

Especially after I gradually entered middle age, I realized this truth more, and I tried to practice this advice myself.

Schopenhauer's argument hit the nail on the head, especially at the moment. Many times, if you care too much about others' opinions, you will fall into vanity and anxiety.

Watching variety shows, Yi Nengjing kept asking her mother-in-law: "Mom, do you think Hiroko really loves me?" When her mother-in-law gave a positive answer without hesitation, Yi Nengjing listed a series of Qin Hao's kindness to herself. Finally, she told her mother-in-law that Qin Hao just couldn't express her love. She even asked her mother-in-law to tell Qin Hao to learn to express herself.

There are many details that make me feel that she is like a child, begging constantly, hoping that her husband will keep saying that he loves her. She hopes that his love for her can be seen and heard by everyone.

It seems that what she wants is not love itself, but a love recognized and seen by everyone.

Although she said that she didn't care about the evaluation of her current marriage by netizens, she actually cared too much. So many people think that she has "performance personality disorder".

Maybe it has something to do with her early experience of losing her father to support her family. The shadow of lack of love and insecurity has been imprinted on her heart. Even though she has a warm marriage and family now, she still needs to seek peace from outsiders.

Many troubles in life stem from anxiety caused by caring too much about other people's eyes.

In fact, except a few relatives and friends, who really cares about you? It is foolish and cowardly to put the measure of doing things in the hands of people who don't care about themselves at all.

Schopenhauer summed up the desire for wealth well. It is commendable that he did not generalize. He first affirmed the importance of wealth and demonstrated the disadvantages of poverty.

So to what extent is the desire for wealth reasonable?

Therefore, we should know our truest and strongest desires and strive to accomplish this part of our vision. At the same time, we should know how to restrain other desires.

The world of adults, making choices every day. What kind of choices you can accept and what kind of desires you can let go are directly related to the quality of life in the future.

Schopenhauer famously said: Life is a masquerade ball.

Maybe on this stage, we all have to choose one or several masks to wear. But the secret of happiness is that only when we take off all masks and face ourselves alone can we find the answer.

Let us always introspect and realize in these kind words, so as to wake up the world, find our most balanced and peaceful life and be close to happiness.