没有物质舒适，幸福就是困难模式Happiness Without Material Comfort Is Playing on Hard Mode
Naval： 没有财务财富，你也能获得幸福。大多数人都明白，幸福不是买来的。但在现代社会，你可以花钱摆脱那些常见的不幸福根源。财务财富能给你自由和更多时间，能给你安宁。
放弃身外之物，并不是通往幸福的捷径
在古代，寻找安宁的途径之一是出家当和尚。你要舍弃一切——性、住所、金钱以及其他物质依恋——然后走进山林。也许 30 年后，当你终于接受自己再也不会拥有这些东西时，你会找到一些安宁。事实是，他们中的大多数人可能永远也没能放下。世上有很多和尚，但开悟的人并不多。
满足物质需求，比放弃物质需求更容易
奥修（Osho）基本上说过这样的话："每当我遇到妓女，她想谈论的是神；每当我遇到牧师，他想谈论的是性。"你压抑自己的任何东西，都会成为你的新牢笼。
如今，满足你对物质舒适的渴望，实际上比放弃它更容易。放弃物质舒适可能需要你花上一辈子的时间，而且还不一定成功。但你可以在不到一辈子的时间里赚到一些钱，在物质上取得成功。
没有物质舒适，你也能获得幸福，而且那很可能是更持久的一种幸福。但那是在玩"困难模式"。
当你生病时，欲望就会溜走
身体健康是一切的根基。没有健康的身体，你就一无所有。我喜欢孔子的一句话："生病的人只想要一样东西，健康的人想要一万样东西。"当你生病时，欲望就会溜走。如果你连起床活动的能力都没有，你就无法变成那个充满欲望的"欲望机器"。
虽然身体健康最重要，但我谈得最少，因为这是我专长（specific knowledge）最少的领域。在这方面我并未达到自我实现。我身材还行，饮食也还凑合。我懂得身体健康的理论，但除非我自己是身体健康的典范，否则向你传授这些会让我觉得自己像个骗子。
我从不快乐，变成了非常快乐
在财富方面，我自我实现的程度要高得多。而在心理健康方面——寻找幸福与安宁——我从一个基本上不快乐的人，变成了非常快乐的人。这是刻意为之的。它需要练习，需要付出努力，是通过一次次领悟实现的。因为我取得了进展，所以我能告诉你什么对我管用。
Naval: You can achieve happiness without financial wealth. Most of us recognize you’re not going to buy your way to happiness. But in modern times, you can buy your way out of common causes of unhappiness. Financial wealth can give you freedom and more time. It can give you peace.
Renouncing things is not an easy path to happiness
In olden times, one of the routes to finding peace was becoming a monk. You would renounce things—sex, shelter, money and other material attachments—and go off in the woods. You might find some peace after 30 years, when you’d finally gotten over the fact that you weren’t going to have these things. The truth is, most of them probably never got over it. There are lots of monks out there but there aren’t a lot of enlightened people.
It’s easier to fulfill your material needs than to renounce them
It was Osho who said, essentially: “Every time I meet a prostitute, she wants to talk about God. And every time I meet a priest, he wants to talk about sex.” Whatever you deny yourself will become your new prison.
Today it’s actually easier to fulfill your desire for material comfort than it is to renounce it. It’ll take you a lifetime to renounce material comfort, and it still might not work. But you can make some money and be materially successful in less than a lifetime.
You can achieve happiness without material comfort, and it probably would be a more lasting form of happiness. But that’s playing on hard mode.
When you’re sick, your desires run away
Physical health is the foundation of everything. If you don’t have your physical health, you have nothing. A Confucius saying I like: “A sick man only wants one thing, a healthy man wants 10,000 things.” When you’re sick, your desires run away. Without the ability to get up and function, you can’t turn into the desiring machine that you are.
Although physical health is the most important, I speak the least about it because it’s the area where I have the least specific knowledge. I am not self-actualized in that regard. I’m in OK shape and have an OK diet. I understand the theories of physical health, but I would feel fraudulent offering it to you unless I were a paragon of physical health myself.
I’ve gone from being unhappy to being very happy
In wealth, I’m much more self-actualized. And on the mental health side—finding happiness and peace—I’ve gone from being a mostly unhappy person to being very happy. That was deliberate. It was practiced and effort-based. It happened through realizations. Because I made progress, I can tell you what worked for me.