Speaker 1: Have you ever stopped to think about why, even after
Speaker 1: getting everything you wanted, you still feel empty. Why that
Speaker 1: purchase you desired so much lost its appeal within just
Speaker 1: a few days. The truth is harsh. The more we want,
Speaker 1: the more we suffer. And this isn't just your feeling.
Speaker 1: It's a law of human nature discovered by one of
Speaker 1: the most brutally honest philosophers in history, Arthur Schopenhauer. He
Speaker 1: understood something that most people take a lifetime to realize.
Speaker 1: Our desires don't free us, They imprison us. And today
Speaker 1: you're going to discover why. Schopenhauer spent years studying human
Speaker 1: nature and came to a disturbing conclusion. We're driven by
Speaker 1: a blind force called will. This will doesn't think, doesn't reason,
Speaker 1: doesn't care about our happiness. It just wants. It wants food,
Speaker 1: wants pleasure, wants status, wants recognition, and it never stops.
Speaker 1: This force is inside you right now, pushing toward the
Speaker 1: next achievement, toward the next goal. You didn't choose to have.
Speaker 1: This will. It simply exists, and it commands your life
Speaker 1: in ways you don't even notice. Think about how you
Speaker 1: wake up every day before you even open your eyes.
Speaker 1: There's already a list of things you need to do
Speaker 1: achieve solve You don't have peace because the will doesn't
Speaker 1: allow it. It creates needs out of nothing, turns luxuries
Speaker 1: into essentials, makes you believe you need something you didn't
Speaker 1: even know existed. This is our condition, and there's no
Speaker 1: way to escape completely. But there is a way to
Speaker 1: understand the game. The problem starts when you fulfill a desire.
Speaker 1: Let's use a simple example. You want a new phone.
Speaker 1: For weeks, you research models, compare prices, dream about that
Speaker 1: incredible camera. Finally you buy it. The feeling is good
Speaker 1: for how long two days a week. Soon that object
Speaker 1: that seemed to be the solution to your problems becomes
Speaker 1: just another item in your drawer, and worse, a better
Speaker 1: model has already appeared on the market. Now you want
Speaker 1: that one. The cycle starts over. This happens because our
Speaker 1: brain wasn't made to be satisfied. It was made to survive,
Speaker 1: and survival means always wanting more. Our ancestors who were
Speaker 1: satisfied with what they had didn't prosper. Those who always
Speaker 1: wanted more food, more security, more resources. They're the ones
Speaker 1: who pass their genes forward you're a descendant of the unsatisfied.
Speaker 1: Restlessness is in your blood. But here's nature's cruel trick.
Speaker 1: Between the moment you desire something and the moment you
Speaker 1: get it, there's a period of suffering. You become anxious,
Speaker 1: your mind doesn't rest, you think about it when you
Speaker 1: wake up during work, before sleeping. The desire consumes your
Speaker 1: mental energy. You get irritated with any obstacle, You fight
Speaker 1: with people who delay your plans, You lose nights of
Speaker 1: sleep planning how you're going to get it. And all
Speaker 1: of this is suffering disguised as motivation. Schopenhauer called this
Speaker 1: the state of lack. You're not complete while you don't
Speaker 1: have that thing, And since there's always something you don't have,
Speaker 1: you're never complete, never at peace, always chasing something. And
Speaker 1: when you get it, instead of peace, you find only
Speaker 1: brief relief before the next desire appears. It's like being
Speaker 1: thirsty in the desert. You find water, drink it, feel relief,
Speaker 1: but within a few hours the thirst returns and you
Speaker 1: need to search for water again. Now comes the part
Speaker 1: few people understand. There's something worse than desiring and not having.
Speaker 1: It's not desiring anything Schopenhauer realized that when we satisfy
Speaker 1: all our immediate desires, we fall into another type of suffering, boredom.
Speaker 1: Have you ever had a weekend with nothing to do,
Speaker 1: that horrible feeling of emptiness. That's it. Your brain needs
Speaker 1: a goal, a quest, something to chase. Without it, you
Speaker 1: feel lost. That's why so many rich and famous people
Speaker 1: are miserable. They have everything they desired. Now they don't
Speaker 1: know what they want anymore. Boredom devours them. They try
Speaker 1: to create new artificial desires, buy things they don't need,
Speaker 1: seek extreme emotions, anything to escape that emptiness, because emptiness
Speaker 1: hurts more than the pursuit. At least in the pursuit,
Speaker 1: you feel alive, like you have a purpose. In emptiness,
Speaker 1: you realize none of it had real meaning. So we're
Speaker 1: trapped between two sufferings, the suffering of desiring and not having,
Speaker 1: and the suffering of having everything and feeling it means nothing.
Speaker 1: Schopenhauer described human life as a pendulum swinging between pain
Speaker 1: and boredom. You're always in one of these two states,
Speaker 1: rarely in the middle, and the brief moments of satisfaction
Speaker 1: between them are so short we barely notice them. Let's
Speaker 1: look at how this works in today's world. We live
Speaker 1: in the age of consumption. Companies spend billi and studying
Speaker 1: how to create desires in you. Every advertisement is designed
Speaker 1: to make you feel your life is incomplete without that product.
Speaker 1: Social media shows people with apparently perfect lives, making you
Speaker 1: desire what they have. The entire economic system depends on
Speaker 1: you never being satisfied. Think about car commercials. They don't
Speaker 1: sell transportation, they sell status, success, admiration. They plant in
Speaker 1: you the desire to be seen a certain way, and
Speaker 1: when you buy the car, you realize nothing really changed.
Speaker 1: You're still the same person with the same insecurities, except
Speaker 1: now with bigger debt. But the ad is already showing
Speaker 1: you the next model, the next desire. The wheel never
Speaker 1: stops turning, and stores know exactly how to hook you.
Speaker 1: They create artificial scarcity, limited time offer, last units available,
Speaker 1: all to accelerate your desire, to make you act without thinking,
Speaker 1: because if you stop to think, you'll realize you don't
Speaker 1: need that. They can't let you think. They need you
Speaker 1: to feel urgency, necessity lack. They need you to suffer
Speaker 1: a little so you'll consume later. This system works because
Speaker 1: it exploits exactly what Schopenhauer discovered. Our blind will our
Speaker 1: inability to be satisfied. And the more you consume, the
Speaker 1: emptier you become. Because each purchase promises happiness and delivers
Speaker 1: only temporary relief, you're already conditioned to seek the next dose,
Speaker 1: like an addict who needs increasingly larger amounts of the
Speaker 1: drug to feel the same effect. But material desires are
Speaker 1: just the surface. Let's go deeper. Think about relationships. How
Speaker 1: many people enter a relationship projecting onto that person the
Speaker 1: solution to all their problems. You meet someone, feel attraction,
Speaker 1: start idealizing this person is going to make you happy,
Speaker 1: will fill your emptiness, will give meaning to your life.
Speaker 1: You create a fantasy in your head and expect the
Speaker 1: real person to match it. When reality doesn't match the fantasy,
Speaker 1: what happens frustration, fighting, disappointment. You blame the person for
Speaker 1: not being what you imagined. But the problem wasn't with
Speaker 1: the person, it was with your desire. You wanted someone
Speaker 1: from outside to solve something that's internal. Schopenhauer would say,
Speaker 1: you were trying to use another person to calm your will.
Speaker 1: But the will doesn't calm down, it just shifts focus.
Speaker 1: That's why so many relationships start intense and end empty.
Speaker 1: Initial passion is just intense desire. When desire is satisfied,
Speaker 1: what's left. If there's nothing deeper, only boredom remains. And
Speaker 1: then people move on to the next relationship, seeking that
Speaker 1: intensity again. They change partners like they change phones, always
Speaker 1: thinking the next one will be different. It rarely is.
Speaker 1: The thing is, no relationship can complete you if you're
Speaker 1: empty inside. Another person isn't responsible for your peace, isn't
Speaker 1: responsible for your happiness. When you place that weight on someone,
Speaker 1: you're condemning the relationship to failure, because nobody can carry
Speaker 1: another person's existential emptiness. It's too heavy and unfair. Now,
Speaker 1: think about your career. How many times did you think
Speaker 1: you'd be happy once you got that job, that promotion,
Speaker 1: that salary. You fought, made efforts, sacrificed time and health,
Speaker 1: finally got it. The happiness lasted how long weeks? Soon
Speaker 1: you were already looking at the position above, at the
Speaker 1: higher salary, at the next rung of the ladder. This
Speaker 1: is ambition's trap. It never lets you enjoy the present.
Speaker 1: There's always a next goal, and society congratulates you for it.
Speaker 1: They call it determination, grit, the will to win, But
Speaker 1: Schopenhauer would see only a person running on a treadmill,
Speaker 1: always moving, never arriving anywhere, tired, stressed, but unable to
Speaker 1: stop because they've been conditioned to believe that stopping means failing.
Speaker 1: Professional success becomes another bottomless desire. You climb the hierarchy
Speaker 1: and realize the problems continue. They change form, but they continue.
Speaker 1: The boss is different now, the pressures are different, but
Speaker 1: no less, and that feeling of fulfillment you expected never
Speaker 1: truly arrives because it wasn't about the position. It was
Speaker 1: about you trying to prove something to yourself, and that
Speaker 1: proof is never enough. And there's another modern aggravator, social media.
Speaker 1: Schopenhauer didn't live to see Instagram, but he would describe
Speaker 1: perfectly the suffering it causes. You open your phone and
Speaker 1: see people traveling, buying, celebrating. You see perfect bodies, beautiful houses,
Speaker 1: lives apparently without problems, and you compare it to your
Speaker 1: real life, full of flaws and difficulties. What do you feel? Envy, desire, inadequacy.
Speaker 1: Each post is a reminder of what you don't have,
Speaker 1: and you start desiring that life that body, that trip,
Speaker 1: that perfect relationship, But it's all illusion. Nobody posts the
Speaker 1: bad moments, Nobody shows the fight they had before, the
Speaker 1: happy photo, the perfect body full of filters and angles,
Speaker 1: the trip that generated huge debt. You're comparing your reality
Speaker 1: with other people's fantasy, and you'll always lose in that comparison.
Speaker 1: Social media turned comparison into addiction. Before you compared yourself
Speaker 1: with your neighbor, your co workers. Now you compare yourself
Speaker 1: with the entire world, with celebrities, influencers, people in other countries.
Speaker 1: The number of things to desire multiplied infinitely, and your
Speaker 1: suffering multiplied along with it, because you'll never have all
Speaker 1: that nobody does. But the illusion is powerful, and there's
Speaker 1: another problem. You also participate in this game. You post
Speaker 1: your best photos, your best moments. You create your own illusion,
Speaker 1: and this disconnects you even more from reality. You start
Speaker 1: living for the likes, for the comments. Your value starts
Speaker 1: depending on stranger's approval. Each notification is a small dose
Speaker 1: of satisfaction. Each lack of notification is a small pain.
Speaker 1: You've become addicted to external validation. Schopenhauer would say, you
Speaker 1: handed control of your piece to other's opinions. And that's
Speaker 1: prison because you'll never please everyone. There will always be
Speaker 1: someone criticizing, judging, envying, and you'll suffer with each criticism.
Speaker 1: Because you based your identity on the image you project,
Speaker 1: you lost touch with who you really are. You became
Speaker 1: a character in your own life. So what to do?
Speaker 1: Schopenhauer wasn't optimistic, but he offered some exits. The first
Speaker 1: is to understand and accept this nature of will. You
Speaker 1: won't eliminate your desires, but you can stop being their slave.
Speaker 1: You can create distance between you and your impulses. When
Speaker 1: you feel a desire, arise, observe it, don't identify with it,
Speaker 1: immediately ask whether that will really bring you something of
Speaker 1: value or if it's just another empty cycle. The idea
Speaker 1: is to decrease the intensity of will in you, and
Speaker 1: how do you do that by simplifying your life, reducing needs.
Speaker 1: Each thing you decide you don't need is a freedom conquered.
Speaker 1: Minimalism isn't about being poor. It's about consciously choosing what
Speaker 1: deserves your time, money, and energy. It's about leaving the
Speaker 1: rat race, because you realize that even those who win
Speaker 1: are still rats. When you stop chasing a thousand things.
Speaker 1: Mental space remains, peace remains. You're no longer anxious about
Speaker 1: what you don't have, you're no longer comparing, You're just
Speaker 1: living with what you have, and you discover it's enough,
Speaker 1: that it always was enough. The problem was never lack
Speaker 1: of things, it was excess of desires. Schopenhauer also spoke
Speaker 1: of art as escape. When you contemplate something truly beautiful,
Speaker 1: something happens. You forget yourself, You forget your desires, your worries,
Speaker 1: your problems. For a few minutes. You're no longer that
Speaker 1: person always wanting something. You simply exist, observing, feeling, being.
Speaker 1: It's one of the few moments of real peace we achieve.
Speaker 1: It can be music, painting, nature, anything that takes you
Speaker 1: out of automatic mode. What's important is that during that contemplation,
Speaker 1: the will stops. You're not seeking anything, you're not becoming anything,
Speaker 1: You're just present, and you realize this state is infinitely
Speaker 1: more valuable than any material achievement because it's genuine, it
Speaker 1: doesn't depend on anything external. It's pure peace. Another thing
Speaker 1: that helps is passion. When you understand that everyone is
Speaker 1: suffering with this same blind will, it becomes easier to forgive.
Speaker 1: That person who irritated you is also trapped in the cycle.
Speaker 1: That difficult boss is also suffering. Everyone is trying to
Speaker 1: calm their own will somehow, some through power, others through money,
Speaker 1: others through pleasure. But everyone is in the same prison.
Speaker 1: This understanding takes you out of the center. You stop
Speaker 1: taking everything so personally, You stop thinking the world is
Speaker 1: against you. You realize everyone is fighting their own battles,
Speaker 1: and this brings lightness. You become less reactive, less defensive,
Speaker 1: more human, and curiously, the less you worry about your
Speaker 1: own desires, the lighter your life becomes. Modern minimalism took
Speaker 1: a lot of these ideas. People are realizing that accumulating
Speaker 1: things doesn't bring happiness. They're getting rid of objects, simplifying homes,
Speaker 1: reducing commitments, and they report more peace, less anxiety, more
Speaker 1: time for what matters. It's exactly what Schopenhauer suggested, less will,
Speaker 1: less suffering, simple math, but careful. It's not about becoming
Speaker 1: a monk. It's not about denying all pleasures. It's about
Speaker 1: awareness about choice. You can have desires, but you don't
Speaker 1: need to be defined by them. You can want things
Speaker 1: but not depend on them to be happy. The difference
Speaker 1: is in attachment. When you attach yourself to a specific result,
Speaker 1: any obstacle becomes tragedy. When you're open to whatever comes,
Speaker 1: everything becomes lighter. Think of it this way. You can
Speaker 1: want to pass an exam, but if your happiness depends
Speaker 1: totally on that, you're already suffering before the result. Anxiety
Speaker 1: eats you alive, and if you don't pass, you destroy yourself. Now,
Speaker 1: if you want to pass but accept it might not happen,
Speaker 1: if you already have alternative plans, If you know, you'll
Speaker 1: be okay either way, the whole process is less painful.
Speaker 1: It's about letting go doing your part and letting go
Speaker 1: of the result. Difficult, very impossible, No, but it requires practice.
Speaker 1: It requires you to challenge years of social conditioning that
Speaker 1: says you need to control everything, plan everything, guarantee everything.
Speaker 1: The truth is you don't control almost anything. The only
Speaker 1: thing under your control is how you respond to what happens.
Speaker 1: And here's a hard truth. You're going to die. Everything
Speaker 1: you conquered will stay behind. The car, the house, the money,
Speaker 1: the likes, none of it goes with you. Schopenhauer used
Speaker 1: this awareness of death as a tool. If everything is temporary.
Speaker 1: Does it make sense to suffer so much for temporary things?
Speaker 1: Does it make sense to dedicate your entire life chasing
Speaker 1: things that won't last? This isn't a depressing message. It's liberating.
Speaker 1: When you accept that nothing is permanent. You stop clinging
Speaker 1: so much, enjoy the present moment more because you know
Speaker 1: it won't return. You stop postponing happiness until you get
Speaker 1: that thing. You realize happiness isn't in conquering, it's inexisting
Speaker 1: without needing to conquer anything. But what about goals and dreams?
Speaker 1: They remain valid. The difference is motivation. You can work
Speaker 1: for something because it genuinely makes sense to you, not
Speaker 1: because society expects it, not because everyone is doing it,
Speaker 1: but because it has real meaning in your life. And
Speaker 1: if you don't achieve it, that's okay too. The value
Speaker 1: was in the process, in the growth, in the learning,
Speaker 1: not just in the final result. Schopenhauer proposed a more
Speaker 1: contemplative life, less blind action and more reflection, less consumption
Speaker 1: and more experience, less accumulation and more detachment. It's not
Speaker 1: an easy path because it goes against everything you were taught,
Speaker 1: but it's a path that leads to less suffering, and
Speaker 1: in the end, isn't that what everyone wants to suffer less?
Speaker 1: The wisdom is in recognizing the game. You're playing a
Speaker 1: game where the rules are the more you want, the
Speaker 1: more you suffer. Knowing this, you can play differently. You
Speaker 1: can want less, you can appreciate more what you have.
Speaker 1: You can stop running and start walking. The world will
Speaker 1: keep spinning, people will keep running, but you don't need
Speaker 1: to be in that race. And there's an interesting paradox.
Speaker 1: When you stop chasing happiness desperately, it appears more frequently.
Speaker 1: When you stop needing external validation, people respect you more.
Speaker 1: When you stop clinging to thing, you appreciate them more deeply.
Speaker 1: It's like holding sand. The harder you squeeze, the more
Speaker 1: it escapes. When you relax your hand, it stays. That's
Speaker 1: why so many sages throughout history spoke of detachment, not
Speaker 1: because things are bad, but because attachment to things is prison.
Speaker 1: You can have, can enjoy, can delight in them. You
Speaker 1: just can't depend. Can't make possession your identity because possession
Speaker 1: is temporary. You are temporary. Everything changes. The only constant
Speaker 1: is change. Schopenhauer lived this. He had money, but lived simply.
Speaker 1: He had knowledge, but didn't seek fame. He spent hours
Speaker 1: in contemplation, writing thinking. He wasn't trying to impress anyone.
Speaker 1: He was trying to understand life, and his conclusions, though harsh,
Speaker 1: are honest. He doesn't sell you. Illusion doesn't promise you'll
Speaker 1: be a millionaire or famous. If you follow five steps.
Speaker 1: He shows you reality bear and raw, and reality is.
Speaker 1: Suffering is part of human life. You can't eliminate it completely,
Speaker 1: but you can reduce it greatly. You can live with
Speaker 1: more awareness. You can make better choices. You can stop
Speaker 1: self sabotaging by chasing empty desires. You can build a
Speaker 1: simpler life, more true, more yours. The first step is
Speaker 1: to stop lying to yourself. Recognize that purchase won't make
Speaker 1: you happy, that light doesn't define your value, that position
Speaker 1: won't fill your emptiness. When you stop seeking happiness in
Speaker 1: the wrong places, you can start looking in the right places.
Speaker 1: And the right places are usually simpler than you imagine.
Speaker 1: They're small moments. A true conversation, a sunset observed without rush,
Speaker 1: a book that expands your mind, a walk without destination.
Speaker 1: These things cost nothing, don't impress any one on social media,
Speaker 1: but they feel something real inside you, because they're not
Speaker 1: about wanting, they're about being. Schopenhauer left us a brutal gift,
Speaker 1: the unfiltered truth. Yes, the more we desire, the more
Speaker 1: we suffer.