“The great source of both the misery and disorders
of human life, seems to arise from over-rating the difference between
one permanent situation and another. Avarice over-rates the difference
between poverty and riches: ambition, that between a private and a
public station: vain-glory, that between obscurity and extensive
reputation. The person under the influence of any of those extravagant
passions, is not only miserable in his actual situation, but is often
disposed to disturb the peace of society, in order to arrive at that
which he so foolishly admires. The slightest observation, however, might
satisfy him, that, in all the ordinary situations of human life, a
well-disposed mind may be equally calm, equally cheerful, and equally
contented. Some of those situations may, no doubt, deserve to be
preferred to others: but none of them can deserve to be pursued with
that passionate ardour which drives us to violate the rules either of
prudence or of justice; or to corrupt the future tranquillity of our
minds, either by shame from the remembrance of our own folly, or by
remorse from the horror of our own injustice.”
Adam Smith
When our ambition is bounded, it leads us to work joyfully, when our ambition is unbounded it leads us to cheat, steal, be unethical. When our fears are bounded, it makes us cautious, prudent. When our fear are unbounded and over blown, we become reckless and cowardly.
Our longings and worry are to some degree overblown because we have to some degree within us the capacity to manufacture that we constantly chase i.e happiness. Too much choices we cannot manufacture happiness.
