1) How much can I get?
This is the human default: money, prestige, a graduate degree, a four-bedroom house, a new car every six years, a spouse, several children, great health, and on.
2) How much can I do without?
Or as Henry David Thoreau said, “A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.”
I heard this story once:
One day a medieval squire asked a gentleman eating a dinner of rice and beans why he did not submit to the rule of the King. After all, if he submitted he would be afforded luxurious meals. The gentleman responded:
“If you could subsist on rice and beans you would not need to submit to the rule of the King.”
