Draw one circle inside another. The inner circle is you. The outer circle is the world.
One of the main pursuits in life is being better. The stronger, wiser and more moral you are the more you can achieve.
There are things in life which are bad. Some of those bad things are innate parts of your character and psychology. They can’t be entirely avoided, only fought against and managed. Other things, like addiction, are imposed from the external world. You can’t be a drug addict if you never take drugs. This second class of bad thing is often easy to avoid. It’s clear what the bad thing is. It’s clear that the tradeoff, pleasure for a chance at addiction in the case of drugs, is not worth it. All it takes is a choice and an obvious one at that.
My impression is that for the average person born in the west today, all it takes to have a decent life is to avoid obviously bad choices.
Dissent 