Five For Your Hive: Enough is Enough

Cyrus the Great, Bernie Madoff, Gift From The Sea, You Have My Authorisation, One More Piece of Pie

Enough is Enough

In 559 BC, Cyrus gathered an army from the scattered tribes of Persia and marched against his grandfather, Astyages, whom he defeated easily. He continued his conquest by annihilating Croesus, then the Ionian islands, and then Babylon. His success earned him the name Cyrus the Great, King of the World. His thirst for power raged on as he set his sights on the far-east tribes of Massagetai, a fierce warrior race led by Queen Tomyris. Believing himself superhuman and incapable of defeat, he launched an attack on Massagetai, despite firm warnings from its leader not to. When the Persian army defeated and occupied a part of Massagetai, they captured General Spargapises, son of Queen Tomyris. "Now, listen to me," she wrote to Cyrus, "and I will advise you for your own good: Give me back my son and leave my country with your forces intact, and be content with your triumph over a third part of the Massagetai." "If you refuse," she continued, "I swear by the sun our master to give you more blood than you can drink, for all your gluttony." Cyrus scoffed. He swore to crush these barbarians. Tomyris's son, watching this madness unfold before him, took his own life in humiliation. This overwhelmed Tomyris, causing her to manifest into a vengeful frenzy. What ensued was a violent and bloody battle, with her army prevailing over the Persians and killing Cyrus the Great (more accurately, decapitating him and submerging his head in a pool of his own blood). "One act of arrogance," Robert Greene wrote in The 48 Laws of Power, "undid all of Cyrus's good work." He disregarded the counsel of his oracles and advisers. He showed no concern for upsetting a queen. His actions were not driven by reason but by emotion. Instead of concentrating on and securing his already-extensive empire, he continued to advance, with no plan or sound vision besides ultimate desecration. "History is littered," Greene wrote, "with the ruins of victorious empires and the corpses of leaders who could not learn to stop and consolidate their gains." Do not go past the mark you aimed for. In success, know when to stop. Learn to know when enough is enough.

Getting the Goalpost to Stop Moving

Before Bernie Madoff rose to notoriety with his two-decade Ponzi scheme, he was an unbelievably successful and legitimate businessman. He was what people in the industry would call a market maker—one that matches buyers and sellers of stock, and profit from the difference between the prices at which they are willing to buy and sell. The Wall Street Journal ran an article that revealed the immensity of his securities firm, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities: It had a $740 million average daily volume of trades executed electronically that equaled 9% of the New York Stock Exchange's. In earnings, "Madoff's firm was making between $25 million and $50 million per year," recalled a former staff member. That was an insane amount of money, legitimately and non-fraudulently obtained. So, "the question we should ask of Madoff is," Morgan Housel wrote in The Psychology of Money, "why someone worth hundreds of millions of dollars would be so desperate for more money that they risked everything in pursuit of even more?" Everything a man could only dream of—wealth, prestige, power—Madoff had it all. Yet he threw it all away because he wanted more. He risked everything he needed to acquire something he did not need. He had no sense of enough. So the one thing Housel said we must acknowledge is, whether you're a multi-millionaire, a commoner like me, or somewhere in between: "The hardest financial skill is getting the goalpost to stop moving." When the addiction for more outpaces contentment, one successful step forward moves the goalpost two steps ahead, which is why you'll forever feel short and wanting more. Strive for what 99.9999% of people do not have—enough. Leave the goalpost at where it should be. Tell yourself that it is enough. Have fun with a sense of enough.

Choose Simplicity, Choose Complication

Author Anne Morrow Lindbergh recalled a conversation with a friend who spent three years in a German prison camp. "Of course, we did not get enough to eat," she wrote in Gift From the Sea, "we were sometimes atrociously treated, we had little physical freedom." And yet, in those arduous moments where life lost all meaning, prison life taught him how to live with less. This realisation led to an "incredible spiritual freedom" and "peace" beyond understanding. "And for the most part," Lindbergh wrote, "we, who could choose simplicity, choose complication." The pursuit for more—despite having enough—is that not rather ugly and complex for man?

You Have My Authorisation

Like Cyrus the Great, the tyranny of Muammar Gaddafi was relentless. For forty-two years, Gaddafi had ruled Libya with a viciousness that, even by the standards of his fellow dictators, spilled into madness. "He was pledging," Obama wrote in A Promised Land, "to go house by house, home by home, alley by alley, person by person, until the country is cleansed of dirt and scum." Like Queen Tomyris, Obama fired warning shots. "I called for him to relinquish power," Obama wrote, "arguing that he had lost the legitimacy to govern." "We imposed economic sanctions…froze billions of dollars in assets…passed an arms embargo…and referred the case of Libya to the International Criminal Court." But the Libyan madman was undeterred. He was operating out of his mind, no longer guided by reason. The lunacy continued as Gaddafi's troops showed no signs of pulling back and started breaching the perimeter of Benghazi. "You have my authorisation," Obama said to his military adviser—four words that sparked a full-fledged military intervention, dismantling Gaddafi's forces, ultimately leading to his capture and death.

One More Piece of Pie

In A Light in the Attic, American writer Shel Silverstein penned a poem titled 'Pie Problem.' "If I eat one more piece of pie," Silverstein wrote, "I'll die." Then, "If I can't have one more piece of pie, I'll die." He concludes with an obnoxious truth: "So, since it's all decided that I must die, I might as well have one more piece of pie." Our tendency to seek more without realising when it's time to call it is deeply troubling, deeply grotesque. "To let a momentary thrill or an emotional victory influence or guide your decisions will prove fatal," Greene wrote. When you achieve success, take a step back. Be cautious. Stop when those more capable than you warn it. Reflect on your path. When you realise you have enough, stop.