Menoeceus 130-131

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Translation

We also regard self-sufficiency as a great virtue – not so that we may only enjoy a few things, but so that we may be satisfied with a few things if those are all we have. We are firmly convinced that those who least yearn for luxury enjoy it most, and that while natural desires are easily fulfilled, vain desires are insatiable. Plain meals offer the same pleasure as luxurious fare, so long as the pain of hunger is removed. Bread and water offer the greatest pleasure for those in need of them. Accustoming oneself to a simple lifestyle is healthy and it doesn’t sap our motivation to perform the necessary tasks of life. Doing without luxuries for long intervals allows us to better appreciate them and keeps us fearless against changes of fortune.

Analysis

According to Epicurus, the salient benefit of taming one's desires by the critical application of reason is self-sufficiency, which he acknowledges as mega agathon, a great good. Yet Epicurus makes a finely nuanced distinction: he is not advocating an ascetic lifestyle any more than he is a profligate one. The point of attaining self-sufficiency is not that we should deny ourselves the harmless pleasures that might appear before us due to some fortuitous abundance, but that we should bear ungrudgingly those occasions where little is available to us. The Epicurean need not reject, or feel guilty about accepting an invitation to a sumptuous dinner; at the same time, neither ought one be dismayed with a humble one on one's own table. That is the essence of Epicurean self-sufficiency.

Epicurus posits his estimate of luxury paradoxically: those who need luxury the least enjoy it the most. While superficially paradoxical, the assertion makes perfect sense: those who can be happy with little, enjoy the occasional luxury or abundance as simply an extraordinarily happy occasion; the ones, on the contrary, who absolutely need luxury in order to be happy are either jaded by the incessant abundance of luxury --if they have it-- or more probably are unhappy much of the time, when such luxury is not available to them.

This notion ties in with Epicurus' frequent assertion that what is needed in order for our natural desires to be satisfied is easy to attain; everything above and beyond that is often very difficult to attain. Being self-sufficient depends critically on being satisfied with in the euporiston, that which is readily available; this is the essence of "natural wealth", as in Principal Doctrine 15. A simple broth relieves one's hunger just as well as a sumptuous meal would; plain bread and water are extremely welcome when one is hungry and thirsty.

This passage closes with some wonderfully modern advice: a light diet is complementary to good health in general; overeating makes one sluggish in one's everyday activities. In addition to these physical, biological benefits, there is a psychological one, too: accustoming ourselves to our modest pleasures disposes us well towards an occasional extravagance (i.e. we enjoy it, but do not consider it essential to our happiness), and makes us fearless towards possible adverse turns of fortune (i.e. we do not worry that such extravagance may not be available to us in the future).