The Measure of a Sufficient Life

No. 146

Whoever is healthy and has bread enough to eat,
And for his resting place a modest, small retreat;
Neither servant to another, nor master of a soul—
Tell him: live gladly, for his world is full and complete. ^*

Philosophical Reflection

In this quatrain, Khayyam offers one of his clearest definitions of a life well lived — and it is striking in its restraint. There is no call to wealth, power, recognition, or even knowledge. The inventory is brief and grounded: health, sustenance, and a place to rest. These are not ideals but conditions, the minimum requirements for dignity rather than ambition. By limiting the list so carefully, Khayyam reframes happiness as sufficiency, not accumulation.

The third line introduces the ethical core of the poem. To be neither servant nor master is to exist outside the chains of domination. Dependence and control are presented as equal threats to freedom: one erodes autonomy through submission, the other through obligation. Khayyam’s vision of freedom is quiet and social rather than heroic — a balance in which one neither commands nor obeys, but simply exists among others without hierarchy.

The final line delivers the conclusion with gentle authority. Such a person, Khayyam insists, already possesses “a good world.” The phrase is deliberately modest. It does not promise paradise, transcendence, or eternal reward. It affirms the adequacy of the present. To “live gladly” is not to chase pleasure but to recognise when the essentials are already in place.

This quatrain belongs primarily to Meaning & Doubt, with strong resonance in Ethics and Contentment. It aligns closely with On the World and the Duty, where Khayyam considers responsibility within a finite life, and with Treatise on the General Properties of Existence, which frames value in relation to necessity rather than excess. There is also an implicit challenge to social illusion: much of what humans pursue is revealed as surplus to genuine well-being.

Khayyam’s insight here is quietly radical. By lowering the threshold of a “complete” life, he removes the anxiety of endless striving. Freedom, health, and enough — no more, no less — form the boundary within which joy becomes possible. In an age obsessed with comparison and excess, the quatrain reads less like advice and more like a corrective: happiness is not distant or rare; it is often already present, unnoticed.

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Footnote

* Source: Trabkhaneh, Homaei, no. 146, translated by Kam Austine for the book Philosophy in Verse

Related Khayyam’s Treatises:
On the World and the Duty
Treatise on the General Properties of Existence
Doubts Concerning the Bases of Knowledge

Internal Themes: #Contentment #Freedom #Ethics #Sufficiency

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Published as part of the Philosophy in Verse Series — under “Meaning & Doubt.”