I know in my soul, as Bogle does, that I have more than enough. And so I spend most of my days working to serve those who serve the poor, but I also enjoy every reasonable perquisite provided me by forty years of discipline and hard work.

It’s really that simple.

A form of this line of thought came to me while driving with the top down in our 2002 Ford Thunderbird on a sunny, 75-degree February day in Orlando, Florida. My sister and brothers live there, and for four to six weeks each winter, Alice and I stay in the apartment above my sister’s garage. I work in the mornings, then enjoy the sunshine the rest of the day and my family in the evenings.

With my favorite tunes blaring through my iPhone and my mind drifting to the memory of a wonderful dinner with my family the night before, an overwhelming feeling of gratitude hit me. It is hard to describe though I suspect you’ve had similar feelings—I just felt lucky and thankful that that moment was so pleasurable. And it was then that I wondered, would I be any happier if this were a 2014 Porsche convertible and I was headed for my $5-million winter mansion overlooking the ocean?

The answer was no, of course, since a sunny day off in Florida among a loving family seems like plenty. Like Heller, I have enough.

The Buddha said, “Beware of the striving.” And yet it is also said that his last words on Earth were, “Strive on.” This is a paradox that has been studied by scholars and Buddhist monks for years and the conclusion most seem to come to is that the Buddha was modeling that there is a middle ground in every endeavor.

When we feel ourselves reaching for more and more and more, when we feel that we never have enough, we are certainly not satisfied. But most of us also won’t live a happy life by renouncing all material goods and walking barefoot through the world. There is a middle ground, a place where we put forth enough effort and talent and where we do, in fact, strive, but we do not feel chased by our constant need to attain, accomplish, and gain.