“We must consider that the goal of all our choices and avoidances is the health of the body and the tranquility of the soul.”Epicur · Maximele fundamentale · -280 · Maxima 22
A choice is good only if it keeps your body healthy and your soul calm.
Epicurus reduces ethics to a practical test: pleasure is the good, but true pleasure means the absence of pain and disturbance, not the piling up of sensations. The mechanism is long-term accounting, since many costly pleasures bring anxiety, dependence, or illness and so fail the test. A simple dinner with friends brings calm; a career lived only for status brings money and insomnia, and fails the soul's criterion.
Why it matters It helps with modern decisions, from shopping to changing careers: ask whether the choice preserves your health and peace or merely impresses.