Happiness eludes us because we are running away from ourselves. We do not realize that true happiness is inside of us.
We are running away from ourselves when we live in denial about what we need to change. We are running away from ourselves when we refuse to confront our own ego, and choose instead to seek appreciation and recognition. We want to be adored but we don’t adore our own real self. We don’t want to be ignored, but we ignore our own real self.
Our real self doesn’t need anything. When our mind is clear, we realize this. But when the mind is filled with thoughts of poor “little me,” we think the whole world is against us. The truth is there is nothing happening to us that we are not doing to ourselves. If we are angry, we are making ourselves angry. If we are bored, we are making ourselves bored. If we are miserable, we are making ourselves miserable.
If you think this is over-simplification, then you are simply mistaken. If we mistake our mind for our own real self, then we have created a false identity, and that mistaken identity creates lots of confusion. If we do not know who we really are, and what we really are, it is impossible to be who we really are, which means it will be impossible to be really happy. OM