You might say unhappiness is the number of unfulfilled desires divided by desires fulfilled, and that’s what humanity focuses on. Reducing the perceived unhappiness by fulfilling as many desires as possible.
“When she becomes my wife, I will be happy.”
“When I have children I will feel fulfilled.”
“I am one promotion away from happiness.”
“This house will stay with our family for generations.”
“Retirement is like riding into the sunset.”
Life doesn’t work that way—it only appears that way. A desire creates a tension in our system and its fulfillment releases happiness hormones, but the system is only at rest for a little while, then a new desire is born. In the depth of our being is a feeling of “I still haven’t found what I am looking for!”
Naturally, spirituality has the answer to the problem statement. Buddha, and many others have solved this problem for us which was nicely summarized by David Bohm in a conversation with J. Krishnamurti, “Desire is a thought producing feelings.” Spot the root cause of this thought and the game is over.
We have two areas we can tackle in order to get to the root of our never-ending discontentment. One, notice the games we play with ourselves on the thought level and two, zoom into the pain body that creates artificial desires to voice its presence. Find it, get your arms around it and let go!
You still haven’t found what you are looking for? Work on the outer as before, but dig into the inner until the realization hits, the inner is the outer, and restlessness and unhappiness can be resolved once and for all.
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