The world is changing rapidly
When I cast my eye on the landscape of the world, I see confusion in a discontented people. I see so many people turning to so many different things in the hope that this or that will solve their problems. Finally! The solution to their discontent. If I just have this, If I just do that, If they would only do X or not do Y If, If, If …and yet we remain incomplete, and we know it.
We live in another period of human history where everything is in a state of flux. There are so many things changing so rapidly that it is difficult to keep up. In the whirlwind, we, like the humans before us, turn to so many things in an attempt to have something firm to grab hold of. And yet, we are still discontented people.
We seek happiness in the wrong places
The problem, my beleaguered humans, is that the solutions we are seeking are almost exclusively external. Some turn to money, some to substances, to fitness, to religion, to non-religion, to spirituality, to food, to politics, legislation, work, success, body alterations of all kinds, and of course, materialism. All in the chasing of happiness, that ever-elusive and fleeting happiness.
To be happy and content is what we desire more than anything. Ask just about anyone, at least in the west, what the meaning of life is, and they will give you some derivation of eat, drink, and be merry. Happiness is evidently all there is.
Your pursuit of happiness left you lacking
And yet, you are not happy despite this desperate pursuit. You are so discontented. No matter how much of your drug of choice is consumed, you still feel a hole needing yet further fulfillment.
We turn to all of these things in the hope that they will satisfy us. What is being satisfied at its core? Most of us cannot say. We simply know that there is something compelling us to do this or that. My message to you, my much-confused fellow people, is that a great recurring universal truth is that happiness comes from within.
Happiness never comes from outside yourself
My message to you, fellow human, is that you can go out and buy all you can afford (and that you cannot afford), you can make all the money in the world, have all the success, have your political ideology reign supreme, and everything in between, and you will still be lacking.
You will never be happy with anything external, for happiness has never come through the external. The wisest and most influential people of all time, from Socrates to Confucius to the Buddha and beyond, all hit on this again and again.
Happiness Comes From Within
True happiness comes from within. Without that, all else is dust and air. With that, anything you pursue will be that much sweeter, that much better, and that much more fulfilling.
It will be so because you are acting true to your nature and true to who you really are. When we set off pursuing all the distractions of our age, we are never fully complete because, very often, we are on the wrong path for us.
The solution cannot be what has been offered
The root of all the drama and chaos of modernity is doing the opposite of what the majority is doing. The paths of our era have been pursued for a long time and have an established track record. Go ahead and pursue them if you will, but it will lead to a known destination. And that place will not improve how you feel.
That road has a known end
But others have been down that road and found it wanting. For me, when I see problems, I believe the solution lies in doing something different than what led to those problems. If you do not like things, you must change yourself first. Only after going through that struggle will you have the inner strength to change the external.
You have the solution
Discontented people, I urge you to look within for your true self and path in this world. To stop the chaos, one must do things differently; one must be different. Your happiness will come from only one source, and that source is not external to you. You, yourself, possess the answer, as you always have.
Only by finding who you truly are will you cease to be a leaf blowing this way and that way in the wind.