You are not happy because everything you do, say, and think is for yourself
The great dissatisfaction with life.
Terence Gray, better known as Wei Wu Wei, a 20th-century Taoist philosopher and writer, said, “Why are you unhappy? Because 99.9 percent of everything you think, and of everything you do, is for yourself — and there isn’t one.” For most people, the more we focus on ourselves — our wants, needs, and goals — the happier we’ll be. We’ve been taught our whole lives to focus on our goals, desires, and image.
We’ve built an idea of who we are — our personality, our needs, our desires based on thoughts, habits, and conditioning.
If you strip away all that, what’s left?
Gray thought the more we focus our lives around “the self,” the more unhappy we become. The “me” sense of self we’re always trying to satisfy has insatiable “wants.”
It’s a never-ending cycle of desire and dissatisfaction.
“In fact, desire is sustained dissatisfaction.” — Todd McGowan
Every time you get something you want, the feeling of satisfaction fades quickly. You will soon need something else to make you feel whole again. It’s like trying to fill a bucket with a hole in it — it’s never enough.
