Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Unhappiness & Depression

The Cause of Unhappiness

The cause of unhappiness is a belief. What happens, no matter how undesirable or destructive to our life, health, desires or loves, does not cause unhappiness. The belief that we have to be unhappy is the only cause.

We merely believe we need to have things or avoid things in order to avoid unhappiness, which we would not have to fear if we did not believe we needed to be unhappy.

What Causes Unhappiness

When a person is believing he/she has to be unhappy, what they are believing is that they have to be unhappy because they believe they are against themselves. The belief in unhappiness is the belief in being wrong for oneself. Unhappiness, in fact, means that I believe that I do, or want, or think, or feel a way that is bad for me.

A person believes: Certain things I do not want to happen may happen or are now happening. I don’t want them to. I feel bad (and am worried or afraid now) because I “shouldn’t” be thinking negatively about my life now. Maybe I shouldn’t be not wanting what is evidently happening anyway. I am (as-if) denying reality, and that is wrong. I will be unhappy about this in the future because when certain things I do not want or do not like happen I will feel a way that is bad for me. It is wrong to expect misfortune. That is “unhappy” of me.

It doesn’t matter that if the undesirable event happens to me from circumstances out of my control, or if I think I am the cause or part of the cause; unhappiness comes as me believing that I now have proof that I am bad for myself.

“Bad for myself” means I am not really wanting for me what I “should” be wanting for me, and something can prove it. The belief is that this event “proves” it.

Basically, feeling bad means that I believe that what I do, or think, or want, or feel means I am against my own best interests. I believe these are a bad way of doing thinking, wanting or feeling. The way I am being is a bad (wrong, self-defeating) way of being.

This could be called the same as believing that I will be a way I shouldn’t be, or think a way I shouldn’t or want or feel a way I shouldn’t. If we didn't believe that we could be a way we “shouldn’t” we couldn’t feel unhappy no matter what else we felt.

All unhappiness is the fear that we have a bad attitude for ourselves. We are afraid that something proves we are bad for ourselves in the sense that we are in some way against what we are for, and for what we are against. We are afraid that we have a self-defeating attitude.

The fear that we have a bad, or self-defeating, attitude is the same as distrusting the very source or cause of our motivation. We are unhappy when we believe our very life, our heart, our self is against all that we live for; our personal happiness.

Happiness is the freedom to be as we are, however we are; richer or poorer, in sickness or in health, gaining or losing, succeeding or failing, wanting or not wanting, approving or not approving, forever. Happy is what we are and what we’ll be if we don’t believe we are wrong to be as we are.

No comments: