As someone in my early 60’s it has taken many years of suffering before I finally found that my pursuit of happiness was misguided. I came across the following quote earlier this year and it really made sense to me. All these years I was looking for external things to make me happy. Validation from others, the perfect relationship, impressive resume of accomplishments, exciting vacations, new car, ect. made me narcissistic and are only temporary fixes. They make you feel good for awhile but they wear off and you are back to square one. Then I had to look at what would give me peace of mind and tone down my self critical nature. For me, peace of mind would come from accepting that I’m imperfect and living more authentically with my head held high. I feel shame when I look at how much of a phony I’ve been in the past but I’m making real progress in expressing the real me!

Happiness, true happiness, is an inner quality. It is a state of mind. If your mind is at peace, you are happy. If your mind is at peace, but you have nothing else, you can be happy. If you have everything the world can give – pleasure, possessions, power – but lack peace of mind, you can never be happy.
Dada Vaswani

• This topic was modified 8 years ago by Jim.