These two people offer an example of how much we can be attached to our way of life, even if it makes us suffer. We are scared to let go of what we know and open up to what we don’t know, even if this unknown quantity is a good feeling. This dynamic comes from an incorrect concept of happiness that is deeply rooted in our society.

We think that happiness is a goal to be achieved, that it is some outcome of our social, working, sexual, parental, relational and other types of performances. It seems to be something that we feel is absent in us and we do not consider to be an existing part of our nature. In this way, we condemn ourselves, because we assume unconsciously that we are unhappy and need to do something to become happy.

This kind of happiness arises only from fulfilling expectations and superficial desires. We look to satisfy them in the outside world and in the end we only acheive temporary fulfilment. As a consequence, we become addicted to the external world as a source of this so-called “happiness.” But can we still call it happiness?