On Gratitude.

Nobody will tell you this (except Carl Jung), but most of the time the things you think someone else is missing are really things lacking within yourself.

And you can end up wasting your whole life looking for someone or something more to fill that void in you, only to realize one day that you walked away from everything you needed, because you were too blind to see that you only had to fix yourself in order to fully appreciate what you already had.

And all of this makes perfect sense from the standpoint of basic logic: if you cannot want what you have, then by definition as soon as you have what you want, you will not want it anymore…and thus you will want more. And once you have more then you will not want that and you will want still more, and so on and so forth. The problem then is not in the having, the problem is in the wanting. This is such a significant idea that it is one of the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism:

1. Life is characterized by suffering or dissatisfaction (Dukkha).

2. The cause of suffering is desire/craving/attachment. (Samudaya)

3. It is possible to be free from suffering by letting go of craving and attachment (Nirodha).

4. The Eightfold Path, also known as the Middle Way Path is the path that leads to the end of suffering (Magga).

An ungrateful person will throw away the diamond they have in their hand just so that they can go dig in the dirt in search of a bigger one. And they will usually end up poor and with broken, beaten up hands and fingers after never having found anything more.

This is because it was never the diamond that was lacking— what they thought it was missing was really something missing within themselves. They were looking outside for something missing on the inside, which is of course why they never find it.

And the part what they are missing on the inside is of course Gratitide — the ability to appreciate, to value, and to be grateful. Gratitude is the shield that protects us from ourselves. It forces us to look inward for the real source of our problems; it tells us to see the value in what we already have; it prevents us from wasting the limited time we have chasing things that won’t actually make us any happier; it reveals to us the genuine happiness that we seek, which is waiting right under our noses.

Gratitude is absolutely necessary for any form of happiness — if you cannot be grateful then you will never be happy, and the more grateful you are, the happier you will be. So, if one finds oneself looking for more from others or from life, then their own gratitude is the only thing worth searching for and pursuing. Every other path leads inevitably away from happiness.