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.
To state it simply:
If a person did not believe he or she had to be unhappy, they would not and could not be.
We merely believe we need to have things or avoid things in order to avoid unhappiness, which we would not have to teat If we did not believe we needed to be unhappy.
Bruce M. Di Marsico, 1970
What Causes Unhappiness?
The Seven Understandings of All Unhappiness
1. Unhappiness is the feeling of a belief about a perceived or imagined phenomena; not an
experience caused by the phenomena or anything else.
2. Unhappiness is experiencing your own believing that an event is bad and/or should not be
because you believe IT causes unhappiness. 3- Believing something causes unhappiness is the very reason it seems to “cause” unhappiness.
4. Believing that something can cause unhappiness is the only cause of the fear of it. By “fear” is
meant loathing, need to avoid, need to cure, need to kill or eliminate, disgust, hatred, terror, horror, repulsion, disdain and all such similar feelings. (Fear is not a simple desire to avoid, destroy, or otherwise prevent or eliminate a threat to your desired values. That attitude does not need to presume avoiding unhappiness in order to justify a simple desire.)
5. Believing someone or something is morally wrong or evil, psychologically “sick”, or behaviorally inappropriate is to fear that person or thing as if it could cause unhappiness.
6. Unhappiness is fearing that unhappiness can “happen” or be caused by anything.
7. Unhappiness is believing that something is necessary, something has to be, should be, ought to be, or must be other than what it is.
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 1 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.
FEAR AND UNHAPPINESS (SADNESS AND ANGER)
The two forms of unhappiness are the myriad forms of sadness and anger. Anxiety (or worry) is fear; another kind of feeling which really is the anticipation of unhappiness (feeling bad). All fear is the fear of feeling bad (unhappy). This is expecting being a way that we will then feel is wrong. It could be expecting to behave in a way we believe will prove we are against ourselves. We could fear being directly self-defeating like an hysteric. It could be expecting to be treated in a way we believe will prove we are against ourselves. We fear bad luck like a paranoiac. It could be expecting an undesirable event which is a combination of both the above. It could be the experience or the anticipation of a mysteriously caused, or random, accidental, bad luck which, we don’t know how, but somehow it does prove we shouldn’t have been the way we are.
PROOF WE ARE “BAD”
All unhappiness is caused by the belief in “proof that we shouldn’t be happy; which really means “proof” that we shouldn’t have been free to have been as we were, which is why we are as we are. The undesirable incident “proves”, “shows” or “makes it be” that we are bad for ourselves. The belief that we could in any way be bad for ourselves is unhappiness. Anyone who believes that is, by definition, unhappy.
People are either sad or angry at this proof. Sadness is the acceptance of such proof. Sadness is believing that what is proved is that they are unable to be other than against themselves. They can’t help it.
Anger is believing that they are being made to be against themselves, and it should not have been necessary for it to have happened at this time. They believe that not only are they against themselves, but it was caused by their not admitting or expecting to be disappointed at this time. Anger is feeling wrong for not expecting to be wrong. They fee! they fooled themselves. People can seem to be angry at themselves or at another. They are really angry that they allowed themselves to be mistaken.
People are angry at being fooled when they “shouldn’t” be. In short, anger is believing in being tricked Into being self-defeating. The arch-typical case is finding oneself being punished for doing what was believed was a “good” deed.
Sadness is feeling bad about losing something or someone we believe we need for our happiness. Without it we believe we have less “proof of our goodness for ourselves.
THE ESSENTIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF EMOTIONAL EVENTS
Things to be happy about: Things that “prove” we are good for ourselves, or whatever takes away what “proves” we are bad for ourselves (even good luck).
Things to be unhappy about: Things that “prove” we are bad for ourselves, or whatever takes away what “proves” we are good for ourselves (even bad luck).
The things that can matter to happiness or unhappiness can be anything: thoughts or lack of thoughts, remembering or forgetting, desires or lack of certain desires, behavior or lack of behavior, events that happen to or are caused by self, by another person, by nature or God, or by the lack of another person, or loss of a thing. In fact, anything that “means” whether we are good or bad for ourselves.
To believe in sin is to fundamentally believe that I am against my very self, my very good, my own future. Unhappiness is just a secularized belief in sinfulness, wrongness, and is the same as believing that we choose what we know to be wrong or bad for us.
Like Adam and Eve we believe we know that some of what we are happy to choose is actually bad for our happiness. The truth is, though, that the mistakes we may make (if they are) ate results of the choices we make for what we want, and need not prove we can choose against what we want. We need knowledge or better information (if anything), not a change of heart. Our motivation is the best possible human motivation. Given human equipment, we want with human minds and hearts—with human brains and guts. We perceive and choose accordingly with human sensibilities, and only pay with what we have been given to pay with—things we do not need for happiness. There is nothing wrong with the way we work.
To get or keep what we want, even our lives, we need what it takes to do that. Sometimes it seems beyond our capabilities. That perception (whether true or not) is a function of our happiness and intransigent self-interest. Everything that is truly us is an aspect of our happy self-interest, and nothing is not. Our motivation is our self, and identical to our very being. If things do not go the way we want it is not for the lack of our wanting them to, and therefore not from a lack of our best informed motivation.
Good and Bad, or Holy and Evil, when used in a general or moral sense (without an object such as good to or good for something or goal, or bad to or bad for something or purpose); means good or bad for happiness. A good work is one that promotes happiness. A good experience is one that promotes or causes happiness. A good or holy person is one that causes and/or deserves happiness. Conversely, a bad or evil work, or deed, or event b one that causes unhappiness. A bad or evil person is one that causes and deserves unhappiness.
We know from all the above that there simply is no such thing or no one that is bad, evil or unhappy causing. Nothing can prove that you are bad for you.
ARE YOU GOOD? ARE ALL THINGS GOOD?
In the moral sense it would have to follow that everything that is, including yourself, is truly good, in that nothing is bad.
If good is better than not bad, and is supposed to be a “proof that you are truly good for yourself, and proof therefore of your right to be happy, then you will need to know that everything Is proof of your goodness and holiness; thereby understanding all as causing happiness.
Your very being is the cause of your happiness—your right to be yourself is happiness. It is your nature to be good. It is evident that you have the right to be happy, always. You are made that way and have no choice. Since your very self desires happiness above all, and since nothing has the power to deprive you of happiness, you have the ability, because of your right, because you are allowed to be happy.
You have no choice but to be yourself. Your self can not be other than good for you, nor can your self act other than in your best interests. Your best interests are anything you want them to be. Your self defines your best interests in the way that you are best satisfied is best. You will always agree with your self as to what your best interest is, and will always be motivated accordingly.
You always agree with yourself, perfectly, and never do not. You have no choice. Don’t be ashamed of anything you are. You are in perfect conformity with the cause of your being. In religious terms, you are exactly the way God wants you to be, and you need not, nor cannot be otherwise.
Do anything, or don’t do anything, now or at any time. You can never harm or diminish the happiness in your future. You can always expect to be happier and happier.
All people are good and can do no evil, but all believe otherwise. All have the right to be happy. They have no choice.
To live in joy and peace is the happy reality.