Unhappiness is based on resistance: It is about you resisting a certain outcome of the past or a possible outcome of the future. You compare the outcome to your expectations, to what you want, to what you think is right and then you resist the outcome if it turns out any other way. Basically it is your judgement of an event, a behaviour or a result as „wrong“ or „bad“ that causes you to be unhappy.

This is a pretty arrogant way of going trough life!

Have you ever noticed that many things you considered „bad“ turned out to be a very good thing after all? And vice versa? Happens all the time as our judgement unfortunately is not very accurate. It is based on very limited information indeed yet we go through life thinking we have figured it all out.

Not only is it arrogant, it is also pretty righteous. You want other people (and yourself!) to behave and show up in line with your ideas of „right and wrong“ and you want the whole universe and „life“ to show up in a way that pleases you and is in line with your ideas. Now you may have noticed over the years that neither people nor life are particularly bothered to do just that. Yet, you keep insisting on knowing better and that is why you are unhappy.

In fact it is perfectly fine and probably good fun to have goals and preferences for certain outcomes. Why not. Give it your best shot! If things turn out different though, no big deal. And that is for two reasons:

Firstly, as we have seen, your judgement sucks. You really don’t know for sure what will prove to be a blessing and what not. And secondly there is no way to have a life without „failures, losses, illnesses and death“. Just in the same way as it is impossible to have a forest without trees. Trees are simply a necessary ingredient of a forest! In other words there is no point throwing a tantrum! It is simply the way life is (and has to be) and resisting it is just as useless as resisting the night after the day.

In summary: The cause of all unhappiness is us resisting a certain outcome of the past or a possible outcome of the future. The underlying reason for our resistance is based on the illusion of knowing for sure what is good and what is bad and not embracing all facettes of what it means to be alive (and yes, that includes death).

Recommended reading: Why we fail in Love