said. “There’s no such thing. Instead, hope for a life full of good problems.”

As Freud once said, “One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.”

Honest self-questioning is difficult. It requires asking yourself simple questions that are uncomfortable to answer. In fact, in my experience, the more uncomfortable the answer, the more likely it is to be true.

But there are two problems. First, the brain is imperfect. We mistake things we see and hear. We forget things or misinterpret events quite easily. Second, once we create meaning for ourselves, our brains are designed to hold on to that meaning. We are biased toward the meaning our mind has made, and we don’t want to let go of it. Even if we see

True happiness occurs only when you find the problems you enjoy having and enjoy solving.

giving fairy dust, you stop hating yourself for feeling so bad.

That’s simply reality: if it feels like it’s you versus the world, chances are it’s really just you versus yourself.

can be difficult for people to recognize the difference between doing something out of obligation and doing it voluntarily. So here’s a litmus test: ask yourself, “If I refused, how would the relationship change?” Similarly, ask, “If my partner refused something I wanted, how would the relationship change?”

But we need to reject something. Otherwise, we stand for nothing.