Addiction is a progressive narrowing
of the things that bring you pleasure.
Happiness is a progressive expansion of the things that bring you pleasure. The former emerges passively.
The latter takes work.
Addiction is a progressive narrowing of the things that bring you pleasure. Happiness is a progressive expansion of the things that bring you pleasure. The former emerges passively. The latter takes work.
It has been my experience that rebelling against the forces of attachment within my own heart and mind has been the most revolutionary thing I’ve ever done. We are addicted to pleasure, in part because we confuse pleasure with happiness. We would all say that deep down, all we want is to be happy. Yet we don’t have a realistic understanding of what
... See moreJack Kornfield • The Buddha Is Still Teaching: Contemporary Buddhist Wisdom
Your psyche demands novelty for progress, but most people get theirs from the endless sources of instant cheap pleasures. Exploring the unknown is how you live in accordance with nature.
Dan Koe • The Art of Focus: Find Meaning, Reinvent Yourself and Create Your Ideal Future
Addiction is really about the relationship between the person and the experience.” It isn’t enough to ply someone with a drug or a behavior—that person also has to learn that the experience is a viable treatment for whatever ails them psychologically.
Daily Review | Readwise
As a clinician later described it to her, addiction always ends up as a “narrowing of repertoire”: life contracts to a fixation on what you can’t live without, and the rhythms of a day, a life, are engineered to secure this thing that never satisfies, is never enough.
James K. A. Smith • On the Road with Saint Augustine: A Real-World Spirituality for Restless Hearts
As a clinician later described it to her, addiction always ends up as a “narrowing of repertoire”: life contracts to a fixation on what you can’t live without, and the rhythms of a day, a life, are engineered to secure this thing that never satisfies, is never enough.
James K. A. Smith • On the Road with Saint Augustine: A Real-World Spirituality for Restless Hearts
The point is, true happiness has nothing to do with pleasure, because the reliance on feeling good from such intensely stimulating things only moves us further from real joy.