with gratitude to Psychiatrist Daniel Casriel
Pain and pleasure in association to our biological needs are not only based on the quality of the need, but also on the quantity of those needs. Too much of the same thing or not enough can cause pain.
If we and our intimate loved ones are in basic good health, have financial security, and nobody is threatening our lives, or breaking down the doors, we should, by nature, feel happy, but we are not.
Our founding fathers fought for what they believed in. And they wrote it very succinctly in the Declaration of Independence. “We are endowed by our Creator to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Although we are entitled to it, many of us still do not know what it really is we are entitled to. Nor would we know how to get it even if we understood what we were looking for.
Happiness is a positive input of pleasure, and not merely a reduction of pain. If one gives a beggar on the streets of Calcutta a half of loaf of stale bread, and it is more that he has ever had, and it is more than his beggar friends have, he will be happy. Happiness is relative to our experience.
Changing your mind is like learning to swim. It takes knowledge and experiential practice. By the way, changing your mind is what psychiatrists call psychotherapy.
Have you heard “change the way you think, and the rest will follow; (or) change the way you feel and the rest will follow; (or) change your behavior and the rest will follow.” The rest do not follow.
