Why Everyone Looks Happy Except You | Eckhart Tolle

There is a fundamental misconception, often an unconscious misconception in human beings. And that misconception is they believe that the world has the ability to make them happy, but this is being withheld from them. And they regard that as a personal insult by life is doing. Why is life withholding happiness from me? Why, If you are not awakening yet, and that is, you can verify that in your. Perhaps in your own experience, when things go wrong, there is a reactive entity there that works itself up. Either you become angry or despondent or whatever the reactivity is. People like in professions such as lawyers often encounter people in their most unconscious states because they tend to go to lawyers when things go wrong. They're being sued or the divorce is happening, divorce lawyers. To be a divorce lawyer potentially could be a very enlightening job because you encounter deep human unconsciousness, which most people, when they, in a conflict situation like that, become more unconscious than they are normally deeply unconscious. And so that's when you're being challenged by life. The challenge will create a reaction, and the reaction will. You become completely identified with the reaction. And you can even more unconscious than your normal state, which is unconscious enough, but it's now it's more unconscious. Can't stop thinking about it. And now as you're awakening, challenge comes again. And then you suddenly see the possibility of actually being more intensely present. When a challenge comes and you go, it's like, you know what a dimmer switch is on an electrical switch, you can turn up the light dimmer switch. So when a challenge comes, something goes wrong, so to speak. A difficult person arises, a difficult situation arises. Some kind of loss arises, whatever kind of loss it may be. And instead of reacting and becoming more unconscious, you suddenly sense you're becoming more present in the face of a challenge. And that is when the challenges of the world are becoming helpful to you. Rather than make you unconscious, they can intensify the awakening process. And that is the ultimate purpose really, of all the challenges that humans encounter here. There is a fundamental misconception, often an unconscious misconception in human beings. And that misconception is they believe that the world has the ability to make them happy, but this is being withheld from them. And they regard that as a personal insult by life is doing. Why is life withholding happiness from me? Why all the things always happen to me? Because it's not happening to others. You read their Facebook posts, and they're all happy. They're eating meals. You see pictures of meals. Look, I'm eating this. Oh, okay. And Then you see the happy faces. And not only are they happy, they're also so good looking. Everybody's good looking. It's the technology of filters and stuff. Everyone can look beautiful. Even either. They did it to me too. So people watch that and think, wow, these people's lives are so great, Mine, so awful. And then you maybe then you also pretend because everybody else is pretending, okay, let's go to a restaurant, take a picture of a meal I'm eating. This is what I'm eating right now. So the misconception is the world is here to make me happy, but it's not doing it. And this is a very serious misconception because it makes your whole life miserable. Because that barely means that something that should be happening is not happening in my life. Something should, it's just not happening. But of course that misconception is that the world is here to make you happy. And it can't do that. It's not here to make you happy, it's here to make you conscious, to awaken you. Oh, I see. I was wrong all along. I've been complaining uselessly for 40 years, or whatever your age is. I've been complaining uselessly for 40 years that there's something wrong with the world and my so called life. But there wasn't anything wrong at all. Because the world is here to awaken me. If humans are not challenged, or not just humans, any life form only grows through being challenged. Which means encounter obstacles and difficulties in their process of growth. Even plants and animals. They all encounter every life form as precarious. Its existence is precarious. And it encounters obstacles to its unfoldment. And that ultimately is how evolution happens. Through encountering difficulties, obstacles, challenges. Because as you encounter obstacles and challenges, they seem to block you. And you think, life would be much better if I did not have these challenges. But it wouldn't, because you would go to sleep even more. So you have the challenges and that brings about an influx of energy on whatever level, even if it's physical. Every organism already encounters challenges on a physical level. And then it grows, it gains new strength by attempting to overcome these limitations. I sometimes mention example, if you want. Because it operates on every level. If you want to become physically stronger, you have to exercise. Unless you have a job that is already physically hard. Working forces you to exert yourself physically. Otherwise you have to exercise and you have to start doing. If you want to go stronger, you have to lift weights. I'm not doing it anymore, but I'm just demonstrating. You lift weight now how does that feel at first? What are you doing? The way I put it is you are making life difficult for your body because your body is not going to grow stronger unless you make the body's life difficult. The same with jogging. The body doesn't really want to do it, but says, no, no, you have to do it. Why are you making life difficult for your body? Your body would be so relaxed sitting on the sofa and watching Netflix. But it's not going stronger, it's actually getting weaker because it's not being challenged. But challenge it. And then there is a demand for added energy. And this just operates on the physical level. And this demand for added. There's a moment when there's a gap. You're exerting yourself and the energy isn't there yet. So it's very hard. But at some point, the energy comes flooding in because there was a demand for it. And in that point, you may actually begin to enjoy the physical movement because this added energy and suddenly strength is increasing. And this is just on the physical level, there's a demand. And it comes also on a psychological level, it can operate. And on a spiritual level, when you become very unhappy in your life, then there is a possibility that the unhappiness causes you to awaken. Because at some point you realize, either because you've had a spiritual teacher or teaching or even some people, it happens spontaneously. The suffering, the psychological suffering that humans undergo can at some point bring about an awakening when you just can't stand it anymore and something snaps and suddenly you. It dissolves and you. Oh, suddenly an awakening has happened. But it would not have happened if you hadn't gone through those sometimes years of suffering. Quite often I have encountered people who tell me, I would never have come to you or understood the books or been open to anything spiritual if I had not experienced. In some cases, it's a serious, very serious illness or an accident or some deep loss in their personal lives. And they come, and perhaps some of you. With some of you, that is also the case. There would not have been an opening if you had not gone through that suffering. And at some point, the suffering awakens you. And that is really the ultimate purpose of suffering, is to awaken. And then you realize that most suffering is actually unnecessary. It's actually created by the conditioned entity. I'm talking about real psych. There's physical pain. Physical pain isn't suffering. Suffering is a psychological phenomenon. So this suffering can be transcended. If you awaken, you transcend that suffering. In other words, you transcend unhappiness, you are no longer unhappy. The mind loses its power to make you unhappy. Because most of your unhappiness is created by unconscious thought processes, not situations. Most of unhappiness is created not by situations, difficult situations that you encounter, but what your mind is telling you about the difficult situations. The situation itself is as it is. Then you impose an interpretation on it. The interpretation says, this should not be happening, this is awful. Why always to me, why did he do that, etc. Etc. Interpretations, what causes the unhappiness and strengthens the fictitious self is the commentary, the interpretation. And that is an amazing realization, that most of your unhappiness is created by your mind. And that's an amazing thing. And then as you become more present, unhappiness disappears from your life. Now, am I saying that you will then always be happy? No, it's not. Happiness is a little bit superficial, the way I use the term happiness, because it usually means here it's so great, it's wonderful. It feels a bit superficial. Although there are some spiritual teachers who use the term happiness and pointing to something deeper. For example, Ramana Maharshi says happiness is your true nature, but he's using it in a different sense.