Finding Contentment

If you refuse to give controllers the power they seek, they will almost always turn to punishing you in some way.

You'll never break free and attain real contentment until you're true to yourself and find the courage to be who you really are.

Sometimes you have to take enormous risks to discover who you really are and, more important, live out who you really are. To be the person you truly are, you have to be willing to face tremendous loss. 

When you are authentic, you set yourself up for the deepest kind of enduring contentment. You discover the profound peace that accompanies a set of free and effective choices, the feeling of fulfillment and inner calm you have when you confidently know that you are fully capable of representing and standing by your deepest desires and your best judgment. The ground may be very rocky on the way to genuineness, but the ultimate reward for getting there is unbelievably satisfying.

She was trying to do the impossible- find contentment and inner peace without living her own life. As long as she let others live her life, she was doomed to emptiness. This kind of emptiness always produces depression. 

There is momentary happiness from pleasing others.

One of the most insidious sources of fixes for happiness addicts is achievement. Some people nearly work themselves to death in their search for ways to get ahead. They frantically pursue the pats on the back and the esteem that come with accomplishing a goal. 

As long as we are focused outside ourselves, our pursuit of authenticity is sure to be futile and disappointing.