Stop Fixing Yourself: Wake Up, All Is Well (The Anthony De Mello Legacy Library)

by Anthony de Mello

We don’t want to be happy. We’re programmed to want other things. To put it more accurately: We don’t want to be unconditionally happy. “I’m ready to be happy provided I have this and that and the other thing.” It is the same as saying to someone, even God, “You are my happiness. If I don’t get you, I refuse to be happy.” If we want to come awake—which is the same thing as saying, “If we want to love, if we want freedom, if we want joy and peace and spirituality”—this is the first thing we need to understand. Want a little test to prove that you don’t want to be happy? Think of someone you love very much—someone you’re close to, someone who is precious to you—and, in your mind, say to that person: “I’d rather have happiness than have you.” Then, see what happens. Did you feel selfish when you said it? We’ve been brainwashed into thinking, “How could I be so selfish?” But look at who’s being selfish. Imagine somebody saying to you, “How could you be so selfish that you’d choose happiness over me?” Wouldn’t you feel like responding, “Pardon me, but how could you be so selfish that you would demand I choose you above my own happiness?!”