Physical comforts cannot subdue mental suffering, and if we look closely, we can see that those who have many possessions are not necessarily happy. In fact, being wealthy often brings even more anxiety.
Over and over again in my life, I find closeness to other people and proximity to other people really painful; that's part of my mental illness, social anxiety. Closeness to other people is really hard, but it's also a shame because it's all you want too. But it doesn't always work.
I was about to meet Beyonce, and I had a full-blown anxiety attack. Then she popped in looking gorgeous, and said, "You're amazing! When I listen to you I feel like I'm listening to God."
Risk, then, is not just part of life. It is life. The place between your comfort zone and your dream is where life takes place. It's the high-anxiety zone, but it's also where you discover who you are.
We need tremendous energy to bring about a psychological change in ourselves as human beings, because we have lived far too long in a world of make-belief, in a world of brutality,
violence, despair, anxiety. To live humanly, sanely, one has to change.
The mind is intrinsically tranquil. Out of this tranquility, anxiety and confusion are born. If one sees and knows this confusion, then the mind is tranquil once more.
What the statesman is most anxious to produce is a certain moral character in his fellow citizens, namely a disposition to virtue and the performance of virtuous actions.
Taking photographs can assuage the itch for possession sparked by the beauty of a place; our anxiety over losing a precious scene can decline with every click of the shutter.
Yet even the rich have their own kind of suffering, anxiety, doubt, and fear. So in many cases, wealthy people aren't happy! And once those with material wealth encounter small difficulties, their amount of mental suffering is sometimes bigger than it is for those who have faced such difficulties every day.