You don't get true happiness by fulfilling your addictions. You get it by transcending addiction.
Example: You don't get it by avoiding fear or being fearless. You get it by being brave, meaning transcending fear, meaning feeling fear but not being controlled by it and not being a slave to it. In other words, you get it by being a rebellious free-spirit in the face of the would-be tyrant that is fear. True happiness isn't fearlessness; it's (in part) bravery, which requires fear. You can't be brave unless you feel fear. I'm not happy despite feeling fear (or pain or discomfort); I'm happy in part precisely because I do feel it. I can't be brave without free and it's the bravery and thus fear that
(in part) makes me happy. Bravery is just an example of the true happiness of spiritual freedom (a.k.a. self-discipline). Just as fear can be transcended (which we call bravery), so too can one transcend pain, anger, hunger, sexual urges, all addictive urges, and anything else that would make you dance like a puppet and steal your spiritual freedom.
Example Two: You don't get true happiness by never feeling hunger or hunger pain. You get it by being free-spirited (a.k.a. self-disciplined) and thus being able to honestly exercise honest free choice about whether or not to eat, despite whether you not feel hunger. It's being happily free to not eat even when you are hungry. It's you being to hunger what a brave person is to fear. It is to transcend it and all like it. You still feel it. Transcendence isn't elimination. In fact, quite the opposite: You must feel it to transcend. It's like swimming: You can't swim without the same water in which others would drown. You can't be brave without feeling fear; you can't have have true happiness without things like discomfort, hunger, and pain.
Example Three: Happiness isn't the absence of sexual urges, nor is it being compelled to blindly fulfill them and obey their demand as if you were a puppet or a slave. True happiness is having them (and/or other loud feelings and urges) while still being happily free-spirited (a.k.a. self-disciplined) in the face of them, compelled neither to blindly do the opposite of what they demand nor to blindly do whatever it is they demand. It's to transcend compulsion itself. It's to be free. It's not to not have the feelings, bodily urges, and temptations; it's to have them as your toys instead of your master. It's like having them as fun kids in the back seat of a car you're driving, yelling "let's go to Disneyland" instead of saying "let's go to the dentist." It doesn't matter whether you drive them to Disneyland or the dentist; what matters is who is driving and who is the boss. Freedom of spirit (a.k.a. self-discipline) is when you are the boss, and you fully and honestly realize and accept that fact, rather than dishonestly blaming how you drive on the impotent yells from the proverbial backseat. It's honest self-responsibility. It's when you are your own boss, and the bodily feelings are just toys and children with which you get to play and love just as they are. Even when they are loud. Even when they really don't want to go to the dentist.
Of course, it's just as much a matter of not blindly doing the exact opposite of what fear or hunger or proverbial children are telling you to do.
Fear and hunger are just two examples of countless. Other examples include pain, anger, and sexual urges. Other examples include the urge of an alcoholic to drink alcohol, or a cigarette-smoker to smoke cigarettes. It'a the urge for an anorexic to lose another pound, or the temptation of a belemia to make oneself puke.
Hunger and food addiction or other eating disorders are no more or less special than gambling addiction and the urge to gamble at a casino. Or infinite other examples. I choose to most often use examples of things like food, hunger, alcohol, and drinking simply because those tend to be most commonly relatable for most people. But every human has their things, and every human is on the addiction spectrum.
We all have our different props, but the underlying story of the play on the stage is the same for us all. It's a beautiful play I like to call "the beautiful struggle". It unites us all.
Back to the tiny examples: No amount of food (or lack thereof) will make a food addict happy. Not in the sense of true happiness, meaning free-spirited (a.k.a. self-disciplined) inner peace.
No amount of avoiding scary situations (or being thrown into them) will make a coward happy. Not in the sense of true happiness, meaning free-spirited (a.k.a. self-disciplined) inner peace.
The more your drink of these things, the thirstier you get.
Spiritually speaking, a food addict lacking free-spirited inner peace always starves.
Spiritually speaking, a coward always starves. No amount of desperate safety seeking of fear avoidance or death denial will save them.
A comfort addict is always miserable.
Giving a crack addict all the crack in the world doesn't make the crack addict happy. Not truly.
To say it again, in slightly different words, the more you drink comfort, the thirstier you get.
Hell is getting what you want. Hell is a lamp with a magic wish-granting genie in it.
The alcoholic wishes for the drink. The crack addict wishes for crack. The food addict orders a cheeseburger. What would you wish for?
Hell is getting your wish.
Heaven is when you transcend the wishing. It is to wish for nothing different than what actually and eternally is. In short, it is to wish for nothing. It is a form of deep spiritual radical unconditional acceptance. It is an acceptance so full and unconditional that it can be called love. It is, in a way, to simply love everything. Unconditionally.
Hell is a coward getting their wish, to their own miserable determent.
Heaven is bravery.
But that's just an example. Fear is just an example. Bravery is the transcend of fear. It is just an example of spiritual liberation (a.k.a self-discipline) and the powerful invincible inner peace comes with it. Just as one can happily free-spirited in the face of fear (which is called bravery), one can like-wise be happily free-spirited in the face of anything and everything, from hunger, to pain, to sexual urges, to discomfort.
And when you know you are happily free-spirited in the face of anything and everything, that comes with an incredible confidence and grace. You feel invincible. And in a way you are. You can walk through the valley of the shadow of death, with a playful confident smirk.
The devil is a genie in a lamp. He is laughably impotent to the liberated.
- Image created with AI. The prompt: "The devil emerging from a lamp like a genie."
