Once people swallow the belief that without their particular combination of things they won’t be happy, they form an attachment to it. Then they pursue it relentlessly. It consumes all of their time. Then they maintain a defense mechanism to fight off any possibility of losing it. That then creates the emotional dependence… the object of your attachment then has the power to thrill you when you have it, make you anxious when it is momentarily taken away and make you miserable when you lose it forever.

We spend our lives attempting to rearrange the world around us in order to hang onto these attachments. Once in a while it works – and for a brief moment the world caters to our wants and we are happy. But that never lasts, and once again, we become miserable.

I will say it time and time again, when we get what we don’t want, we suffer. When we don’t get what we want, we suffer. And even when we get exactly what we want we still suffer because we can’t hold onto it forever.

Even if you are able to  hang onto 99% of your attachments, the 1% you are unable to hang onto will prey on your mind and cause you immense unhappiness and take over all of your thoughts. The 99% you are able to hang onto won’t overshadow the 1% you have lost.

Attachments. They’re easy to drop. Here’s a tip:

Take the basket you have filled with the injustices you have been collecting over the course of your whole life and turn it upside down. Shake it. Turn it back over and refill it with your attachments. Turn it upside down. Shake it. Rinse and repeat. Voila! You’re free from vengeance AND attachments at the same time!