So, you are meant to be in a place where you can be happy, where you can be content, where you can be at peace, and where at the same time you are challenged to grow. This is the purpose of living, and this is the reason this place was created.
When one develops judgments in the mind about these things, one stops taking advantage of the opportunities to grow, because one avoids anything one judges as bad, and one clings to whatever one judges as good. Clinging and avoiding are the same thing. They are both two sides of one coin, called “attachment.”
When one is attached to comforts, this can only bring pain, because no matter how firmly one may be attached, at some point the comforts will be removed. This will cause pain. Likewise, when one is attached to being free of discomfort, one is going to experience pain if discomfort appears.
Any attachment causes pain, both after the thing has changed and one’s attachment has been broken, as well as beforehand, when one anticipates with anxiety the fact that it may happen.
No matter how much security one has in one’s life, there is always a certain degree of anxiety that that security, whatever one feels most secure about, may be taken from one. And this anxiety does not promote a state of health, and does not promote a state of happiness. Worry, anxiety, fear, regret: All these things are unhelpful in experiencing your life as you intended it to be when you came to this place.