If the dream I’m chasing doesn’t have a serious consideration for how it will improve the lives of other people, I shouldn’t be chasing it. When most people chase happiness, they (generally) are not thinking about anything other than the attention (love) they will get, and the money they will get. Of course, attention, social-love and money are in finite supply. It simply is not possible for this kind of equality, division is inevitable. So the great dream is to put yourself under the people, not over them. Anything less will not really be respected by history. You may win for a short time, but not for a long time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfTX2bqvvkw&feature=related
There is gratification in the doing, not in the results. A results-oriented psychology will not sustain itself when the results become the source of happiness. Keep results into consideration only to prevent death and loss. For happiness, focus on the process now, the gift of the moment. Why do we get so caught up in the results? We want something that’s rather selfish and vain, generally.
There is no greater sin than desire,
No greater curse than discontent,
No greater misfortune than wanting
something for oneself.
Therefore he who knows that enough
is enough will always have enough. (46, Tao Te Ching)
From my research I think the problem significantly stems from a tendency to find an identity to another human face. When another person acknowledges us, it takes us back to earlier infancy-bliss with the mother. As we become adults, we are still in love with this mother, but we search for her in other forms. So being so attached to what we lost in the past (the bliss of infancy), we start fantasizing about some vague future result, something that resembles our past bliss. The pendulum from past to future, future to past is enslavement to time and infant-gratification.
It’s tough to see the moment as a gift when we’ve tasted much higher forms of bliss. The present moment can feel like a barren wasteland after we’ve recently experienced the great of romance or even a dream fulfilled.
Fame or self: Which matters more?
Self or wealth: Which is more
precious?
Gain or loss: Which is more painful?
He who is attached to things will suffer
much.
He who saves will suffer heavy loss.
A contented man is never
disappointed.
He who knows when to stop does not
find himself in trouble.
He will stay forever safe. (44, Tao Te Ching)
When I refer to research, it is not entirely scientific research. It’s a combination of personal observation and establishing non-scientific analytic polarities (which are more fundamental to science).
Some psychologists who had a similar line of thought were Carl Jung, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard and strangely enough, Jesus.
Here is a video where Carl Jung deals with a female patient who could not overcome her mother fixation. In this case she made a mother out of Carl Jung. What I refer to analytic polarities, Jung referred to as Archetypes:
Patrick Watts 