It’s the belief that we shouldn’t have any problems, any discomfort, any pain, that makes modern life seem so distressing. Life doesn’t match our image of how it should be, and we conclude that life itself is wrong. We relate to everything from the narrow, fearful perspective of ‘I want’ — and what we want is to feel good. When our emotional distress does not feel good, we recoil from it. The resulting discomfort generates fear, then fear creates even more distress, and distress becomes our enemy, something to be rid of. Let us instead examine our basic requirement that life should be comfortable. This one assumption causes all of our endless difficulties.

Ezra Bayda, Saying Yes to Life (Even The Hard Parts)