There’s a kind of basic misunderstanding that we should try to be better than we already are,

that we should try to improve ourselves, that we should try to get away from painful things, and that if we could just learn how to get away from the painful things, then we would be happy.

That is the innocent, naïve misunderstanding that we all share, which keeps us unhappy.

Pema Chödron, The Wisdom of No Escape: And the Path of Loving-Kindness