As we externalise our happiness, it's the end of sustainable joy

One of the most impactful effects on our lives is the move to finding our joy and happiness in people, places and things outside of ourselves. This transfer of control and responsibility away from our inner being to becoming dependent on externalities can drive a life-long seacrh for a series of external things in the hope they will bring joy. Once our joy is produced by externalities, we become dependent on those externalities to sustain it.

The route back to permanent joy, happiness and peace is to regain control of our state of being, realising that while happiness is being supplied by externalities it is no longer under our own control.