The truths I only understood after reading: The root of unhappiness is self-immersion! To move toward happiness, you need to step out of competition, jealousy, fatigue, guilt, and victim-minded delusions—redirect your attention to things that keep you calm.

We always think that worries come from external commotion, that life is making things difficult for us, or that other people aren’t being considerate enough. But once we calm down and sort things out carefully, we find that the vast majority of unhappiness has never really come from outside—it comes from within ourselves. Step by step, we fall into the swamp of self-immersion.

Lin Qingxuan said, “Your heart is your world. When the heart is in chaos, everything is chaotic; when the heart is at peace, all things are at ease.”

I feel the same way deeply.

We’re always being swept up by competition, entangled by jealousy, tethered by exhaustion and guilt—or trapped in baseless victim feelings, repeatedly chewing on them and causing internal strain. Our hearts always get knotted up inwardly; our eyes are tightly fixed on disturbances and shortcomings. Naturally, life becomes oppressive and hard to endure. If you want to find steadiness and happiness, you have to try to jump out of these emotional cages and slowly shift your focus to people and things that let your inner self become calm.

1⃣️ Don’t lose your true self on the worldly track

At some point, many people seem to have turned life into a nonstop race. Compare family background, compare income, compare whether your life looks “glamorous.” As if, with the slightest pause, you’re left behind, as if you’ve failed. Everyone runs like crazy in the same direction—hurrying footsteps—without even time to stop and look at the scenery along the way.

In *Six Records of a Floating Life*, Shen Fu and Yun Niang live in the midst of the bustling streets and lanes. Their circumstances are ordinary, yet they never chase after the fame and fortune that everyone else covets, nor do they compare the size of others’ living quarters or the shine of their lives. While others are busy fighting for status and arguing over who’s right and who’s better in the secular world, they guard a small courtyard. They brew tea, enjoy flowers, and wander freely for the joys of nature. Even with coarse tea and plain meals, they still make ordinary days feel full of poetic charm.

People all say they aren’t ambitious, but only those who understand know that sinking into endless comparison and competition keeps the soul from ever catching a breath. Aren’t we also like this? Always unconsciously watching other people’s lives, rushing along with others’ pace, bound by worldly standards—spent day after day in anxiety.

Life never had to be a single, uniform track. There’s no need to compete with anyone. If you keep chasing after other people’s footsteps, you’ll never truly step out of someone else’s shadow. Only by letting go of pointless comparisons can you live steadily as your own self.

2⃣️ When jealousy arises in your heart, it means you’re trapping yourself

In self-immersion, jealousy is the most silent poison. It’s not as straightforward as worry, but it gradually gnaws at your inner world. It makes it so that, in a person’s eyes, only other people’s completeness exists—while the heart is filled with nothing but unwillingness.

Reading Eileen Chang’s *The Golden Cang (The Golden Lock)* lets you feel most clearly the torment of this kind of emotion. Cao Qiqiao spent half her life trapped inside a deep household. The disparity of fate and the circumstances of those around her slowly fermented into an un-dissolvable jealousy in her heart. She couldn’t help repeatedly comparing—envying others’ stability and warmth—magnifying, again and again, the regrets and suffering in her own life.

With your eyes fixed on other people’s goodness and your heart filled with resentment, an originally ordinary life is dragged, step by step, into hardship by suspicion and envy.

Jealousy is never aimed at a single person; it’s directed at your refusal to accept your present self.
When your eyes only look elsewhere and your heart is packed with envy and resentment, no matter how bright the daylight is, it still can’t shine through the tightly shut doors of the heart. If you keep focusing on what others have, you’ll ignore the warmth you hold in your own hands. Learn to let go of jealousy, accept the present—then your heart can become open and light.

3⃣️ Accept physical and mental exhaustion—don’t let guilt trap your steps

In the hustle of life, we’re used to moving forward without stopping, as if relaxing even for a moment is a sin. Our bodies are already worn out beyond measure, and our minds are stretched to the extreme. Yet as long as we think about taking a short rest, a heavy sense of guilt wells up inside: blaming ourselves for not working hard enough, feeling like we’ve let down the expectations of people around us.

In *Little Women*, Jo runs around for her family’s livelihood and life. From early morning to night, she has long exhausted her body and mind. But even for a brief moment of leisure, she can’t feel at ease. She always thinks she’s slacking, that she hasn’t shouldered the responsibilities she should have. This self-imposed guilt keeps her from daring to slow down.

This is also the common state for many people today. We’re bound by the idea that “we must keep working hard,” turning life into a continuously running gear. But the body can get tired, and the soul also needs room to breathe. Life is never a grueling ordeal of grinding through hardship.

True ease is not about carrying the weight forward forever—it’s about knowing how to accept fatigue, allowing yourself to pause from time to time, and treating the hardworking you kindly.

4⃣️ Trapped in victim-minded delusions, you’ll never truly get out of the gloom

There’s another kind of internal struggle, hidden at the very deepest part of the heart: a victim emotion that you can’t shake for a long time. Once you decide that you’ve been wronged and that others owe you, you’ll keep replaying past hurts, putting yourself in the position of the weak, and letting resentment and sadness loom over your life.

Heathcliff in *Wuthering Heights* is trapped in such a fixation for his whole life. The suffering and injustice he faced when he was young became an inextricable knot in his heart. He always felt that the whole world owed him, immersing himself in past injuries and refusing to pull himself out, using old wounds to punish the years to come. In the end, all that remained in his mind was gloom—he could no longer feel the warmth in this world.

The same goes in life. When something goes slightly wrong, you blame fate and complain about heaven. When you’ve been wronged once, you repeatedly savor the sadness. If you always treat yourself as the one who has been harmed, your heart doors will close tightly, and sunlight can’t come in.

In the end, all past events will fade away. If you keep clutching the hurt and refusing to let go, only you will be trapped. Learn to make peace with the past and let go of your victim obsession—then you can reach out to catch the gentleness life offers.

5⃣️ When your gaze turns toward peace, inner calm is happiness

Think it through carefully: competition, jealousy, fatigue, guilt, victim-minded delusions—at the root, all these emotions are simply self-immersion that’s over-turned inward. We spend all our thoughts tangled up in worrying over this and that, in comparing, and in resentment. Our hearts are wrapped in knots, so it’s naturally hard to find any real happiness.

Reading taught me the gentlest way to be freed: it’s never about forcefully fighting negative emotions; it’s about learning to shift your focus. You don’t have to stare hard at the world’s noise and commotion, and you don’t need to obsess over inner clutter. Instead, put your attention on those ordinary, quiet, peaceful things.

In the morning, watch the plants by the window sprout and grow. In the afternoon, brew a cup of plain tea and sit quietly. In the evening, take a walk along a small path and feel the evening breeze brush your shoulders. When you have time, flip through a few pages of the writings you like—so your thoughts can slowly settle.

These little, scattered beauties have no clamor and no comparisons, yet they can smooth out the restlessness in your heart bit by bit. When your eyes fall on everyday life and gentle things, those anxieties, unwillingness, and grievances will slowly fade away.

♥️ Written at the end

With a calm mind, everywhere is a peach blossom spring. In our lifetime, we only live with one heart. We can’t control the storms outside, but the inner world is always governed by ourselves. Step out of the emotional cages you’ve woven for yourself—stop endlessly consuming yourself from the inside out—and place your mind on peaceful things.

You don’t need to chase after others, and you don’t need to make things difficult for yourself. If your heart is steady, your days will naturally be gentle, and happiness will arrive as promised. May we all be able to break free from obsession, keep a portion of quietness, and move through year after year with composure.

May we find the beauty of inner peace together in the world of words!