I recently read a description of attachment as a person eating in a concentration camp, one hand brings food and needed nourishment , while the other protects it from their neighbor, waiting to take it from them the moment they lower their guard.
I worked in juvenile corrections, and I have seen many eat with one hand while the other arm is wrapped around the plate.
The thing we wanted does not cause happiness once attained but the opposite, only a brief flash of pleasure, followed by the anxiety of the fear of losing it.
Happiness is not the brief excitement of attachment, followed by the crash on the other side of attachment. what makes you happy or unhappy is not the people or the world around you, but the thinking in your head. Happiness is not easily defined kinda like describing light to some one who has always lived in the dark. You can't describe it but you can begin to understand it. Once you understand the nature of your unhappiness then it will begin to disappear..
Like realizing you are dreaming in a nightmare , the nightmare fades understand your attachments and they will vanish. The consequence is freedom. Happiness and freedom cant' be easily defined but their opposites can be observed and cause these things to vanish leaving the result. This is my Limited understanding and I am continuing to grow and develop while I work on facing my own attachments and killing them.
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