Why? A Message to My Old Self, by Mindfluness Teacher George Watson
Sometimes I feel like I'm in the matrix; your happiness fulfilment, contentment and satisfaction and that of those around you is so easily achieved/helped once you understand yourself, but instead of this understanding, you pursue just about everything else whilst explicitly stating you know it won't make you happy. If you don't like your situation, it stresses you out and results in minimal value, then change it from the core. The same goes for relationships.
Being in a deep state of meditation, where your ego has drifted off and you are nothing more and nothing less than part of the universe, is such a beautiful place to be. There's nothing particularly spiritual, religious or arty farty about it - you are made of the stars; every atom in your body was created either at the big bang or in a stellar process sometime after. The allegedly singular entity known as "you" will soon be spread around a much wider space.
The only thing that seems to get in the way is the old ego- it doesn't seem to have been around before your body came together and it seems unlikely to stick around once your body separates. And it's such an attention seeking drama queen that it's determined to convince you it's the centre of the universe, when in fact it's just a temporary tool to help you survive in this physical world, a bit like a coat or traffic laws; not un natural, nor evil, nor particularly significant.
As soon as you see this tool for what it is, then your world blasts open- no longer desperately running around consumed by what happens to "me" but be able to calmly sit back, observe and take part in the cosmic dance, amazing beyond words. From here you see how beautiful it is to help- not for praise, reward or advancement- simply to be in tune with your true nature; once you've felt that, it's clear there is nothing greater.
The above message seems to fall down through peer pressure, the difficulty of understanding yourself, or doubt in it's albeit obvious truth; you've heard it many times and much more compellingly than here and yet you seem to nod and say "oh well, yes of course, yes that's clearly the most important thing" and then get back to putting at least 99% of your energy into things that you have just agreed will not provide true or lasting happiness to you or everyone else.
Some smart people, the vast majority of them within a few years of buddhist training, decided the best way to get the message across was to talk about stress, concentration and economics and through this 'mindfulness' has become pretty popular. And what a great concept it is; if only it were a bit more acceptable to point out that it's not just a clever tool for improving people's public speaking, it's an avenue into seeing and being in a deeper reality. So considering you've so far proved impenetrable to spectacularly clear reasoning, why not take a mindfulness course.