Have you considered you might have depression?

You start by using paragraph breaks, so you don't cause existential crises for others here. ^_^

I think you're starting from a false premise, and that is that life is supposed to be happy. It's not. It never was. Happiness is an innately transitory feeling. Once you obtain it, it disappears. Like trying to hold water in your hands. It will slip through your fingers. Contentment is much more attainable.

It will never be good enough, though. That's part of the human condition: never being satisfied. Once we obtain something, it loses its special-ness, then we need something else. The journey is the destination in a lot of ways, as they say.

Yes. The brain tends to focus on negatives instead of positives. You don't have to go along with it. As the Buddhists say, that "monkey mind" is completely out of our control: you can get swept away by it like a leaf on the wind, or you can stand back and observe it. In observing it, you're not being controlled by it.

Feel free to hook me up with all that stuff, if you wanna go live in a cave somewhere. *big smile*

Yes. Everyone is basically faking it. But, that's also because what other option is there? We can only do the best we can.

To some degree I can relate with having all the answers yet not applying them all to myself, but I also practice what I preach to the best of my ability: it's somewhat often that I don't listen to myself, but I do enough to keep moving forward and get past sticking points.

The trick, I have found, is treating yourself like you're someone that matters. Kind of a great reflection on humanity, but it's common for people to treat others better than they treat themselves. What if you viewed yourself like one of your patients? What would you tell her?