We spend our whole lives trying to become somebody.

Somebody important.

Somebody respected.

Somebody successful.

But what if that pursuit is the very thing keeping us fragmented?

We spend our whole lives trying to be somebody. We want to be somebody in business. We want to be somebody’s husband or wife. We want to be someone’s parent. We want to be somebody’s great kid. We want to be somebody who’s great at guitar or piano. We want to be somebody who’s great in school, great in careers. And all of this striving to be somebody can make us forget what real happiness is.

And true happiness actually comes from realizing our nobodiness, from true selflessness that doesn’t require praise all the time, so we can be happy when we’re alone with our thoughts.That doesn’t demand external situations to be exactly the way we think we want, that we think may make us happy, but that might not even be what does make us happy.

So often we find that thing we’re working towards, that life we’re trying to build, isn’t really what we want at all. That all the stuff we’ve built becomes a chain that weighs us down, and what we really want is freedom and free time and time to rest and relax and enjoy and appreciate.

The truth is, whether you are the greatest piano player in the world or the worst, all that matters is how much joy you get out of playing. Two people, both playing, one by themselves, one in front of a stadium of a million people — they are doing the same thing. It’s hard to realize that, but they are doing exactly the same thing. One person may have more fun, and one person may have less fun. One person may suffer the adrenaline and excitement that comes with going out on stage and become addicted to substances that chase that adrenaline junkie inside of us. It could be that the person who’s by themselves gets the most freedom and joy of messing up, with no pressure, and just loves piano for the piano.

And in our lives, our roles will change. With praise comes criticism. So to attach our identity to these things is guaranteed suffering and misery. It is a guaranteed roller coaster of chaos that we are choosing to strap ourselves into, that we can simply get off of when we realize that it is the ability to be free from these needs for other people’s approval — free from the craving and desire for this scorecard of life that we create in our brain that does not really exist, that we think determines our happiness. The scorecard of money, followers, family size, all of these markers that we’re told will make us happy, that we’re told is what we should strive for, that we find out can be the source of our misery when the inevitable winds of time change.

Sometimes life goes to plan. Sometimes it goes to plan and then it changes, and sometimes it doesn’t go to plan. If we want a good life, it involves contentment with nothingness, contentment with nobodiness. And then we appreciate the blessings without the clinging, without the attachment.

We get to be better workers, better parents, better kids, better siblings, better artists when we do it for the love of doing instead of fear of losing and always wanting more.

It’s natural. It’s natural to want to be Beethoven if you pick up the piano. It’s natural to want to be Elon Musk in business and the world’s greatest dad. But when we can be content with nothingness, when we can reset our baseline level of desire to nothing, then everything becomes infinitely better. Our entire life, we can actually appreciate and enjoy instead of dishonoring what we have by wanting more.

We can still work towards goals. We can still build a family. We can still take on all the roles that this physical universe requires of us. But we don’t have to take on the identity of these ever-changing roles. As the great Jim Carrey has told us — the man of many masks, the man who has played many roles, one of them being Jim Carrey — as he says, we know that we can change in infinite ways. We can reinvent ourselves any day, in any way we want.

These bodies change every day. The memories change, they fade, we make new ones every day. Who we are — the energy, the personality, the identity — is not inherent within us. It is not unchanging. It is not who we are.

If we are a human being who goes through life as an individual, then that entity must not change. But everything about us changes constantly, all the time. On a molecular level, we’re not the same person we are today as we will be seven years from now. We are the food that we eat. We are the sun’s rays that grew that fruit, that vegetable that the animals ate.

We can change our name. We can change the country we live in. Everything about us can change — religions. There is no identity, persona, or personality inherent within us. There is no guy in our brain pulling the levers. There is consciousness peering through a physical body, witnessing our thoughts, our emotions, the sensations that we experience.

We cannot be the atoms in our body that are moving and vibrating trillions of times per second. We are the stillness of consciousness witnessing the motion of life.

All of the physical dreams that these physical bodies have — to have material wealth and a family that looks a certain way — these are all just the wants and desires of the physical body. And consciousness is here along for the ride to witness it all.

It is the consciousness that is why you have the experience of being a person. It is the single point of consciousness that you have that doesn’t jump from person to person. So we have this illusion of being a self.

The changes in our bodies happen so slowly that we don’t perceive them. We can’t witness in real time a child growing, ourselves aging, and wrinkles appearing. Only if we look back on photos can we see that passage of time. So the illusion is very strong. It’s very powerful.

We cling to the illusion. We cling to stability and permanence, even though on a subconscious level we know that there is only impermanence. There is only change. And to cling on to anything impermanent, to cling on to a dream that may or may not happen, is to grab the air, to catch hold of the wind. You’re not going to be able to hang on to it for very long. But that’s okay, because more wind and more air are going to keep coming.

Our job isn’t to hold on to anything. Our job is to let go, to welcome the next moment as this one leaves.

Only when we walk through the world with total selflessness, where there is no self, no selfishness, no concern for the passing sensations and thoughts in our body, can we be truly free. A freedom arises where everything becomes a gift, a blessing, and a miracle. And I keep seeing proof of this firsthand — that the more good we do, the more selfless we become, the more open our hearts and minds become.

The more that we look for the positive and see the blessings we already have, the more the universe provides miracles in our lives. The universe wants us to awaken, and it sends help and it sends helpers. But we have to show the universe that we’re ready, that we’re open to them, that they will be well received, and that we understand the messages it’s trying to send.

The more gratitude we not just show but truly have for all the blessings and miracles that already exist in our lives — and in every life, there are countless blessings and miracles, there’s not a single one devoid of blessings and miracles — this universe is designed for us to thrive, and the more we are grateful, the more it wants to give.

The evidence and proof I have that this universe is not random, that earth and life are not random chance, a mistake, but here designed for our flourishing — this universe is designed for us. It isn’t designed for us to have everything we want. It’s designed for us to be shown different types of reality and to make the most of what we have, what we are given, and what we experience.

What experience it is is not as important as how we respond. That choice lies in us. We can love our struggles in work and career. We can love the rewards of our hard work. We can love building a family. We can learn and love the lessons of loss. We can be a shining light for others who’ve gone through hard times. And we can keep saying yes to life, showing up with peace, love, and positivity, no matter what happens.

And that is uniquely human. We’re not supposed to get everything we think we want, but we do have the capacity to love everything we get.