In this video, family practice and palliative care physician Dr. Gabor Maté explains that for us to live happy, fulfilled lives, we must stop looking outside of ourselves for solutions and answers. Our culture teaches us we need things outside of ourselves to be happy: pharmaceuticals, counselors, addictive substances, people who treat us as we want to be treated. Nothing outside us provides lasting happiness. To live happy, fulfilled lives, we must learn to understand and strengthen ourselves from the inside.
This is a brief excerpt from Dr. Maté’s video that follows the excerpt:
It doesn’t do to look for the solution on the outside. There are no solutions from the outside. The medical profession exemplifies this to the nth degree. Because what we basically do as physicians is we would take addicted people or depressed people or anxious people and not for a moment do we believe that they have the truth within themselves. not for a moment do we believe that the healing power resides in its all. Not for a moment do we have any idea how to encourage, invigorate and empower that healing capacity that we all have. What we do instead is we replace one pharmaceutical with another. For your depression here’s the pill . . .. But they’re never the solution. They are not the answer. At the very best, they buy you some time. But then we stopped there we think this is it. The solution is you have a problem, here’s something from the outside. Take this and then you’ll be OK. . . .
Every problem that we have can be looked at two ways. We can look at it as a difficulty to get rid of, or we can look at it as a message from our true selves. We can look at it as something to overcome and get through, or we can see it as a possibility of learning. . . .
All the difficulties that we have were actually designed for us by a part of ourselves that loves us so much that it will create extra difficulties for us if we don’t get the message. . . . Any problem that comes along is not in order to make our lives miserable, but actually to make our lives less miserable. And the suffering that it imposes is an attempt to wake us up. And if we wake up, we’ll have a reason to be grateful.
