Hello, hello, my name is Sanidhya Arora, but you can call me San, and I am the host of this show, Finding Me.

If this is your first time tuning in, which it will be, since this is my first episode, this show is about all the struggles you and I face on a daily basis. It’s about growing-up, and as the name suggests, it’s about Finding Me. It’s about finding the person beneath all the masks.

Today’s topic is something I’m certain all of us have struggled with at some stage in life. Today we will talk about when things never feel enough. No matter how hard you try, even if you think you’re doing everything right, things don’t feel like they’re enough.

It feels like something’s missing. And you don’t even know what that missing piece is. That’s the emotion we are discussing today.

And to start of the conversation, I’d like to share a story.

So, to tell you a bit about myself, I’m not, as someone would describe it, a ‘party animal’. Quite the opposite actually. But I always wanted to be. I always wanted to go to wild parties, to stay out till 3am, to get drunk with friends and truly live the ‘best days of my life’.

I always felt disappointed that I’m wasting my college days. That I’m not living the sterotypical college student life. The idea that everyone around me is having the time of their life, and I’m not, always stung.

So, to fix that, I decided to do something on college Christmas day. In Ireland, each college has a day put aside for Christmas celebrations. It’s the dedicated party day.

I usually never did anything for Christmas day, but this time, I decided to go to a night club with one of my friends who actually did enjoy partying.

So, we made the plans. We decided to meet in the city at around 6, have some food and drinks, and then we were going to meet another friend group later on in the evening.

I was super excited. I wanted to see what all the hype is about. So, come Christmas day, the plan was all set. Meet my friend in town at 6pm. Simple right? No, no no.

Now, this is something I never knew, but getting to town on this day is absolutely impossible. For some reason, all the buses decided to cancel on my this day.

I was at the bust stop waiting for 30 minutes, not a single bus showed up. And the digital display where it shows when each bus is coming is brilliant for getting your hopes high. Every 5 minutes or so, it would show “the bus is due right now”, but would never show up.

Having a ghost bus is one of the most frustrating things ever. Anyways, I gave up after 30 minutes and decided to walk to the Luas station. And of course, the Luas was delayed too.

All in all, I ended up reaching around 7:30pm. So, not a good start to the night. But, I was optimistic.

When we got to the city centre, it was crowded with college students who were unbelievably drunk. Really, really drunk. And I was fully sober, because I’m not much of a drinker.

And I’m going to be honest, I genuinely felt scared when walking through the city. There were people screaming loudly, purposely bumping into you, all the bars were packed. It wasn’t very pleasant to say the least.

I feel the first mistake I made was being sober. I think you need to be a certain level of drunk to enjoy this.

Anyways, after standing in line for a while, we ended up getting a seat in a bar. And when we did find a seat, it just so happened to be beside a large group of even more drunk lads. Exactly what I needed.

For whatever reason, they didn’t like us. And to show this resentment, they did what any drunk, out of their mind person would do. They started screaming.

We didn’t pay much attention. We wanted to mind our own business, have a bit of fun. Things were going fine, until one of the guys threw a knife at me. It was just a butter knife, but luckily his hand-eye cordination was not up to the mark. I’d say a couple drinks didn’t help his aim.

In the moment, I was shaken. If the aim was slightly to the right, the story could’ve very, very different. Before they showed us any more love, we decided to leave the bar

All and all, it wasn’t a night I remember fondly. I realised that the thing I so desperately wanted was something I definitely didn’t want.

Sometimes, we try really hard to get what we don’t have. We desperately chase this thing because it’s full of promises.

We belive that once we have this thing our life will become much better. We will be much happier and more fulfilled.

We chase the unknown in hopes of finding something we think we lack.

It took a butter knife almost hitting me to make me realise that sometimes, everything we need is right in front of us.

A lot of self-help gurus argue that happiness comes from within. It comes from accepting who we are, and being content with what we have. They say the problem is with having too many desires.

I don’t like this concept. Simply, because I can’t just be content with my current state. I want to desire. I want to fulfill my wildest aspirations. I want that picture perfect life market agencies try to sell us.

And I know more people feel this way. Our culture today promotes excess. It promotes success stories. So, how can we just buy the idea that happiness comes from less, not more?

So, here’s the dilemma. Either keep chasing the unknown in hopes of finding what you think you miss, or just learn to be content with what you have and, in a sense, leave it up to the universe, or some higher power to figure things out for you.

I’ve tried the first, and it kept disappointing me. Sometimes it led to butter knifes being thrown at me too. And I can’t accept the second. I can’t just be happy. I can’t just believe that things will work out. So, what’s the solution?

Many, many centuries ago, there lived a prince. This prince would go on to learn every answer to every question you and I have ever had. He had the answer to our problem at hand too. He knew how to escape the “it’s never enough” cycle.

So, let’s talk about the story of this prince, and what he has to say on this dilemma, right after the break.

Around 2500 centuries ago, there lived a prince of modern day Nepal. The king, his father, had made a vow to ensure his son never sees a day of suffering. Before the prince was even born, the King had made arrangements for everything the prince could ever need.

The king made it his life’s mission to shield the prince from any harm the world could throw at him. Around the palace was massive amounts of poverty. To shield the prince from this reality, the king built over 100m high walls. No one could see inside, and the prince couldn’t be exposed to the natural sufferings of life.

The prince was born into a life devoid of any form of suffering or pain. Anything the prince could ever desire would be placed in his hands in a heartbeat.

The prince wants a royal feast? Done. The prince wants the fanciest toy at the time? Done. The prince wants someone to play with? Rumour has it his palace had over 40,000 female attendants. Literally, the prince was living everyone’s dream. The picture perfect life.

However, the prince, just like you and I, went through a little process called “it’s never enough”.

All the riches, and all the luxuries weren’t enough. The prince fell into a state of depression. He wanted more. He wanted to feel something different. He wanted something he didn’t have. Sounds familiar doesn’t it?

One day, he asked his father to take him on a ride around the city. He wanted to see what’s outside the walls. His father hesistantly agreed.

However, he made arrangements to remove all the poverty from the city. He removed all the sick, old and homeless people from the street. He wanted to make sure the prince doesn’t even become aware of suffering.

During their ride though, one unwell old man escaped, and caught the prince’s attention. The prince realised there’s more to the world than he knew about.

Angry with his father, he decided to escape the palace and live a life full of suffering and pain. From that point, any food the prince ate would be food that was put in his begging bowl. He wanted to understand suffering.

He lived like this for 6 years. He wanted to understand the purpose of life, the purpose of suffering, and how to escape this cycle of things never feeling enough.

However, he soon realised that suffering sucked. He understood what you and I already know. And he didn’t like it either. The irony is that having all the luxuries in the world weren’t enough. And all the pain he could possibly endure wasn’t enough either. Nothing would suffice.

In case you didn’t catch it yet, which I will be surprised if you did though, this prince is someone famous. He’s arguably the most influential figure in Eastern philosophy, his teachings have also been the inspiration of much of modern Western psychology.

The prince is none other than the Buddha himself.

Even the Buddha struggled with feeling inadequate. He, too, was unhappy with his life, and wanted more.

So what was the Buddha’s solution to overcoming suffering?

In Buddhism, this feeling of unsatisfaction is called Dukkha. The Buddha teaches that the root of this feeling is unchecked desires and cravings. So, the Buddhist approach to dealing with this underlying dissatisfaction is to get rid of the underlying source of craving or desire that is causing it.

Most of our problems come from wanting things to be different. And there’s a strong emphasis on want, not need.

Buddhism, and many other philosophies teach that the source of unsatisfaction is desires and cravings. We feel unsatisfied because we are consumed by these aspirations.

By erradicating the desire, we can erradicate ourself from the suffering itself. And that’s the Buddhist way of dealing with the problem of things never feeling enough. Buddhist monks spend most of their life working towards getting rid of desires.

They try to cultivate a mindset where they are fuelled by the most basic human needs of food, water and shelter. They stay as far away as possible from materialistic pleasures.

But doing this isn’t easy. It’s not as simple as just saying “I’m going to stop wanting more”. I don’t know about you but, I’m certainly not giving up all the pleasures in the world. Neither am I going to give up my desires.

That’s not how our mind functions, and that’s not what our culture promotes either.

You and I live in the 21st Century. Searching for instant pleasures, or instant gratifiation is in our DNA. We are fuelled not by wants, but by quick dopamine hits. Whether that comes from TikToking for hours, or from reaching new accomplishments. We live in a very different world to that of the Buddha.

Getting rid of some deisres works. But I don’t think getting rid of desisre itself is the solution. Desire can lead to growth. You can’t just stop wanting different things. You can’t just stop craving for new experiences.

Here’s my take on the whole situation. The Buddhas is asbolutely right in saying that excessive desires lead to unsatisfaction. It stems from wanting everything, and anything, except for what you have in front of you. But to stop wanting is not the solution.

I think the problem isn’t just to do with wanting more. It’s to do with the belief that what you have right now is not enough. The problem is the belief that you lack something right now.

The reason we feel like things are never enough is because we fail to appreciate the things we already have. And to a certain extent, that’s what the Buddha did too. He craved suffering, because he failed to appreciate the luxuries he already had.

I mean can you imagine having everything in the world, and still feeling like you miss something? The Buddha, the prince, had all the materialistic things someone could ever wish for. But he wasn’t happy because he knew there’s another world out there that he hadn’t yet explored. There were feelings he hadn’t experienced.

If I speak about myself, I desperately wanted new experiences. I wanted new feelings. I wanted experiences others already had, but I hadn’t. And I made it a mission to fulfill this desire.

I think I can now say, that the problem wasn’t the desire, it was the approach to the desire that was the problem. Chasing this desire of having new experiences isn’t wrong in itself. What leads to unhappiness though is believing that what I have right now isn’t enough. It’s believing that the only way I can be happy is if I achieve these new experiences.

The problem isn’t wanting more. The problem is not being able to settle for less.

And all of us go through this. We all have desires, we all have wants, and at the end of the day, we all want to be happy. No one wants to feel unsatisfied. Letting go of desires isn’t the solution. But accepting this simple fact that what you have right now is already enough might be.

I argue that chase the unknown. Chase after your wildest aspirations. But your happiness shouldn’t be dependent on this unknown.

There are days when things feel like absolutely shit. It feels like the entire world is against you. Nothing seems right. Everything and everyone turns on you. And your mind becomes your worst enemy.

I think it’s safe to say that all of us have experienced this downward spiral at some stage in our life.

On those days, nothing seems like it works. All the little tricks you know, all the meditation you might do, or all the philosophical teachings you may be aware of, none of it seems to alleviate what you’re feeling.

In those moments, nothing feels enough. And that feeling, to put it mildly, genuinely sucks.

All the philosophy textbooks around the world, the different self-help books, and the Buddha too, claim, that Happiness is a fleeting emotion. The feeling of pleasure is a temporary one.

I was once speaking with my friend about happiness. He too, mentioned that happiness is a fleeting emotion. He says he doesn’t read philosophy, or any self-help, but deep down I’m almost certain he does. Anyways.

Most certainly, feelings of immense joy, or immense pleasure are not permanent. You can’t always feel like a 10-year old kid eating ice-cream, can you now? That’s not good for your health. You need to eat the greens, and the broccoli every now and then.

Just like that, you can’t always feel amazing. You need to feel terrible at times too. Most feelings are temporary.

In ancient Rome, after the ruler would have a major victory or win a war, when they would return to the city they would be welcomed by crowds screaming their name. Huge parades, all screaming one name and one name only.

During these celebrations, there was another very important custom. An attendant of the ruler would whisper something very important into the ears of the ruler. The attendant will remind the leader that this cheering crowd will soon turn into your biggest haters. The attendant will say that “remember, you are only a man, and all of this is only temperory”.

When we inevitably get into that downward spiral, when things just don’t feel enough, it’s good to remind ourselves that all these emotions are fleeting. Happiness, and unhappiness are not lasting emotions. What you feel right now, will pass.

And there are different ways to remind yourself of this simple fact of life. Roman emperors had attendants remind them of this. In stoicisim, they practise something called Memento Mori, which means to Remember Death.

Stoics constantly remind themselves that one day, they, too, will die. And that puts all your negative emotions in context. You are reminded that life is short, so don’t waste it being unhappy.

While most emotions are temporary, I’d like to argue, that the feeling of contentness can be permanent.

Being content means to be comfortable in your own skin. It means to take solace in the fact that you are enough, regardless of what you are yet to achieve.

And you can be content every day if you remind yourself that you are enough.

You could achieve it all. You could make all the money in the world, you can have all the friends you’ll ever need, you could even start your very own religion, nothing will ever be enough, unless you accept the fact that what you have right now is enough. Your happiness should not be dependent on what you can be, it should be based on what you are.

That’s something that took me a very long time to understand. I don’t actually even know if I fully understand it now. But that’s the first step. And it’s next step.

Anways, I never fully finished the story I started. So, if you’re still listening, hopefully I haven’t bored you yet. But, let’s finish what we started. Let me tell you how that Christmas night finished.

So, we left the bar. I was in quite a bad mood. But, my friend got some of my optimism, so he was keeping the mood cheery.

We ended up meeting our friends in the night club. This was my first time in a night club, and quite honestly, it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting.

Our group had a blast. We played drinking games, shared silly stories, and basically just had a good time.

All in all, apart from that one incident, it was a good night otherwise.