In fact many of the things that keep us from peace of mind and a sense of well being are actually very good at driving us to be successful and productive. My inner turmoil and feeling inadequate and hopelessly defective led me to get a couple doctorate degrees and be successful everywhere I have worked. Well except for getting fired twice for drugs, although I was relatively successful even during my drug use, until it was discovered.
It is also important to understand that if you believe in evolution or even something fairly similar to it, our make-up is geared towards survival and success rather than happiness (or having peace of mind and a sense of well being).
If you do not believe in evolution or at least something very similar to it, I would suggest you are likely similar to those who believed the sun revolved around the earth and could not let go even when the evidence was very clear. I do not pretend to be an expert in biology or evolution, but from those who are and from my own somewhat limited investigation it appears clear to me that evolution does explain how we became who we are, and if it was not evolution it was something very similar.
I do not bring this up to pick a fight or alienate people. I would prefer to not alienate anyone, but in my opinion it is one of the most important things to know and understand about myself. The fact that I have evolved from animals and still share a great deal of similarities with them is extremely valuable information. Indeed it was one of the main catalysts that brought everything together and gave me my freedom. More on that later.
For now let me say that believing in evolution is not inconsistent with my belief in God. In fact I would go even further. This may sound very odd and I have never heard anyone else say it, but I believe that evolution actually is one of the greatest secrets humans have discovered to give us a glimpse of God's playbook or methods. Additionally so that you do not get the wrong idea, I will tell you that I believe God made this world perfect, it has always been perfect, and it will always be perfect. And I completely reject the idea of a vengeful or angry God
Beyond that I will leave the topic of what God is and is not alone for now. If you are good with your relationship with God that is wonderful, and if you are not I might spark some non-traditional exploration that could be useful, but like everything else I will be discussing, you will have to work it out within yourself and hopefully with friends and mentors or advisers of some sort.
The only thing you need to be willing to at least consider might be possible in order to go along with my answers is that we are actually very animalistic, that human nature is very animalistic. Soon I will try to explain what I mean by this and how it is true even when it may not seem to be the case. But first I will discuss a little of why I believe it is important to try to explain a lot of the underpinnings or foundations or roots of my answers.
