Man working his way up 
woman crying on a beach
Deep pain can lead to depression. Be sure to acknowledge your pain, and not avoid it. Process it and then find ways to let it go. Don’t wait for time to heal your wounds because the longer you allow your pain to stay with you, the more it will harm you. If you think you need help to overcome your suffering, don’t hesitate to ask for it!
Here are 210 pain quotes to help you acknowledge and overcome it:
Sad pain quotes
Sad Boy in Pain
As stated above, no one can run away from pain forever. At some point, we all experience it one way or another. We've put together the following list of sad pain quotes to let you know that you are not alone.
Behind every beautiful thing, there’s been some kind of pain.
BOB DYLAN
You can’t run away from trouble. There ain’t no place that far.
UNCLE REMUS
It’s so hard to forget pain, but it’s even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace.
CHUCK PALAHNIUK
I don’t believe there is pleasure in life. I believe there is only relief of pain… We have to suffer to be on top.
GEORGES ST-PIERRE
Nothing prevents happiness like the memory of happiness.
ANDRE GIDE
You have to die a few times before you can really live.
CHARLES BUKOWSKI
The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY
The prettiest smile hides the deepest secrets. The prettiest eyes have cried the most tears. And the kindest hearts have felt the most pain.
UNKNOWN
I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in my life. And I am horribly limited.
SYLVIA PLATH (more Sylvia Plath quotes)
There is no greater sorrow than to recall happiness in times of misery.
DANTE ALIGHIERI
I think that humans have a huge capacity to carry pain and sadness. There are things that haunt us our entire lives; we are unable to let them go. The good times seem almost effervescent and dreamlike in comparison with the times that didn’t go so well.
HENRY ROLLINS
When you give someone your whole heart and he doesn’t want it, you cannot take it back. It’s gone forever.
SYLVIA PLATH
God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.
C.S. LEWIS
Life is pain, highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.
WILLIAM GOLDMAN
Life swings like a pendulum backward and forward between pain and boredom.
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
Adventures are all very well in their place, but there's a lot to be said for regular meals and freedom from pain.
NEIL GAIMAN
I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.
JAMES BALDWIN
Life didn’t promise to be wonderful.
TEDDY PENDERGRASS
It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.
ROSE FITZGERALD KENNEDY
When you compare the sorrows of real life to the pleasures of the imaginary one, you will never want to live again, only to dream forever.
ALEXANDRE DUMAS
Waiting hurts. Forgetting hurts. But not knowing which decision to take can sometimes be the most painful...
JOSÉ N. HARRIS
I have the choice of being constantly active and happy or introspectively passive and sad. Or I can go mad by ricocheting in between.
SYLVIA PLATH
Pain is constant. You either suffer the pain of discipline, or the pain of regret.
YVAN BYEAJEE
The marks humans leave are too often scars.
JOHN GREEN
The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain. It's the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared.
LOIS LOWRY
Why is there ever this perverse cruelty in humankind, that makes us hurt most those we love best?
JACQUELINE CAREY
Imagine smiling after a slap in the face. Then think of doing it twenty-four hours a day.
MARKUS ZUSAK
For without pain, there can be no pleasure. Without sadness, there can be no happiness. Without misery there can be no beauty. And without these, life is endless, hopeless, doomed and damned.
Adult. You have become adult.
HARLAN ELLISON
Tears shed for another person are not a sign of weakness. They are a sign of a pure heart.
JOSÉ N. HARRIS
Mental pain is less dramatic than physical pain, but it is more common and also more hard to bear. The frequent attempt to conceal mental pain increases the burden: it is easier to say 'My tooth is aching' than to say 'My heart is broken.'
C.S. LEWIS
Although it's just a small tear, it is the heaviest thing in the world. And it doesn't do a damn thing to fix anything.
CHASE BROOKS
Pain quotes that will make you feel stronger
Whenever you experience pain know that it will not last forever. Be patient and learn from it. Remember that you are in charge and that you can help yourself to overcome your suffering faster. Below, we’ve gathered a list of pain quotes that will make you feel stronger. Read through them and start taking the next step toward your healing.
Be patient and tough; someday this pain will be useful to you.
OVID
You never know how strong you are until being strong is your only choice.
BOB MARLEY
What hurts us is what heals us.
PAULO COELHO
I can bear any pain as long as it has meaning.
HARUKI MURAKAMI
Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.
KAHLIL GIBRAN
Most of the gains in life come from suffering in the short term, so you can get paid in the long term.
NAVAL RAVIKANT
Pain makes me grow. Growing is what I want. Therefore, for me pain is pleasure.
ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER
Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers, but to be fearless in facing them. Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain, but for the heart to conquer it.
RABINDRANATH TAGORE
It is when I struggle that I strengthen. It is when challenged to my core that I learn the depth of who I am.
STEVE MARABOLI
The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection.
THOMAS PAINE
Our wounds are often the openings into the best and most beautiful part of us.
DAVID RICHO
At the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can.
FRIDA KAHLO
We do survive every moment, after all, except the last one.
JOHN UPDIKE
If you’re going through hell, keep going.
WINSTON CHURCHILL
The only thing that’s the end of the world is the end of the world.
BARACK OBAMA
The pain you feel today will be the strength you feel tomorrow.
UNKNOWN
What matters most is how well you walk through the fire.
CHARLES BUKOWSKI
True discovery happens when you embrace the obstacle. Truth is for the patient, the enduring.
MAXIME LAGACÉ
Don't be scared... Women can handle the worst kind of pain. You'll find out one day.
GAYLE FORMAN
Since I was young, I have always known this: Life damages us, every one. We can’t escape that damage. But now, I am also learning this: We can be mended. We mend each other.
VERONICA ROTH
There are ships sailing to many ports, but not a single one goes where life is not painful.
FERNANDO PESSOA
Don’t let pain define you, let it refine you.
TIM FARGO
Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever.
LANCE ARMSTRONG
Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.
HARUKI MURAKAMI
If pain must come, may it come quickly. Because I have a life to live, and I need to live it in the best way possible.
PAULO COELHO
After the rain, the sun will reappear. There is life. After the pain, the joy will still be here.
WALT DISNEY
Pain is a sudden hurt that can't be escaped. But then I have also learned that because of pain, I can feel the beauty, tenderness, and freedom of healing.
C. JOYBELL C.
Be the silent watcher of your thoughts and behavior. You are beneath the thinker. You are the stillness beneath the mental noise. You are the love and joy beneath the pain.
ECKHART TOLLE
Don’t get lost in your pain, know that one day your pain will become your cure.
RUMI
Pain is meant to wake us up. People try to hide their pain. But they’re wrong. Pain is something to carry, like a radio. You feel your strength in the experience of pain. It’s all in how you carry it. That’s what matters.
JIM MORRISON
I think that little by little I’ll be able to solve my problems and survive.
FRIDA KAHLO
If you never heal from what hurt you, you'll bleed on people who didn't cut you.
UNKNOWN
To heal from mental pain requires physical pain. Everything requires effort, don't give up.
BEN AFFLECK
Inspirational pain quotes
Sometimes a few words are enough to give us hope in dealing with our pain. Sometimes they are enough to help us re-evaluate our situation. In this regard, we’ve gathered for you a list of inspirational pain quotes. Enjoy!
Laugher is the tonic, the relief, the surcease for pain.
CHARLIE CHAPLIN
Sit with the pain until it passes, and you will be calmer for the next one.
NAVAL RAVIKANT
Great things never came from comfort zones.
NEIL STRAUSS
Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.
HELEN KELLER
Every pain is a gift. Every pain is an opportunity.
MAXIME LAGACÉ
Change happens when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change.
TONY ROBBINS
We can learn and change in a state of pain and suffering, or we can evolve in a state of joy and inspiration.
JOE DISPENZA
When I planted my pain in the field of patience it bore fruit of happiness.
KAHLIL GIBRAN
Passion is the bridge that takes you from pain to change.
FRIDA KAHLO
Never to suffer would never to have been blessed.
EDGAR ALLAN POE
You may have had unfair things happen to you, but the depth of your pain is an indication of the height of your future.
JOEL OSTEEN
When it hurts – observe. Life is trying to teach you something.
ANITA KRIZZAN
Too many people believe that everything must be pleasurable in life, which makes them constantly search for distractions and short-circuits the learning process.
ROBERT GREENE
My pain may be the reason for somebody’s laugh. But my laugh must never be the reason for somebody’s pain.
CHARLIE CHAPLIN (more Charlie Chaplin quotes)
Every negative situation contains the possibility for something positive, an opportunity. It is how you look at it that matters.
ROBERT GREENE
Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.
NEALE DONALD WALSCH
Time doesn’t heal emotional pain, you need to learn how to let go.
ROY T. BENNETT
The more you reject the past, the more your suffering lasts.
MAXIME LAGACÉ
The pain that you create now is always some form of nonacceptance, some form of unconscious resistance to what is.
ECKHART TOLLE
I tried to drown my sorrows, but the bastards learned how to swim, and now I am overwhelmed by this decent and good feeling.
FRIDA KAHLO
Forget about winning and losing, forget about pride and pain.
BRUCE LEE
Stay focused on your purpose, not your pain.
RANAL CURRIE
The real problem is not why some pious, humble, believing people suffer, but why some do not.
C.S. LEWIS
Nobody can hurt me without my permission.
MAHATMA GANDHI
If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.
THOMAS PAINE
There is a saying in Tibetan, ‘Tragedy should be utilized as a source of strength’. No matter what sort of difficulties, how painful experience is, if we lose our hope, that’s our real disaster.
DALAI LAMA
Take it from me: If you hear the past speaking to you, feel it tugging up your back and runing its fingers up your spine, the best thing to do-the only thing-is run.
LAUREN OLIVER
If you can learn to endure pain, you can survive anything. Some people learn to embrace it- to love it. Some endure it through drowning it in sorrow, or by making themselves forget. Others turn it into anger.
SARAH J. MAAS
Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes, and adversity is not without comforts and hopes.
FRANCIS BACON
If I can see pain in your eyes then share with me your tears. If I can see joy in your eyes then share with me your smile.
SANTOSH KALWAR
There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt.
ERMA BOMBECK
Pain introduces you to your highest self.
PAUL DOMENICK
And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
ANAIS NIN (more Anais Nin quotes)
God brings men into deep waters, not to drown them, but to cleanse them.
JOHN AUGHEY
Neurosis is the natural by-product of pain avoidance.
CARL JUNG
Some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers.
GARTH BROOKS
The pain of parting is nothing to the joy of meeting again.
CHARLES DICKENS
Pain is a feeling. Your feelings are a part of you. Your own reality. If you feel ashamed of them, and hide them, you’re letting society destroy your reality. You should stand up for your right to feel your pain.
JIM MORRISON
Where the wound has been given, there must the cure be found, if anywhere.
JANE AUSTEN
The cure for pain is in the pain.
RUMI (more Rumi quotes)
Frustration, although quite painful at times, is a very positive and essential part of success.
BO BENNETT
Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness. Take pride that even though the rest of the world may disagree, you still believe it to be a beautiful place.
IAIN THOMAS
Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have – life itself.
WALTER ANDERSON
Growth is painful. Change is painful. But nothing is as painful as staying stuck somewhere you don’t belong.
UNKNOWN
Problems are the price you pay for progress.
BRANCH RICKEY
Sacrifice today for tomorrows betterment, you are willing to pay those payments with pain, because pain is just a message when you are fixing something that’s insufficient in your life.
GREG PLITT
Deep pain quotes
Sometimes the pain we feel is so excruciating that we would cling to anything for a few seconds of relief. If you believe that your pain is too much for you to handle, please don’t hesitate to ask for help from a friend or a professional.
Here’s our list of deep pain quotes that you’ll resonate with:
We don’t even ask happiness, just a little less pain.
CHARLES BUKOWSKI
People go through so much pain trying to avoid pain.
NEIL STRAUSS
Smile, though your heart is aching. Smile, even though it’s breaking. When there are clouds in the sky, you’ll get by if you smile through your pain and sorrow. Smile and maybe tomorrow, you’ll see the sun come shining through for you.
CHARLIE CHAPLIN
‘You,’ he said, ‘are a terribly real thing in a terribly false world, and that, I believe, is why you are in so much pain.'
EMILIE AUTUMN
One thing you can’t hide – is when you’re crippled inside.
JOHN LENNON
I just feel pain. A lot of pain. I thought I could imagine how much this would hurt, but I was wrong.
HARUKI MURAKAMI
There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.
MAYA ANGELOU
It is easier to find men who will volunteer to die, than to find those who are willing to endure pain with patience.
JULIUS CAESAR
I must get my soul back from you; I am killing my flesh without it.
SYLVIA PLATH
My painting carries with it the message of pain.
FRIDA KAHLO (more Frida Kahlo quotes)
There are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds.
LAURELL K. HAMILTON
You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.
JAMES BALDWIN
If you love deeply, you're going to get hurt badly. But it's still worth it.
C.S. LEWIS
I remained too much inside my head and ended up losing my mind.
EDGAR ALLAN POE
You care so much you feel as though you will bleed to death with the pain of it.
J.K. ROWLING (more J.K. Rowling quotes)
In misery we seem aware of our own existence, even though it may be in the form of a monstrous egotism: this pain of mine is individual, this nerve that winces belongs to me and to no other.
GRAHAM GREENE
The silence depressed me. It wasn’t the silence of silence. It was my own silence.
SYLVIA PLATH
Unrequited love does not die; it's only beaten down to a secret place where it hides, curled and wounded. For some unfortunates, it turns bitter and mean, and those who come after pay the price for the hurt done by the one who came before.
ELLE NEWMARK
If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.
ZORA NEALE HURSTON
Often it’s the deepest pain which empowers you to grow into your highest self.
UNKNOWN
Forgiveness has nothing to do with absolving a criminal of his crime. It has everything to do with relieving oneself of the burden of being a victim--letting go of the pain and transforming oneself from victim to survivor.
C.R. STRAHAN
The tragedy of life is in what dies inside a man while he lives – the death of genuine feeling, the death of inspired response, the awareness that makes it possible to feel the pain or the glory of other men in yourself.
NORMAN COUSINS
I may never be happy, but tonight I am content.
SYLVIA PLATH
The hottest love has the coldest end.
SOCRATES
There's no comfort in the truth, pain is all you'll find.
GEORGE MICHEAL
Moral wounds have this peculiarity - they may be hidden, but they never close; always painful, always ready to bleed when touched, they remain fresh and open in the heart.
ALEXANDRE DUMAS
The damage was permanent; there would always be scars. But even the angriest scars faded over time until it was difficult to see them written on the skin at all, and the only thing that remained was the memory of how painful it had been.
JODI PICOULT
Memories are bullets. Some whiz by and only spook you. Others tear you open and leave you in pieces.
RICHARD KADREY
I have absolutely no pleasure in the stimulants in which I sometimes so madly indulge. It has not been in the pursuit of pleasure that I have periled life and reputation and reason. It has been the desperate attempt to escape from torturing memories, from a sense of insupportable loneliness and a dread of some strange impending doom.
EDGAR ALLAN POE
Life is painful and messed up. It gets complicated at the worst of times, and sometimes you have no idea where to go or what to do.
ALYSHA SPEER
I could never hurt him enough to make his betrayal stop hurting. And it hurts, in every part of my body.
VERONICA ROTH
Painting completed my life. I lost three children and a series of other things that would have fulfilled my horrible life. My painting took the place of all of this. I think work is the best.
FRIDA KAHLO
Some old wounds never truly heal, and bleed again at the slightest word.
GEORGE R.R. MARTIN
Why the hell are we conditioned into the smooth strawberry-and-cream Mother-Goose-world, Alice-in-Wonderland fable, only to be broken on the wheel as we grow older and become aware of ourselves as individuals with a dull responsibility in life?
SYLVIA PLATH
I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.
EDGAR ALLAN POE
I still cannot understand how he could abandon me so unceremoniously, without any sort of goodbye, without looking back even once. The pain is like an axe that chops my heart.wis
YANN MARTEL
The worst type of crying wasn't the kind everyone could see--the wailing on street corners, the tearing at clothes. No, the worst kind happened when your soul wept and no matter what you did, there was no way to comfort it.
KATIE MCGARRY
Compassion hurts. When you feel connected to everything, you also feel responsible for everything. And you cannot turn away.
ANDREW BOYD
Short pain quotes
Sadness and pain are part of everyone’s life. We hope that some of the short pain quotes listed below will help you in dealing with your situation.
Here’s our list of short pain quotes that make perfect captions for your Instagram posts:
Life is pain, so live it up while you can.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY
Pain is a fact. Suffering is a choice.
NAVAL RAVIKANT
Without pain, without sacrifice, we would have nothing.
FIGHT CLUB
Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.
BUDDHA
Let go of the past.
ROBERT GREENE
Adversity is the first path to truth.
LORD BYRON
New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.
LAO TZU
I’ve learned more from pain than I could’ve ever learned from pleasure.
UNKNOWN
Failure gave me strength. Pain was my motivation.
MICHAEL JORDAN
There are no gains without pains.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
The root of all suffering is attachment.
BUDDHA
One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.
BOB MARLEY
The art of life is the art of avoiding pain.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
It hurts because it matters.
JOHN GREEN
That’s the thing about pain, it demands to be felt.
JOHN GREEN
We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to.
C.S. LEWIS
Face your life, its pain, its pleasure, leave no path untaken.
NEIL GAIMAN
Move toward resistance and pain.
ROBERT GREENE
Much of your pain is self-chosen.
KAHLIL GIBRAN
I ask not for a lighter burden, but for broader shoulders.
JEWISH PROVERB
The pain I feel now is the happiness I had before. That’s the deal.
C.S. LEWIS
Embrace the feeling. Start the healing.
MAXIME LAGACÉ
Pain is a great motivator.
NAVAL RAVIKANT
It’s better to feel pain than nothing at all.
UNKNOWN
Two barrels of tears will not heal a bruise.
CHINESE PROVERB
Strange how we decorate pain.
MARGARET ATWOOD
Fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil.
ARISTOTLE
To hurt is as human as to breathe.
J.K. ROWLING
Life is pain and the enjoyment of love is an anesthetic.
CESARE PAVESE
Wise pain quotes
If anything, pain is a teacher. If you learn to change your perspective and see pain from a different point of view, you will soon observe that it often teaches you valuable life lessons. Those lessons will help you cope better with whatever life throws at you in the future.
Here’s our list of wise pain quotes that everyone should read:
One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: that word is love.
SOPHOCLES
It is always by way of pain one arrives at pleasure.
MARQUIS DE SADE
Turn your wounds into wisdom.
OPRAH WINFREY
If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.
MARCUS AURELIUS
The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure but to avoid pain.
ARISTOTLE
We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey.
KENJI MIYAZAWA
It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
Remember anything you want that’s valuable requires you to break through short-term pain in order to gain long-term pleasure.
TONY ROBBINS
Pain nourishes courage. You can’t be brave if you’ve only had wonderful things happen to you.
MARY TYLER MOORE
There is no education like adversity.
BENJAMIN DISRAELI
We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons.
JIM ROHN
Nothing pains some people more than having to think.
MARTIN LUTHER KING JR
He who makes a beast out of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.
DR. SEUSS
Wisdom is nothing more than healed pain.
ROBERT GARY LEE
If experience is the mother of wisdom, pain is the father.
THIBAUT
We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality.
LUCIUS ANNAEUS SENECA
Try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free wills involve, and you find that you have excluded life itself.
C.S. LEWIS
Sometimes you must hurt in order to know, fall in order to grow, lose in order to gain, because life’s greatest lessons are learnt through pain.
NAGATO
Handling our suffering is an art. If we know how to suffer, we suffer much less, and we’re no longer afraid of being overwhelmed by the suffering inside.
THICH NHAT HANH
Acceptance doesn’t mean resignation; it means understanding that something is what it is and that there’s got to be a way through it.
MICHAEL J. FOX
Trying to build a life where you never experience bad feelings is like building a ship that can’t handle a storm.
NEIL STRAUSS
Pain can change you, but that doesn’t mean it has to be a bad change. Take that pain and turn it into wisdom.
UNKNOWN
There is no coming to consciousness without pain. People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own Soul. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.
CARL JUNG
We cannot be more sensitive to pleasure without being more sensitive to pain.
ALAN WATTS
Pain, pleasure and death are no more than a process for existence. The revolutionary struggle in this process is a doorway open to intelligence.
FRIDA KAHLO
Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?
JOHN KEATS
But who can remember pain, once it’s over? All that remains of it is a shadow, not in the mind even, in the flesh. Pain marks you, but too deep to see. Out of sight, out of mind.
MARGARET ATWOOD
If you spend your time hoping someone will suffer the consequences for what they did to your heart, then you're allowing them to hurt you a second time in your mind.
SHANNON L. ALDER
You'll Find Happiness When You Stop Trying to Find Yourself
You find yourself curious yet defiant towards this idea: that our quest to "find ourselves" is what's actually causing us to be unhappy. How can trying to figure out who we are be a cause for discontent? A lot of us have felt or been led to believe that we need to define ourselves, to figure out who we are and what we want, in order to discover what makes us happy.
But what if the truth is much simpler than that?
You'll Find Happiness When You Stop Trying to Find Yourself
We are living in an age where the definition of success is again changing. Being successful once meant getting rich, or bagging that coveted position in the corporate ladder. It still does for many. But the millennial generation is more likely to judge success by their ability to turn their passion into a source of income, by how many stamps they have collected on their passport, or by how many followers they have accrued on Twitter or Instagram.
So what is success, really? I will not answer that for you, because who decides which definition is the right one? Your idea of success could be entirely different from mine. So why should one be better than the other? Why compare at all?
What if I told you the same logic can be applied to happiness? The things that make you happy might not do the same for me. But shouldn't it stand to reason then than finding ourselves will help us better understand what makes us happy?
To live is to change
Before I answer that question, I want you to ask yourself, do you still like playing hide and seek, like you did as a kid? Or do you prefer playing on your PS5 or going clubbing now? You might have loved chocolate cake a couple of months ago, but maybe cheesecake makes your mouth water today. You never were an animal person, but perhaps suddenly, you find yourself secretly enjoying watching dog or cat videos on YouTube.
By now, you have probably picked up on the common thread -- your preferences have changed. We are constantly changing. Different periods, life experiences, people and places will constantly mold us into something new. We are always evolving.
So what use is it to seek to "find" ourselves, when the moment we feel we know who we are or what makes us tick -- BOOM -- we have changed some more? You will never find a fixed answer to who you are, because the answer is never fixed. And because you will never really find a stable answer, the question will keep gnawing at you, leaving you feeling incomplete and discontent. You will feel like a failure, for not being competent enough to even answer the most basic question: 'Who am I'?
Sit back and enjoy the music
How do you feel when a song is stuck in your head and you just can't recall the lyrics or the singer? Annoyed maybe? Even very annoyed? It's a powerful analogy, isn't it?
The moment you realize and accept that there is no fixed answer to who you are, you will learn to love yourself as is -- to simply enjoy the song, without needing to name the singer. The moment you learn to let go is is the moment you will feel at peace, because you will no longer be 'chasing' anything. You will simply be.
You are your thoughts. So let your thoughts embrace the chaos of flux and the constant myriad of changes. Accept yourself in every moment. Define your terms for your personal success and happiness. But don't stop there. Keep redefining those terms.
And finally, you will realize that you're no longer chasing something that always seems just slightly out of reach, but instead walking alongside change as a happy life companion.