The innocent mistake that keeps us caught in our own particular style of ignorance, unkindness, and shut-downess is that we are never encouraged to see clearly what is, with gentleness. Instead there’s a kind of basic misunderstanding that we should try to be better than we already are, that we should try to improve ourselves, that we should try to get away from painful things, then we would be happy. That is the innocent naïve misunderstanding that we all share, which keeps us unhappy.

The Widsom of No Escape, Pema Chodron