Once you realize that a certain kind of food makes you sick, would you carry on eating that food and keep on asserting that it's okay to be sick?

Once you see what you are doing or have been doing, you also see its futility, and that unconscious pattern then comes to an end by itself. Awareness is the greatest agent for change.

The ego is just waiting to identify with anything. Whether it's your misery or being a great meditator, it seeks some identification.

When this delusion of utter separateness underlies and governs whatever I think, say, and do, what kind of world do I create?

Give up defining yourself - to yourself or to others. You won't die. You will come to life.

Instead of making up stories, stay with the facts. For example, "I am ruined" is a story. It limits you and prevents you from taking effective action. "I have 50 cents left in my bank account" is a fact.

The whole world accepts that being stressed is the normal way to live.