Upgrade your addictions to the status of preferences. Here's the distinction between an addiction and a preference.

You stop viewing yourself as being "pushed around" by the world when you realize that only you can "push" yourself. To quote Buddha: "Nothing is upsetting you. You get upset because you are upsettable."

How soon will you realize that the only thing you don't have is the direct experience that there's nothing you need that you don't have?

Happiness is experienced when your life gives you what you are willing to accept.

By tuning in to your minute-to-minute stream of consciousness, you discover the addictions that make you worried, anxious, resentful, uptight, afraid, angry, bored, etc. You thus use every uncomfortable emotion as an opportunity for consciousness growth. Even though you may still be feeling emotional and uptight, you begin to get at the roots of your ups and downs - your brief bits of pleasure and your long periods of unhappiness.

I open myself genuinely to all people by being willing to fully communicate my deepest feelings, since hiding in any degree keep me stuck in my illusion of separateness from other people.

We are not the personalities that our egos are so valiantly defending. Our personalities are simply the result of our current programming.