Rupert Spira is a teacher of the state of consciousness and one of his remarks reminds us of the essence of ourselves which is peace and happiness is our nature and that we don't need to be made happy, it already exists within us. As Spira says, "Peace and happiness exist prior to and independent of the content of experience." As such, we do not need an experience to be happy, or more things, happiness already resides within us. It is us. We can experience a devastating event or a situation that makes us angry or sad or upset, but that is the content of the experience. Regardless of the content, happiness is our nature and will continue to exist as the essence of ourselves regardless of these negative experiences. The Stoic philosophers said something similar when they talk about an experience as being neither positive or negative but our interpretation makes it so. But Spira goes further to highlight that both peace and happiness exist within us regardless of the events that occur to us or around us; a choice is not required as the Stoics may suggest, but our essence is already there.