Spiritual discontent makes a man dependent on the situation he is in. Due to the fact that his experience of happiness depends on happy circumstances, he has to keep them that way. That is why a sinful man is burdened. His will is not free. He acts in order to be happy, and not because he is happy, and accordingly, his life becomes a must, a compulsion, a slavery. In his life struggle to construct values which are going to grant him an emotional satisfaction, a man, due to the concern whether he is going to achieve it or not, loses his peace of mind and becomes more and more unhappy.

In order to calm down his conscience, faced with his failure in life, one invents relative criteria for truth, or acknowledges his internal discontent and tries to justify it: "It is good that I am dissatisfied, as of it were a motivating power which makes me work, create and achieve success!"

Cannot a man have a true, unselfish love as a motivating power and thus work out of satisfaction (instead of discontent)? And another question: What is more important - happiness and peace of mind, or success? What is all success and all riches of this world for, if one is still essentially unhappy?!

Man is more important than the things he does, and his internal happiness is more important than the external success. The question whether we are worried or not is more relevant than what we are worried about. A worker is more important than his job and a student is more important than his studies. "For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?" (Mark 8:36)

Someone might say: "But the success that I achieve is a blessing to my fellow human beings!"

Perhaps, we do achieve success, and the things that we create, perhaps, are valuable, but success causes envy much too often, while the true values created are being misused. That is why man's internal well- being is much more important than the external one. Even if one's discontent results in a temporary well-being of his fellow beings, we must bear in mind that success and well-being of his fellow beings is not the actual aim of that person, but only the means for realization his own selfish motives. It is enough for the circumstances to change, and the same, selfish motives will become a damnation for all the others.

Even if one's sinful motivation represents a constant material blessing to his fellow beings, that very person will be its spiritual curse. The negative influence of a dissatisfied man represents much more of a curse than his success can represent a blessing for this world.

"Better is a little with the fear of the Lord, than great treasure and trouble with it. Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a fatted ox and hatred with it." (Proverbs 15:16-17)

In order for someone to represent a blessing for this world, in order for someone to want and to be able to make others happy, it is necessary that he is happy.

Due to being discontent, a sinner's main motive in life is to search for the feeling of happiness (selfishness), and not giving happiness (love). Accordingly, it is more important to that person how he feels, than whether the things he is doing are good.

You have to be disburdened in order to be able to discover God in your life, as well as his unselfish love and self-sacrificing goodness.

Numerous psychologists do consider man's psychological needs to feel himself beloved, worthwhile, successful, powerful, rich, just etc. correct and normal. However, as long as you are burdened, you cannot love. Burdened by satisfying your psychological needs, you have neither the time nor will to love, neither yourself nor the others.

Giving yourself a task to live for happiness, and not out of happiness, you are giving yourself a task which disables you to act for your own or other's good.

A lady opened a yogurt at her office. However, engaged in a conversation, she forgot to drink it. The next day she founded it on her desk. When she tasted it, she noticed that it turned sour. She cried: "I cannot drink it! It turned sour! I'll have to throw it away!... But how shall I throw it away? Haven't I paid for it dearly?... But if I do drink it, I'll get sick!" And thus she hesitated for a while, but finally she did drink the sour yogurt.

It is considered that you cannot dedicate yourself to spiritual needs as long as your existential needs are not satisfied. The truth is, the case is completely opposite. We see that the behavior of the above mentioned lady is not in compatibility with her existential needs, because she has disregarded her spiritual needs, and thus is selfish.

A man will sacrifice both his health and existence in order to satisfy his selfishness.

Every day we can meet people who grieve because of what they call "endangered" existence, but we do not need much wisdom in order to notice that it is just an excuse for their own selfish discontent. While they complain of an "endangered" survival, these people both smoke and drink, and thus show that they actually do not really care about their existence.

As long as you care more that the food you eat is tasty, rather than healthy, you cannot say that you act according to the motives which are relevant to your existence.

The claim that only when you satisfy your lower (existential) needs, you can dedicate yourself to the higher ones (social, intellectual...) reveals nothing else but the search for a new excuse for your internal discontent.

It is completely the same whether selfishness permeates our biological, social or religious spheres of life. Although it is in the forefront of our consciousness, it is never purposefully orientated towards our actual interests. We see that one is inclined to sacrifice both his health and existence in order to satisfy his selfish motives - which serve their own purposes.

A voracious man will sacrifice his own stomach for the sake of food in the same way in which an egotist will be inclined to commit suicide because of his offended vanity. A nationalist will sacrifice his own nation for the sake of his national values, as though one exists for the sake of them, and not they for the sake of them. In the Bible, Jesus reprimands the religious fanaticism, explaining with a number of instances from the Old Testament that a man had not been created for the sake of God's law, but that God's law had been created for the sake of a man (Mark 2:25-26.27).

As natural motives make us love with selfish love, which always requires a cause for which we love, we shall be able to sacrifice even the object of our love for the sake of the cause for our love. In true love, the cause for which we love somebody is not contained within it, but within us, within the very love by which we love.

We see that natural motives of our behavior, due to their irrationality, deny the theory of natural selection and evolution. Natural selection would never have left alive the individuals acting by the motives which are not relevant to their survival. In other words, if the principle of natural selection and evolution had really created characteristics of the species, man would have never become sinful.

Survival is conditioned not only by the abilities possessed by species, but also by the motives by which it has been initiated. A man has many more abilities than required by mere existence, but they are of no use to him when these abilities are moved by pathological motives and misused against his very existence.

On the basis of this consideration, we can conclude that the sinful motives of behavior are at the same time pathological motives of behavior, as they make a man act contrary to his own and other people's existential needs.