Contrary to popular belief, and surely something that will ruffle some feathers among the die-hard atheists, I feel that just like a theist believes in the presence of (a) God, a deity who is the Creator of life and supreme ruler of their lives, an atheist believes too. Because an atheist believes there's no deity called God.
The source of all human suffering is the non-acceptance of what is, as we label things and situations, as good or bad. Fighting the flow of life believing we can do better than what life offers, means we believe we are separate from life. Like it’s us vs life and what is, needs to be changed when our minds believe it doesn’t fit the picture it sees suitable for us. It needs to be corrected when it attacks the identity we have created for ourselves, and by ourselves. An identity that only exists in our mind.
A perfectly normal human desire is the imagined need for ourselves, or the wish for others such as our partner, to be in control of life, to have/get life in order, to have life go the way you want it. Most of the time this desire makes us believe that we should have a strategy on how we want to live life, that we need to set a plan so we can make money or fulfill any other socially regarded as acceptable role so we can act as a responsible member of society.
People have different opinions. These opinions are purely based on thought and we take these thoughts to carry real value. The opportunity to look within ourselves arises when one starts to believe that his/her own thoughts are worth more than the other person's.
An often heard phrase is “Everything happens for a reason” when you feel a certain event happens to you and you’re trying to explain why this may have happened. Oftentimes it’s followed with an explanation as to why the Universe let this particular thing happen to you and what lessons could be learned from it.
