Imagine if our lives were not spent pursuing an increasingly elusive happiness but began, each morning, by waking into the joy of a wonderful life lived in an extraordinary world. It’s a real possibility. And it doesn’t require us to change our lives. Indeed to do it we don’t need anything we don’t already have. What it does demand, though, is a change in our fundamental attitude towards the world and towards ourselves — the ancient Greeks called this metanoia.

This is not a change of beliefs but something much deeper. It’s a change in our way of seeing. And it has long been a goal of the world’s great spiritual traditions. But it is not achieved overnight. It is a journey. And it involves a confrontation with the self-hate we have internalised since childhood, and with our anger towards the world. These are not things we hold onto because they give us pleasure