Shorty: better but not really better

Realization:

If I criticize your version of GreedAngerDelusion by promoting my version of GreedAngerDelusion, that not very helpful. It might feel better, but it's not really better.

SHORTY: Something better exists

About 2 decades ago, I wrote some copy for an ad.  "Something better exists, but you can't have it."

With Buddhism, I'd change it to:
Something better exists, but you can have it.

More and more.

"We cannot truly overcome unhappiness by physical comfort alone; ultimately, the unhappiness created by human intelligence can only be alleviated by intelligence itself."

-HH The Dalai Lama in Essence of the Heart Sutra

I had heard things like this for a long time, but they never sunk into the heart.

SHORTY: the shiny fire sermon

When you start to see the fires of greed, the fires of passion, the fires of aversion, and the fires or delusion, ask yourself: what is skillful to do? It is very easy to be glamoured by what is shiny.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%80dittapariy%C4%81ya_Sutta

The five hindrances, expanded; the five subtler hindrances.

Buddhism has an amazingly large amount of numbered lists. It is almost like reading a buzzfeed web page. One of the lists is the Five Hindrances. The Buddha listed these 5 things as a complete list of all the hindrances to making progress on the Buddhist path. That means that if you have any suffering or greed or anger or fear or delusion and it isn't just the raw emotion but it's part of your brain spinning, that means it's one of these five hindrances.

The five hindrances are 

1. Sensual Desire
2. Anger and Ill-will 
3. Sloth and torpor 
4. Restlessness 
5. Doubt 

So if you're stuck, instead of just feeling this amorphous stuckness, this list invites you to analyze and get a little deeper into that stuff this. You can investigate and try on these five categories. Do these fit?