1. What causes a person to become an addict? In a paragraph or an essay, discuss these causes, and include examples in support of your points.
2. What are some of the consequences of having an addiction? Discuss them in a paragraph or an essay, and add examples in support of your points.
3. What are some solutions to the problem of addiction? Discuss them in a paragraph or an essay, with examples in support of your points.
4. Why are addictions so tempting and at the same time so unfulfilling?
5. Does everyone have to undergo the journey that the author discusses?
6. It can be argued that the three stages the author discusses are parallel to the three stages of the heroic journey of many characters in literature or modern movies. Come up with an example and apply the three stages to that character's journey.
7. What is the purpose of starting the reading with the names of four celebrities?
8. How does the author choose to organize this reading? Is it effective? Why or why not?
9. How do the stories about Abraham, Jung, the author's student, and Schindler affect the reading?
10. Why does the author end the reading with a reference that is 800 years old?
11. What is the author's thesis idea?
12. What are the three stages of the spiritual journey the author discusses?
13. What does the author mean by "the desert experience"?
14. what is the story about Carl Jung and his patient? What do you think is its point?

PARAPHRASE Stage One: Awareness ("I don't want to go through this anymore.") paragraph.

PARAPHRASE Stage Two: The Desert Experience ("How do I make my life unimaginably better?") paragraph.

PARAPHRASE Stage Three: The Realization of One's Purpose ("What was I born to do?") paragraph.

What's Missing? by Gary Lipschutz

The world would have us think that the greatest source of our happiness is money. The more money we have, the more we can get what we want. Too often, according to the lead author of The Canadian Writer's Workplace, who also teaches English at Toronto's Centennial College, the money we work so hard to make goes toward addiction, and happiness is the last thing we find when this happens. In "What's Missing," written in 2015, Lipschutz suggests that the struggle with addiction is more than a mental health issue; it's a spiritual journey that most of us must take.

1. Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Amy Winehouse, Philip Seymour Hoffmanwhat do they all have in common? All were abundantly talented. All seemed to have everything and more. All died far too early. All died from their addictions. What more do people want that these talented celebrities didn't already have? What's missing?

2. Besides material wealth that never completely satisfies, people seem to be in search of something else. Maybe it's the comfort in knowing that their lives mean something. Maybe it's the experience of feeling truly alive. Maybe it's the feeling of being c onnected to other human beings. Psychologist Dr. Gerald May wrote a book called Addiction and Grace. In it, he claims that most of the patients he treats for depression are seeking God or something spiritualsomething bigger than themselves, whether they realize it or not. Dr. May says that they too often look for this mysterious, spiritual, missing thing in addiction. But, ironically, he says, whatever it is we're missing actually lies on the other side of withdrawal.

3. So many people are addicted to something without even being aware of it. Addiction is the out-of-control compulsion to do something or to take something for the sole purpose of making you feel better. You can be addicted to drugs, money, power, gambling, sex, love, cellphone usage, social media, video games, alcohol, smoking, food, shopping, etc. One addiction tends to lead to another. Instead of finding what they're looking for, addicts find that their lives actually worsen because the "high" from addictions is only temporary and the long-term effect is damage to their health and/or welfare. And to keep achieving the same "high," addicts often must amplify the "fix," leading to enormous expense, greater health risk and/or more depression.

4. So that's the problem. Although we want to be happy, we often look for happiness in all the wrong places. But at the risk of sounding more clich, there is a silver lining in this cloud. What's bad can actually help you find what's good. It's like registering for a college program you discover you don't like only to discover what program you really do want. The journey from addiction to happiness (or freedom or heroism) can be divided into three stages: 1. awareness of one's addiction, 2. the desert experience, and 3. the realization of one's purpose and passion.

Stage One: Awareness ("I don't want to go through this anymore.")

5. Awareness of an addiction can come by monitoring your energy supply. We only have so much energy to spend on a daily basis before it's time to sleep and re-energize. If you spend all your energy on something unproductive, such as an addiction, there's not much left for something productive, such as something for which you have enormous talent, desire and passion. If you spend every weekend getting drunk or high or several hours every day obsessing over social media or a new man or woman in your life, think of what you could be producing if you spent that time developing your photography skills or your songwriting ability or your flair for painting portraits. When you become aware of your addiction, which takes you away from your talents, you are already on your way to recovery.

6. Your choice of people with whom you spend a great deal of time is extremely important. These people, after all, have an enormous influence on your spiritual journey. First, there's the possibility that you are going to take part in the same addictions as those of your friends. Second, if you spend all your energy with people who bring you down rather than lift you up, think about how this is going to affect your self-esteem and, consequently, your other life choices. By spending time with the wrong people, you might be shaping a destructive lifestyle.

Stage Two: The Desert Experience ("How do I make my life unimaginably better?")

7. The call of the desert can come by way of a "still, small voice." A man called Abraham lived with his family in Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq). "A still, small voice" told Abraham to "Go forth." Why? He already lived in a bustling city where he enjoyed the riches of the land, his multitude of cattle and the many family members who surrounded him. Life was predictable, comfortable and relatively secure. What more could a man possibly want? But this voice was a voice he couldn't ignore. It wasn't the loud, booming, resounding voice of the God that is portrayed in many movies. It was a "the still, small voice" inside himself that Abraham heard and attributed to God. The voice not only told him to go forth, but to go forth into the desert. Why would a man of great wealth go into the desert, where he isn't even guaranteed the water he needs to survive, let alone a better life than the one to which he's already grown accustomed? The answer is simple: something is missing, and the answer lies somewhere in the desert, where there is little noise and less distraction, but lots of mystery, and the promise of a better place that lies ahead.

8. The desert is not exactly an inviting vacation destination. It's the toughest part of the journey from addiction to freedom. But it's also the most spiritual. We maygo there willingly. If we don't, life has a habit of forcing us there. For Abraham, the desert meant departure from an old place and the promise of a better one. This takes courage and faith. For an addict, according to Dr. May, the desert symbolizeswithdrawal(the discontinuation of something such as a drug addiction). Few drug addicts look forward to withdrawal. (Remember Amy Winehouse and her song "Rehab"? When watching the music video on YouTube, one might get the awful feeling that the video foreshadows her death.)

9. Your desert might come in the form of rehab, depression, or solitude. Any desert experience is a painful one. It's also referred to as "the dark night of the soul." It is fraught with uncertainty, danger and discomfortall the things we pay dearly to avoid. It's in the desert that you find out that material things cannot and will not save you. It is in the desert where you will be stripped of your egotistical pride and your juvenile belief that the world owes you something or anything. But it's also in the desert where a space opens upa space in which you become freer to find what you are truly looking for now that your addiction no longer controls or distracts you.

10. You are tested in the desert. If you accept your responsibilities that life demands of every adult and you no longer blame anyone else for your problems, you can betransformed, which often means a kind of spiritual conversion (you see life differently now). You discover humility and gratitude, and you realize that respect must be earned. You undergo a change that has everything to do with character and not just something cosmetic like a different name or a new tattoo. You can return from the desert a new person, free of addiction, ready to take on the world, dedicated to helping your fellow human beings with a new sense of purpose and appreciation for life. The desert is where heroes are realized and readied for the heroic tasks that lie ahead.

11. You are never alone in the desert, although it may certainly feel that way for a while. You're not expected to manage the journey by yourself. Yes, it's where you will face your demons, your temptations (continuation of the addictions) and your worst fears. But you will get help from the strangest of sources. The desert tests you on your choices, but it also tests your faith. The many twelve-step programsbased on the mother of twelve-step programs, Alcoholics Anonymouspoint out to their members at every meeting that they need to surrender to a higher power, regardless of what people might call it. Let yourself be carried through the desert and allow it to show you what you need to learn.

12. After a class discussion about the "still, small voice," a student approached me and asked the question, "How do I listen to this voice?" The question I heard was "How do I enter the desert?" I responded: "Figure out how to shut out some of the noise in your life." It might be actual noise, such as the constant ringing of your cellphone, the sitcoms on TV, or theplethoraof parties normally scheduled for the weekend. Or it might be something that the wordnoisesymbolizes, such as the misguided or bad advice of friends or family or the oodles of time spent with the people in your life who constantly "bring you down." When you effectively shut out the noise, you start to hear the still, small voice. And it tells you exactly what you need to hear.

13. Psychologist (and former student of Freud) Carl G. Jung tells a story of a patient who comes to him and says, "Doctor, I'm depressed. I just lost my job." Jung takesout a bottle of champagne. The patient is immediately confused. "What are you doing?" asks the patient. "Didn't you hear what I just said? I'm depressed. I feel like I want to die." Jung responds, "You don't understand. It's in these times that there is immense opportunity because a space has been opened. You are forced to look inward and growdiscover what you want to do next. It's time to celebrate!" A desert experience can come in many different forms and, of course, more than once. But you have to be willing to accept what it offers.

Stage Three: The Realization of One's Purpose ("What was I born to do?")

14. The return from the desert is filled with opportunity. With confidence and a brand-new attitude, one is ready to take on the world, ready to serve fellow human beings, ready to fulfill one's purpose on earthto do what one was born to do, to help others become happier than they are. Figure out what your talents are and use them to make the world a better place. Become a part of something that takes you outside of yourself. Addiction feeds your ego. But that which gives you spiritual fulfilment nourishes you with self-respect. You feel good not from an addiction that might give you instant if temporary gratification, but from a longer-lasting feeling of joy because you know you've done something good for others.

15. In the movie Schindler's List, Schindler is a German businessman who wants to make as much money as possible. He owns a factory that makes shells for the German war effort in World War II. He takes advantage of the war, in which prisoners are not allowed to get paid for their work. He lets them work in his factory. This is a win-win situation; after all, while they are working for the war effort, they are not sent to their death. Schindler is not a bad man. He just likes to make money. But when he sees a little girl murdered, something changes in him. He can no longer bear to watch the acts of inhumanity without doing something. With every piece of gold he has, he buys the freedom (and saves the life) of every prisoner that he can. Most powerful is the scene in which he falls to his knees and weeps uncontrollably because he realizes he could have sold his wedding ring to save one more human life. The man found what was missing ... his humanity.

16. Thirteenth Century theologian Meister Eckhart said that if you're holding onto your attachments, they will be like demons tearing your life away. But if you let go of your attachments, your demons turn into angels that are freeing you from the earth.