Salvation, Part I

Today, I shall be discussing salvation. Not in the religious context, mind you, but rather in the spiritual, day-to-day-soul-anxiety way. And if this sounds a bit ambituous, and you are filled with doubt and repulsion by my attempt, keep in mind that I don't really care what you think, and we'll all be ok.
So what am I talking about? What, according to my own definitions, is salvation?
I think that, by and large, we are all discontent with certain aspects of our life. Things don't always go our way, people around us affect us with their emotions and actions, and we find ourselves responding to that with mixed feelings. It rarely seems clear what will come out of anything, and if it does, it's usually just wishful thinking. I think it's plain to understand that, if everything turned out to be how we wanted, everyone would be happy and I wouldn't even be talking about salvation. In reality, there's always a multitude of things happening around us that will cause us discomfort, concern, grief, anger etc. Wondering where this is going?
So far, there are two (and a half) approaches to releasing ourselves from this. The first one is to try and change some things around us (to whatever extent we can), and try hard to create a better world for us. The second approach is to try and change ourselves in order not to mind the negative things, or at least so that we are able to let the positive aspects of life dominate our souls, thus feeling bliss. The half approach is, quite simply, not to give a damn about anything. That's all very nice, but does it work? Does any of these theories actually work? Have people really ever achieved happiness through any single (or any combinations) of these approaches.
You guessed it. The answer is "We don't know".
There's a good reason for that, and that is that people really want to achieve happiness, they want to be liberated from their problems, they really, really do. With all their hearts, and all their souls, they do. And this means that they are willing to believe that someone has actually achieved happiness, that someone, somewhere has really been happy, content, care-free, you name it. To accept that no one has done it is to accept defeat and a life of (potential) misery, where the lack of satisfaction will be an ever reoccurring theme comin g back to haunt and hunt them. Us. Whatever.
Is there no answer then? Is there no hope? Is there no end to this?
To put it simply, no. It is hard to compress such a huge issue into one sentence (let alone one word), but not as hard as you think. See, from my point of view, there is a fundamental flaw in this thought process. There is a very basic aspect of nature, mind, spirit, religion, anything, that has been left out. It's like trying to feed your hunger without knowing that it is the lack of food that's causing it.
I think "hunger" is a very good word for what I am trying to describe here. Hunger, yes, but in a spiritual way. It is the need to feel complete, to finally have what makes you happy, to achieve what you want, but...
Since I'm running out of time here, I'll wrap this up by saying this. To me, salvation is not happiness, it's not something that you eventually reach. Salvation is the realisation that we are ever changing beings, with ever changing souls, always moving, evolving, changing, progressing, growing, learning and forgetting, loving and hating, suffering and being happy. It is the ability to experience all this, it is the experience itself that fullfills our souls and gets us going. It is the journey to Ithaki that counts.
But if you think that there is a hole in the column of the truth I am presenting, you are absolutely right.

This is not over yet.