Will getting married and having kids finally make me happy?

When we look at the upgrade model, the problem with it is that we're looking at changing our externals in the hope of changing our internals. And there's a great saying about this: happiness is an inside job. Meaning that if your soul is not content now, you can't take another person, a wife or a husband, and put them into your soul, and now, poof, suddenly you're going to be content. It doesn't work like that. Things like marriage, children, career, money, all these things, they're fine aspects of life, but they don't bring peace. They bring hardship, they bring work, they're the cross, they are sacrificial. That's why when you get married in the Orthodox Church you wear the crowns of martyrdom. That is the nature of those things. It is not easy to be married, it is not easy to have kids, it's not easy to provide. Those things are a challenge and a struggle. Are they a good challenge? Oh, absolutely. Do they bring meaningfulness to your life? Absolutely. But they don't bring happiness, they don't bring contentment.