You have lost the opportunity for true joy. That sense of feeling oneself is the primordial snake and it's well known that a snake is by nature always depressed.
Superficially, it would seem quite the contrary, that a person who feels himself very strongly should also feel the good that he has received much more. If so, he should be happier than someone who doesn't feel himself so much. But no, his happiness is never complete, and this is for two reasons:
Firstly, because he believes the world owes it to him, so what's there to celebrate? A person is especially happy when he receives a gift, but for this person there are no gifts, since in his mind he is just getting his due reward. He takes into account how good and upright he is and figures that whatever he gets is owed to him, and so his happiness is never complete.
Secondly, because he feels himself so strongly, nothing is ever enough. "He who has one hundred desires two hundred...and no one dies with half his desire in his hand." If so, he is never able to fully rejoice. In truth, within whatever happiness he does achieve is buried a certain sadness, since he remains essentially dissatisfied. How much more so when he's not getting what he feels he deserves—then he is truly depressed.
The joy of a humble person, on the other hand, is complete. He is perpetually celebrating. After all, since he doesn't feel himself so keenly and he doesn't consider himself so important, he feels that he doesn't deserve anything at all.
For him, whatever he receives is a gift, and so cause for great celebration. And if the influx of life is sometimes lacking, that doesn't sadden him either, since he feels he doesn't deserve anything anyways, so why should he be depressed?
Besides, since he is hardly an entity in his eyes, he lacks nothing, and whatever happens to him is justified. For that reason he is never depressed and on the contrary, he rejoices in his lacking as well.
Humility and a sense of nothingness, as it turns out, are the receiving channel and the cause for happiness.
