Love Yourself + Be Happy

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

– Steve Jobs

Sure, everybody wants to be loved and appreciated.

Most people want the opposite sex to find them attractive, and for people to have respect for them.

But from my observations we often seem cognitively dissonant in how we go about achieving that.

We are told, taught and trained to understand beauty in certain ways. We are told that beauty is desirable. Taught to value that beauty above other attributes. Trained to focus on achieving that beauty in the way dictated to us by the media - otherwise - we are inferior to the next beautiful person, and unworthy of love and adoration.

This is backwards. We focus on nice teeth and lips to attain a nice smile, rather than focusing on having things to smile about. We obsess over shrinking our dress size and expanding our cup size to feel attractive, but forget to be an attractive person. And this is RID-IC-U-LOUS.

Let me explain.

Here is a simple equation, hopefully applicable to everyone's ultimate life goals:

My life + My goals = Happiness

Pretty straightforward, right?

No.

Apparently not; and here's why:

People all over the world are getting VERY caught up in the 'my goals' part of that equation. So much so that they neglect to complete the sum and ever achieve happiness!!

---

To break this down even further, lets examine possible combinations for this equation:

My life + (Health + Love) = Happiness

My life + (Health + Love + Success) = Happiness

My life + (Health + Love + Success + Beauty) = Happiness


You get the idea.


Now the more we seem to evolve as a species, the more we seem to overcomplicate this equation, to resemble the following:

My life + (Health + Love + Success + Beauty + Instagram followers + A bigger TV than anyone I know + A Luxury Car + A Trophy Partner + Weekly manicures) = Happiness

We become SO DEPENDANT on these individual aspects that we forget that whatever the route, the end goals is always meant to be HAPPINESS. If you're not getting Instagram followers quickly enough, you feel as though you're failing. If you can't earn enough money to get that new car or TV, you feel you're losing the capacity to achieve happiness. And this is just plain wrong.


---


So... what can we deduce from this?

It does not matter what you fill your equasion with; what number of menial or meaningful things comprise your life; you just HAVE to make sure they add up to happiness.

Otherwise you're quite literally wasting your life away doing shit that no one benefits from, not even you.

The way I see it, the desired outcome of your life would be to minimise the number of things needed in your equation to get you to that ultimate goal of happiness. Live a simpler life. That way, your road to happiness is shorter, more direct, and less weighted on things other people can change or negatively affect. Happiness will be back in your hands.

BUT that is easier said than done.

So, the option in the meantime is to simply ensure that whatever we're doing, and however we're doing it, and whatever it is, that it is making you truly, deeply, calmly, realistically, independently and wholly happy.


To summarise:

BAD EQUASION
My Life + (Money + Career Progression + Accolades + Health + Beauty) = Success*

GOOD EQUATION
My Life + (Success + Health + Beauty) = Happiness


*Notice the lack of happiness here.

Beauty of a glowing natural independent woman....

...Versus 'beauty' from being a self-conscious fake object.

The choice is yours... Just stay focused on being happy.

Banning the Burqa

Let start this rant on the basic principle that tolerance and integration would solve the problem - now the real question is: how do we achieve that?

We could ban the burqa.

We could ban the kippah.

We could ban all religious vestments.

We could ban identity like they did in the days of slavery and in Nazi Germany. 

We could ban freedom of expression like in they did in Soviet Russia and now in North Korea.

If we make everyone wear the same thing, maybe even a 'life' uniform, then we will iron out all issues of difference.

We could make everyone the same colour to eradicate racism.

We could ban religion to prevent any religious hate crimes.

And if we did this, we may as well ban births to prevent deaths.

If we believe that banning the burqa is the way to integrate people into society, then we don't understand the meaning of the word integrate:

integrate

ˈɪntɪɡreɪt/

verb

1. 1. 
2. bring (people or groups with particular characteristics or needs) into equal participation in or membership of a social group or institution.

   "integrating children with special needs into ordinary schools"

THE WHOLE POINT OF INTEGRATION IS DIFFERENCE.

To say that welcoming other races and traditions into our culture requires 'tolerance' is a sad thing in itself. It should be recognised as one of the fundamental roots of our success as a country, and I'm sure in time to come it will be.  Bust first we must grow more intelligent as a race.

Moral of the story: The only way to promote true integration and a safe world is to open it up to whomever wants to integrate and be tolerant of all aspects of their person heritage and religious beliefs. Only 6% of terror attacks are committed by muslims, so why ban the burqa? Ban the gun, ban the bomb, ban the radicalisation. And ban the racism.

Giving to the Homeless

33% of all people living on the streets suffer from alcohol or drug addiction (St Mungos Mag 2015). Yet 100% of people I speak to that don't give to the homeless do so because 'they'll just spend it on drugs'. 

If you're going to chose not to give, which is perfectly fine, please do so for reasons that exist for more than 33% of the time.

And if you do want to support the homeless, without risking supporting the wrong things, there are charities such a St. Mungos, help the homeless, salvation army, and so on. that provide aid and shelter.

That said, I wouldn't say the problem is solved by giving the odd £1/2 or burger to a bloke sleeping rough. Though it's a nice way to spend your money if it brings you pleasure.

But I believe the issue is embedded deeper in our society and our values; and to draw out the solution we must first examine our own thoughts and actions. For homelessness to change, we must want to help them. We must change our way of thinking from 'they're a burden' to 'they're an opportunity'. 

If we do this, then in time our individual values will work their way into politics and policy; which will in turn redirect the below detailed £1 billion into a proactive solution to the problem, rather than an expensive reaction.

Research indicates that:

• the average cost of an A&E visit is £147; 4 out of 10 experiencing homelessness have used A&E in last six month 
• £1,668 is the average cost per arrest; 7 out of 10 homeless ex-offenders are reconvicted within one year
• £26, 000 is the estimated average cost of a homeless person each year to public purse
• £1 billion is the estimated annual cost of homelessness

- See more at: www.homeless.org.uk

Welcome...

Welcome to my blog. 

This is a platform for a ramblings, I hope that if you have come this far, you will enjoy...

Within, you will find my views on love & sex, morality & politics, philosophy & people. 

We are all so strange, so complex and so different, and most of all so human. I hope this blog will illuminate some of our difference and similarities, but most of all open up discussions about humility, kindness, tolerance and understanding.

I welcome all comments and suggestions, so please let me know what you'e thinking.

Goodbye for now.