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!!

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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.


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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.