There is no perfection in this world.
Between occasional big problems and frequent little annoyances, issues dominate our days which can lead to stress, complaints, and unhappiness.
If you listen to the news, the sky is falling and the world is ending. If you watch your social feeds, it seems like everyone else is living a near perfect, all-too-fun life, and you are missing out most of the time. If you watch the tele, the celebrities are traveling to far away beach resorts, living the dream, spending money as fast as they possibly can — and you are not rich nor famous, worried about your next test grade, or bill to pay, or your 20 pounds to lose.
If you listen too much to the people around you, they are often negative, all complaining about something 90% of the time, because 90% of the people haven’t figured it out. It is all too easy to become a lot like the people you associate with most of the time. If you try to solve other people’s problems, many times you will find that they are unsolvable, or people don’t actually want a solution, and you wind up infecting your own perspective with their negativity. Humans are wired to spend far too much time thinking about fears, uncertainties, and doubts — it is part of survival instinct back when we lived in the wilderness surrounded by dangers, but it is not all that helpful now.
Above all, you have to be comfortable being your independent self, because if you worry about how the crowd judges you, you are sure to bring yourself down. The crowd is — by definition — average, not extraordinary.
There is good news — through it all, a small independent-thinking group of people have found the key to happiness, while most people seem to be pursuing it, confused as to what will make them happy, hoping to find it someday.
The answer is simple: what are you grateful for? You don’t need 100 friends if you are grateful for the one true friend that you have. You don’t need dozens of Jimmy Choos if you are grateful for that one pair that are just right. You don’t need thousands of followers “liking” your posted picture on Instagram, if you are grateful for your sister who loves you with all your heart. If you are grateful for the smallest of things, from a great t-shirt to a puppy that can’t wait to see you, you can be happy. After all, there is no perfection in this world.
The next time you are down, make a list of the good relationships, the family that cares for you, the stuff that you love, the freedoms that you have, the goals and memories you cherish, the awesome popsicle you just had, the fact that you live in America and don’t have to carry water from a well two miles back to your hut. Being grateful for your blessings is the answer to being happy, day in and day out. It is not a pursuit. Thankful people are happy people.
I.M. OptimismMan
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