Happiness is something everyone wants. People have different ways of achieving happiness. Whether it's watching their favorite movie, spending time with friends, or going to an amusement park, we each have our own ways of achieving temporary happiness. But, what if you could be happy all the time? I will discuss two lessons that I believe will lead to a life full of happiness. I follow these lessons as best as I can and it has helped me be a happier person.
Lesson #1: Love yourself
Before you can be happy in relationships, activities or anything, you first need to love yourself. This is very broad so let me get specific. You need to love everything about yourself. For some, this may be difficult. For me, I am very insecure about myself, but with practice and time, I eventually learned to love the things that I didn't like about myself the most. I think one thing that helps me whenever I am feeling insecure is that, no one in this world is perfect. No matter how hard you try, no one will be perfect.
The little quirks are what make people special. To build off of that, I think people need to try to embrace individuality. When people are thrown into a new social situation, for example, new job, new school, or a new place of living, people experience a culture shock. People start looking for what social norms are in each community. Consequently, people will shape who they are to fit in or to feel apart of that certain community. I think that change can be good, don't get me wrong. Just make sure you love who you are and love what you stand for. If your change is going to change how you see yourself, then the change is bad. I think that people, in general, feel the need to conform to society and change who they are so that they can fit in to society. I am completely against this. I think that people should embrace who they are. If you love who you are, why should you change to fit into a community? I think that if don't change and keep who you are, then you will find happiness eventually. You may, for example, need to make changes in order to get that happiness, but in the end, you will find that happiness you are looking for.
Embrace who you are, embrace the quirks and don't be ashamed of them.
If you make changes to who you are, make sure that you can still love who you are.
Once that you love yourself, you won't be looking for love in other places. Many people have this ideology that if they get a boyfriend or a girlfriend that they will be happy. Another example would be that some people believe that if they get a new car they will be happy. It's a dangerous cycle of wanting to be happy, believing that something external will bring happiness, they get temporary happiness, and then repeat the cycle. To people struggling with this, take some time to learn to love yourself and be content with what you have. If you keep wanting more and more, you will never be happy.
Lesson #2: Love others
This is a difficult one. This involves caring for other people even if they disagree with what you have to say. Looking out for one another despite there being differences between us. Putting other people's needs in front of yours even if it it is someone who you do not know that well. This lesson is more advanced than just loving people who are your friends or family, this lesson transfers to everyone. Some people just know how to make you angry, upset, and are against everything that you stand for. I deal with this one personally all the time. However, I think that if you can manage to learn to love yourself, inside and out, this is more than possible. If you are able to see the individuality of each person, see how they have different views than you, and are able to respect each person, then you can achieve this lesson. Respecting someone else's viewpoint and accepting that they have a certain view, even if you completely disagree with it, is something that is necessary to loving others.
Accepting people for who they are and who they want to be in important. If they love themselves and are not open to change, then you have to accept that person for who they are. Even if you think that a change for a person can be in their best interest, if they don't want to change, don't get upset or start not being kind to that person. That person could love themselves for who they are and not want to make a change to who they are.
Being kind to others, even when they are upsetting or being not kind to you is difficult. This is no easy task, but once accomplished, it can lead to happiness.
At the end of the day, we are all human beings. We are not that much different from each other.
