Look, we're all humans. We all make mistakes. As generic and cliché as that sounds, it's true. I think nowadays, we are all losing sight of the fact that we don't have to live up to that unachievable standard that we hold ourselves to in our head. We're always saying to ourselves that we'll be happy if we could just "lose a little more weight" or "If I just had a few more friends" or "if I could just look like him/her." We are putting way too much pressure on ourselves to look a certain way and to have a certain number of friends in order to achieve satisfaction.

Recently however, it has come to my attention that I'm never going to achieve happiness if I'm only striving for temporary things that won't actually every bring me satisfaction. Losing ten pounds doesn't make me a better person just like making five more friends doesn't necessarily make me a good friend. Wanting to look like a certain person doesn't make me look anything like them, and if anything, it's only makes me feel worse about myself for comparing my looks to theirs. Even if we did get some of the things that we think will make us better people, I think we would only find more faults with ourselves and find other things that we think need improvement.

Don't get me wrong, there's absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to expand your circle of friends or wanting to lose weight. What's wrong is when we start basing our self worth and our self-respect on these things.

This is something I struggle with on a daily basis. I struggle with always putting myself down and always comparing myself to other people. I base my opinion of myself on what society deems I should instead of admiring the great qualities about myself. Happiness is not a challenge you unlock, it's not a prize to be won, and it's not just going to be handed to you based on whether or not you follow a certain criteria.

Happiness is a state of mind. It's complimenting yourself on a regular basis. It's making memories with close friends and it's telling yourself that you're worthy of happiness even if society's standards don't think so. Happiness doesn't come solely from the things that we think it does (i.e the number of friends we have, how good-looking we are, what we're involved in, etc.) It comes from yourself and the amount of love and self-worth you're willing to accept. Be gentle with yourself. Don't strive for happiness from the wrong things.