We are surrounded by photoshopped pictures and filtered posts that celebrities and the glamorous social lites post every minute, giving off the impression that they've somehow 'made it' in our society. Yet, after news hit of Kate Spade's tragic suicide, leaving her daughter and what looked like the perfect life behind, the public is given yet another example of how even affluent people struggle with the skeletons in their closets.
After being informed of Spade's death and the family she left behind, I was reminded that wherever you are in life, each day is a blessing. Even if you're struggling financially, emotionally, physically, or psychologically, you have tomorrow to slowly improve on your situation.
In our competitive society that requires social media presence in order to stay informed on the newest and latest trends and news, it's so difficult to maintain a sense of self-importance and love. Contrary to popular belief, those, like Kylie Jenner, who have achieved financially security at a young age and now find themselves in the position to buy however many houses and cars their hearts desired end up being the ones most unfulfilled.
If you think about it, life requires community contribution, a desire to feel needed and appreciated, in order to be fulfilled. Each day seems worth living and gives you incentive to live another if you go to sleep each and every night knowing you left a little bit of a personal impression on the world. You made a difference, you helped someone in need and everyone who met you that day had a smile on their face.
If you've already made it, the incentive to help someone else goes down. Psychologically speaking, people help others to feel good about themselves. For example, if you needed community service hours for school and decided to work at a soup kitchen to fill the empty bellies of the homeless and your required hours--you probably felt good about that.
You would probably be inspired to continue working at the soup kitchen after your assigned hours were filled because you enjoyed seeing how the fruits of your labor caused a chain reaction of positive impact. Not only did you help others, you also helped find contentment and fulfillment for yourself.
I'm going to be honest, if I were in the above scenario, and I wasn't given that initial obligation to take a couple hours out of my day to complete my volunteer hours, I probably wouldn't have mustered up the motivation to volunteer at the soup kitchen. There would be no incentive, no reason for me to find myself in that particular situation. What would you do?
Coming full circle, it's because of an initial personal need that pushes people to start the process of helping others in order to go to sleep at night feeling like they made a small difference in the world.
In my opinion, it's those who have "made it" that might be in the worse position to feel the most genuine happiness. Unless they've experienced what it's like to struggle, to be hungry, to go to bed on the sidewalk, they won't know how to subdue their need for self-fulfillment. Keep this in mind next time you find yourself straying to stalk the latest post of the poshest celebrity's new summer villa or the socialite's latest designer bag. Just because they have every physical appearance of happiness at their beck and call doesn't mean they have achieved the result of happiness...self-fulfillment.
