The Truth About Happiness

You're finally at a happy place in your life, so now what? After fighting personal battles, going through storms to seek peace, and repeatedly failing to discover your strengths and purpose in life, you are finally satisfied with who and where you are in life. Our happiness may seem like the ultimate goal in our lives and will eventually appear as the ultimate accomplishment in our lives. However, I want to let you know that this is not the case. We all need to realize that the life we live is not all about us, especially when it comes to our happiness because the happiness we struggle to find is the door that allows others to experience this same breakthrough. Now whether you were aware of this idea or not, it makes sense that we think in this way because we are taught by society that the key to our happiness is a one-sided process revolved around ourselves. Society teaches us to focus on ourselves and what's best to eliminate distractions and negative influences that disrupt the path to becoming the best version of ourselves. Some of us haven’t learned that happiness also comes from the satisfaction we receive from our selfless actions. And while a part of this happiness comes from our inner being rather than the opinion from others, we eventually begin to feel empty if our happiness doesn't impact others. Now the society we live in today follows that same one-sided idea and does not fulfill the exact criteria of seeking happiness: using our strength and kindness from our self-discovery to help carry others' burdens who struggle to be happy. I believe we sometimes fall short of the criteria because we may lack self-love, which is the part of discovering happiness that is solely about us. We also get into the habit of believing that placing others before ourselves is too much work or something we don't have time for, which also holds us back from dedicating a part of our lives to the struggles of others.

The process of self-love allows us to dig to the deepest, maybe ugliest parts of our lives to discover who we are and what we are made of, which can also cause us to become distant and unavailable, unable to spread any compassion. We have the responsibility of holding the hands of those who surround us, suffering, and longing for support. Not only will helping others recover from hardships help our lives become worthwhile and meaningful, but it also allows us to restore hope and reassure others about "the light at the end of the tunnel" by sharing our past experiences and testimonies. We cannot effectively help communities if we don't love ourselves, clearly because we have no love to give, and we don't know what love is. When we struggle to love ourselves, we begin to compare ourselves to others when we aren't in a stable place, forgetting our strength to accept ourselves just the way we are. In other words, if we see someone who is right, then we are wrong, if we see someone else succeeds then, we fail, and this black and white perspective leads us to separate ourselves from others who aren't or don't seem to be enduring this same struggle that we are. However, it is essential to eliminate that block to communicate and learn from others who are probably in the same situation but have a better understanding of self-love, so that we can eventually gain a better understanding of ourselves and help others in the same way.

Self-love could be the one experience in life that can make or break you. Loving yourself does not work like a light switch; it is not easy to wake up and decide to love yourself. Instead, self-love is a personal, demanding, and a defining process that will never be perfect but will always pose challenges in your way to help you grow. In my experience, I struggled and continue to struggle with self-love due to a need-based satisfaction, as I depended on things that were worthless to my self-love journey. I think social media plays a massive role in this as celebrities and people my age portray living happy lives surrounded by their careers, wealth, and popularity. It is easy to compare myself to others, who in their jobs, school, or personal life, seem confident and passionate in whatever they do. But I always have to realize that it's not what I have or what I do for a living, it's what I do to reach the greater good even when I feel that I am not at my best. We need to be able to accept where we are right now and embrace our struggles. We also need to love ourselves unconditionally no matter what we have, or how uncertain we are about our future. Please understand that you cannot build the habit of thinking that once you get something or reach a specific goal, then you can love yourself. Learn to love yourself right now because prolonging this process will make it harder when you get the things you've desire since you didn't appreciate who you were before then. If you don't practice self-love now, you won't know what it is in the future. From what I've learned, I was able to help one of my friends who faced insecurity, loneliness, and family issues. I used my personal experiences to show her what it looked like to fall in love with yourself and share that same love with others, and this was when I became happy. My friend was very hard on herself and fearful of getting involved in school organizations because she never felt accepted. However, I believe that she has begun to love herself as she is now very active not only in school but in church and continuously shares inspirational messages from her experiences, which happiness is all about. From this, I want you all to remember that our ultimate goal in life exceeds personal satisfaction and equates to sharing the weal you achieve. Happiness is not the final destination; so keep going.