I’ve spoken a lot about being yourself and pursuing your passions, but I’ve also realized that it is hard to avoid being placed in the molds created by society. Society tells us how we should dress, what music we should listen to, when we are supposed to have a career, when we are supposed to have kids, get married, buy a house, and the list goes on! What if I were to tell you that all of that is bullsh*t and you should just do you!
Don’t get me wrong. It’s great to have goals and something to motivate you to be better. If life and society is telling you that you need to get your stuff together, then by all means use that as motivation to get your stuff together. What I wanted to talk about in this article stems from people doing things that they don’t want to do simply because they feel like they should! Some people continue to do things they don’t want to do simply because they said they would. I’m here to tell you that if you are not happy with something in your life, then don’t keep doing it just because society is telling you, or you tell yourself, that you should!
Let me use sports as an example. There have been many athletes that happened to be great at multiple sports. Coaches, parents, and friends will encourage that athlete to play the sport that they have the most talent! Say you were great at football and had the potential to go all the way to the NFL. Let’s say you were also pretty good at basketball, but likely couldn’t make it to the NBA. Most people will encourage you to play football! They will have valid reasons too! But, if in your heart, you have the most fun and the most passion playing basketball, then I’m here to tell you that you should play basketball!
You can use that example towards any aspect of your life. Some people stay in a job that they hate simply because it pays the bills and provides them benefits. Some people continue pursuing passions that are no longer fun simply because they took it so far already. Others stay in relationships that have lost the love simply because they are comfortable. We do all of these things for a wide variety of good reasons, but we do them at the expense of our happiness!
Someday we are all going to die! What we do during our life will become irrelevant as we will pass away and the world will continue to go on without us. It is because of this that we should fight for every single second of happiness. Happiness is success and the happier you are, then the more successful you are! It’s pointless to make a bunch of money only to live an unhappy life. I’d rather be broke and living on the streets if I could be happy! Now, financial success can bring happiness if that is part of your goal. If it isn’t part of your goal then don’t make excuses for financial success making you happy. When it’s all said and done, we can’t lie to ourselves about what makes us happy or not!
So I want you to be you and I want you to not be afraid of trying something new or breaking away from something that is stealing your happiness. You don’t need to have loyalty to anything that makes you unhappy. If you are unhappy then you will only bring others down and make them unhappy with you. If you are happy then you will only bring others up and make them happy with you! Don’t continue to do the things that make you unhappy and instead focus solely on the things that bring you happiness. Happiness is the goal!
Let’s get better together!