Just a pre warning, this is not a story but a rant about happiness and what everyone else is trying to say about it.
So often I hear people saying that we have to obtain "success" to be happy and the media is constantly throwing it in our face that "beauty" will also bring us that happiness. Normally this is something I would never write about but I've seen so many people struggle with this idea of not being enough. So many people are reaching out trying to get a grasp onto happiness but they are looking for happiness in all the wrong places.
I've heard from countless people that they don't feel beautiful because what they see as beautiful are the people they see with thousands of followers on social media or plastered on a magazine cover. Beauty is not what so many people are making it out to be. When you look at someones social media, you are looking at what they want you to see. You are looking at the best parts of their lives that they want to show you. They are posting the best pictures that they probably took a hundred times. When you look at a magazine you are looking at an airbrushed, retouched version of a human being. It's edited and re-edited until it is made out to be an unreachable form of perfect. We are constantly being shown a fabrication. Beauty isn't what you are seeing thrown in your face regularly.
Real beauty is authenticity. Being your true and authentic self is what shows real beauty. Being a fake version of yourself to please others isn't what is going to bring you happiness. But being content with who you are and what you stand for is what will give you an everlasting sense of peace and joy. At the end of the day, beauty fades. But the person you are and the heart you have is forever. When you take the time to realize that, then nothing about this "beauty" that you are seeing thrown in your face will matter. Because the day you realize that true beauty is kindness and love for yourself and the people around you, that is the day that you will have an overwhelming flood of happiness.
We already have so many battles going on around us. Some people are watching relationships crumble and other people are dealing with the loss of someone they love. There are so many battles going on around us that the last thing we need, is to have an internal battle about who we are. Because out of every single battle that is going on around us, none of them are as difficult as the ones that we have going on inside of us.
Another thing that people constantly throw around when it comes to happiness is the word "success." Success can bring happiness but there is a misconception of what success actually means. Success is not in the number of books you read. Success doesn't mean you have to go to college straight out of high school to get a degree. Success is going out to do something that matters. Success is making a difference no matter how big or small it may be. You don't have to change the world to be successful. Success can be just changing one person's world in a tremendous way. Success can be doing what you love.
The reason I say that you don't need a degree to be successful isn't because I'm against getting a degree. I am someone who is off trying to get a degree. What I mean by success not being a degree is that an education doesn't define who you are. In my opinion failure is when you get a degree, put it in a frame and then do nothing with it. You do nothing to use it. You do nothing to help yourself or others. You just did it because that is what "successful" people do.
Hard work and passion is success. Loving what you do is success. Trying to make a difference, even if you feel like you can't do it, is success. Putting effort into something that you love is success. So don't buy into this idea that you have to be or do one certain thing in order to be labeled as a success. Your effort and passion is enough.
You may not see these things in your day to day life but I wanted to share this just in the slight chance that you do or will in the future. Don't buy into the misconception of success. Don't believe what you see about beauty. Just know that authenticity and having a genuine heart is beauty, and that trying to do what you are passionate is success. Those things alone will always make you enough. This should be the easiest battle we face. But somehow it always tends to be the longest and most difficult for some people to be truly happy with who they are. So don't make it a battle anymore. Just make a change in your mindset. The rest will come in time.
