thegoodandthegreat:

The tiny wins.

The petty victories.

The lessons learnt.

The love letters you wore ‘round your neck.

The first month of sticking to a workout regimen.

The B pluses.

The hugs people give you.

So many things, so many tiny things make up the whole of who you are.

How beautiful.

I recently read an article in “The Atlantic” titled “How the Cult of Self-Esteem is Ruining Our Kids,” by Lori Gottlieb. Gottlieb is a mother and a therapist, and in the article she describes the increase of adults, in their 20’s and 30’s, coming to see her with feelings of depression, anxiety, and a severe lack of happiness—despite the fact that they had better than normal childhoods, came from “good families” and were quite successful in many aspects of their lives. 

But what really caught my attention was a quote from Barry Schwartz, a social theory professor from Swarthmore college:

“Happiness as a byproduct of living your life is a great thing. But happiness as a goal is a recipe for disaster.”

I tend to agree. I have been told several times in my life to “do what makes you happy.” Well, I don’t really know what makes me happy, I’m only 24—but I’m willing to find out. And by nature I’m a pessimistic person, so my general demeanor is constantly calibrated at a Level-5-Bitch. This probably explains why (so I’ve been told) people are scared to approach me and talk to me.

“You can be intimidating,” says my friend Trish.

But so can she. Is it our job to make ourselves constantly accessible, or are we just keeping our trash filter at an all-time high? Regardless, I may at times close myself off from feelings of joy, because I don’t like being let down. I don’t allow myself to be happy or excited about certain things that have a huge weight, like applying to a specific program/job/whatever or a huge date with a guy I really like. At the same time, I don’t go to an interview with a frown on my face or go on a date and invoke the spirit of Wednesday Adams; I do my best and act like myself, but if it ends poorly, the hurt is less.

I do the same thing when I hear buzz about my work: I don’t like telling my friends because who knows how long that buzz may last. So yes, I can admit, I consciously choose to err on the side of pessimism because for me, it’s emotionally secure. It prevents me from getting my hopes up and being let down, because let’s face it—we are continually let down every single day of our lives. Or maybe we’re just expecting too much from the world because we’ve been raised in a culture where we are all super-special and deserve everything—like romantic partners, abs, and 1000 tumblr likes.

And that, I can say with a smile on my face, is complete and utter bullshit.

As it goes with life, love and happiness.

As an artist, I believe in possibilities. I believe in the infinite, the endless, the constant spinning and turning and changing of the world, over and over again. Which I think explains my love for tumblr and most social media—it’s the beautiful way in which ideas become recycled, each one of us taking something deep and personal or light and superficial from the images or quotes that come up on our dashboard. We then pass them on so that others can, in turn leave their own imprint of wisdom, affection, love, hate, companionship, a connection, a fleeting sense of community… something to remind them that they too are a part of something. 

It’s all really wonderful.

I went to the beach today with a dear friend, Amrita. 

Amrita is also a fellow artist. We have commiserated over many things together for the past few years, and lately it seems that we continue to hit the same wall over and over again, stuck in this weird paralysis of movement forward. Like our feet are stuck in the mud. 

Is it a lack of passion? Lack of faith? Lack of empathy? Because our wells have run dry and the only tears left, we reserve for us?

We both draw inspiration from the good in the world and we become invigorated with happy feelings and thoughts, our brains spinning with ideas and imaginations. And we believe, for a moment, that the world is going to turn out okay because we feel infinite. But when there isn’t enough of the good to feed us, we wither. We falter. We stop growing. We become paralyzed. 

I believe firmly that we are not the only ones who feel this way.

However, in the past few days it has come to my attention that maybe it isn’t the world, because every morning I still manage to wake up to see the sun, feel the breeze, drink my coffee, speak to friends, hug my grandmother, get angry at something silly and fall asleep late in the night. 

And it occurs to be that this can’t be so bad. 

So no more standing still and complaining about the external world, the invisible barriers that prevent us from being great, all of the excuses we continue to build up around ourselves like great walls keeping progress out. I have to stop thinking that I deserve to be happy, because that is lazy thinking. If I want happiness, true happiness, I need to make it happen.

It won’t just come to me.

We need to be better versions of ourselves, every single day.

It’s becoming clearer to me that for many of my elders, the road to happiness was one that was paved over the sad and desperate debris of the past. 

The things we give up, the things we lose and the things we do to ensure our own happiness. 

Pretty soon, we’ll all understand why our parents did what they did.