Member-only story
The First Key To Happiness
I am an expert in diagnosing what’s wrong with me. I spent my whole life trying to work out what’s my problem: why can’t I ever remember my friends’ birthdays? Do I have autism? Is my mother a narcissist? Why am I so lazy and inconsistent? Am I disguising my awkwardness with horrible jokes? Am I Chandler?
Then I figured out the two keys to happiness — yes two keys, think about it as a gate and a door, then you step into nirvana.
The key to the gate is: stop defining yourself.
When did you start doubting your own worth? Or started to criticise your looks and abilities? Or call yourself an environmentalist? Usually right after your childhood. There were at least a few years from birth that we were able to roam around freely, eat happily, sleep soundly. That’s the time when our self-consciousness haven’t yet developed.
Very soon after that, puberty hits, adolescence sucks. It sucks because we become sensitive to the concept of ‘I’. I look good, I have horrible nose, I can’t attract girls, I’m good at basketball, etc. We started to give ourselves definitions and labels, because without them, it is hard to place the ‘I’. In the chaos of trying to find who we are, we get lost instead.
