The Art of Being Yourself

When do you feel as if you are the happiest?

For me, happiness comes from a feeling of love. That can be when we are around people that make us feel loved, when we are working at a job that we love, but mainly it comes when we love ourselves. Because if we do not fully love ourselves, then our happiness becomes dependent on having to be around other people who make us feel loved, or working at a job we love - which not everyone has the luxury of experiencing every moment of every day, or even at all.

Habitual Happiness comes from habitually loving yourself, otherwise your happiness becomes dependent on the outside world. It becomes dependent on something outside of your control. But in order to love yourself, you must be yourself - otherwise who is it that you are actually loving?

Most people think that they are being themselves, but are they really? Society has a tendency to tell us how to think, what to say, how to act, what to wear, and so on and so on. It's almost as if there's a box of what other people want us to be like, and to act any different is disrespectful to the people who are trying to force us into the box. But living a life inside a box that are full of limitations is actually disrespectful to ourselves.

Being yourself in a world of conformity is actually an art form. Art is the expression of creative skill and imagination. And being yourself isn't a box full of limitations, it's a creative skill that takes imagination, origination, and most of all, courage.

It requires courage to be yourself because most people have the attitude of judging other people who break away from the box and are being themselves. And it's easy to know who has broken away from the box, because they are not acting like how everyone else acts. So being yourself in a world full conformity causes us to stand out from the crowd, but to also be vulnerable enough to risk being rejected.

When we are not being our true selves, then rejection doesn't hurt as bad. They aren't really rejecting us, they are rejecting an imposter we are trying to play. But other people's rejection seize to hurt when you stop looking for other people's approval, and look for your own approval.

Loving yourself, approving yourself, and being yourself are all intertwined. In order to love yourself, you must approve of yourself. In order to approve yourself, you must be yourself.

Being yourself starts with your intentions. Why do you do the things that you do? Do you workout so others think you are sexy? Or do you workout so that you think you are sexy? Do you dress to impress other people? Or do you dress to impress yourself?

The list of choices you have on a moment to moment basis are endless. You can either choose to conform for others, or choose to be yourself. So get creative, get imaginative, and be the person you want to be in every aspect of your life.

And what you'll find is, happiness is the art of being yourself.