If somebody had told me what I’m about to tell you when I was a teenager, my life could have gone down a completely different path. Recently I received a message where I felt it necessary to reveal some of my life’s struggles in order to help nail home some serious points. My response became lengthy in an effort to address the question, and resultantly, this article was born.
Question: “how do I become happy?”
Happiness is how you feel about yourself. Usually people are unhappy because they are mad at themselves (lack of discipline) or because they aren’t succeeding as much (or as quickly) as they believe they should.
I’ve been depressed on and off numerous times in my life and the root of said misery derived from two core character flaws:
– A lack of self-discipline:
Self-discipline never came easily to me because my attention span sucked and I didn’t have a strict upbringing. By being allowed to do what the hell I wanted as a kid, I formed into an adult with an ingrained lack of self-discipline. My training (or lack of it) meant I’d almost always default to the path of least resistance.
Of course parents who don’t provide an orderly upbringing suck, but blaming their inadequate parenting for your faults doesn’t achieve anything actionable. As an adult, you have to take responsibility for disciplining yourself.
Why is discipline so important?
Self-discipline is essential if you want to be somebody worth a fuck. If you lack it, this should be the very first thing you work on. Nothing else can fall into place without it.
There are a million and one bullshit seminars and books out there looking to make money out of your insecurities by promising to make you confident. 99.9% are nonsense. As P.T Barnum said “there’s a sucker born every minute.”
The truth: only you can make you confident.
Disciplined people are confident people (not necessarily egotistical) because they’re proud of what they do. When you know you’re putting the work in, a by-product of your efforts will be pride. Pride translates into self-confidence, confidence translates into charm, and it’s an upward spiral from there on. But everything starts with discipline – everything. Discipline is the root of success as much as 3 is the root of 9. If you are not someone blessed with a natural irrational confidence, this is how you get confident.
– Being overly analytical:
I’m naturally prone to analysis paralysis because I have an analytical nature. Once you achieve a reasonable amount of self-discipline, you can catch yourself in the act of procrastination and force yourself to act.
Other than procrastinating, the other problem with being overly analytical is it allows you to see all the negatives in the world (there are many, everywhere, daily) and the sheer volume can will bog you down if you’re not careful.
If you are intellectual, your analytical faculty will apply a negative filter to life because you are prone to cynicism, over-thinking, and in turn, inaction. These traits are a hotbed for depression, and depression destroys productivity. I think I just described every intelligent underachiever that ever lived – knowing so much, yet doing so little.
You can read the rest here (look for silver line going across the page, that's the point you'll want to read on from)
http://illimitablemen.com/2015/10/22/how-to-be-happy/
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