Here’s The True Secret To Happiness

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Stop wasting your time building other people’s dreams.

I don’t mean that tired line that seems to be on every third photo on Instagram about “build your dreams or someone else will hire you to build theirs.” A job is a good thing, a rewarding thing, a valuable thing. If you have a job, you are doing well. You have succeeded in some way. Many others are not so fortunate.

I mean, stop letting others define what success and a good life mean to you. Stop letting other people, who you don’t know, on the Internet, tell you that their life should be the measure of your life. Your success is no one’s business but yours. To claim otherwise is intellectual slavery.

Say it with me: I am not bound to anybody else’s version of success.

By all means, live your life, and no one else’s.

The simple fact is that nobody but you can define what a successful life means for you.

• Not all the gurus, experts and lifestyle consultants out there.
• Not motivational writers like me.
• Not the Kardashians, the Real Housewives of Wherever, or your neighborhood bartender.

You are the master of your fate: you are the Captain of your soul

We’re all put here on this Earth to make something. Each of us has a legacy to leave. The problems come when we look to others to define our legacy for us. That’s when we chain ourselves to another person’s dream.

We chain ourselves to strangers’ social media accounts, dreaming of living their life.

We measure ourselves by strangers’ accomplishments, thinking that if we achieve what they have achieved, we will feel the happiness they (seem to) feel.

We cling to the hope that this time, our goals will pan out (side note: that phrase “to pan out” comes from one of the most famous examples of delusional hopefulness in recent history, the California Gold Rush!) and we will be considered a success by those whose opinions of us count.

We harness ourselves to the dreams, desires and expectations of other people, and then wonder why we feel empty within.

We’ve got to stop trying to be filled by another person’s ambition and expectation.

Live your life, and no one else’s. Build your own castle, and no one else’s. Find what matters to you, and pursue it with everything you’ve got.

That is the secret to a lifetime of happiness.

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