More

Many of us, myself included, do not wake up fully present. Do not wake up fully appreciative of the blessings that are bestowed to us every day.  Instead of counting and being grateful for our blessings, we always want more. We have an insatiable desire for ‘more’. We seem to think that if we have ‘more’, then everything will fall into place. Whereas, I have now come to believe that if you can find peace within, only then can you truly have ‘more’. Many of us who have ‘more’ in the material sense, are not and never will be able to obtain true happiness. Whereas, many of us who have less in the material sense/physical sense are substantially more emotionally and mentally sound, thus happier people.  

After watching, among other things, documentaries such as the ‘The Story of Stuff’ (https://www.youtube.com/user/storyofstuffproject), it is very evident why we always want ‘more’. Commercialism’s objective, is to make us unhappy so that we buy objects and products, many of which we don’t really need, at a rapid rate. Every time you turn on the TV you are being misled. There are hidden meanings in those three minute adverts.

Women are subconsciously being told that they are not beautiful. Society depicts an image of what beauty is or what it should be, and if a woman does not meet up to those standards, then they’re deemed ‘unbeautiful’. There are weight loss/diet plans (many of which are extreme and unsustainable, which may do more damage than good), various types of make-up, clothes or even cosmetic surgery that women can ‘utilise’, to obtain the image of ‘beauty’. The same applies for many written publications. Many women strive to look like the woman on the front cover of the magazine, when in truth, the woman on the front cover of the magazine, doesn’t even look like the woman on the front cover of the magazine! Largely what you see is an airbrushed, altered and manipulated images of a woman. ‘If women woke up tomorrow, and really loved themselves, just think how many industries would go out of business’, Dr Gail Jones. Beauty has no exact design, there is no recipe to create it, it is simply within all of us, and sooner that this is truly believed and accepted, the greater the likelihood of finding happiness.

Another reason for our unhappiness, and for us always wanting more, is the ‘Fridge Door Syndrome’. This concept is described by Professor Steve Peters in his internationally bestselling book ‘The Chimp Paradox’. He discusses two scenarios. Imagine a child comes home from school to their mother. The child has a painting that they completed in class, in their hand. The mother says ‘did you paint this? Let me put in on the fridge!’ she then hugs the child and says ‘I love you’. Now imagine the same scenario except this time upon returning home the mother hugs the chid and says ‘I love you’ to the child then looks at the child’s painting and says ‘did you paint this? Would you like me to put this on the fridge?’.

This concept is not a ‘good/bad parenting 101’ exercise, and I’m sure parents who have acted as per either scenario, both acted with good intentions and with the love. The purpose of this concept is to highlight how people’s endeavour for validation, by showcasing their achievements, is controlling their happiness. In the first scenario, the child is being told that they are loved after they have achieved something. Professor Peters states that the message in scenario one is, ‘it is what you can achieve in life that will make you worthy. It is what you do that will make others see you in a good light’. Whereas in scenario two, the child is told that they are loved irrespective of their painting, here Professor Peters stated that the message is ‘you are worthy just as you are. It is you that is being loved and respected and you don’t have to achieve anything to get this’. He also goes on to say that ‘achieving things is good but they shouldn’t be mixed up with your self-worth’. Professor Peters use extreme examples to clearly highlight his point.

This concept resonates with me personally. There have been more times that I wish to remember, where I lived in fear, worried that I won’t gain validation from others. There has been many a time where I’ve changed shape to fit in, acted out of character to be accepted. Or felt the incessant need to justify who I was, or what I was doing, if it was evident that I was different from other people. In the days that I used to clean hospital wards, I would be scared to have to answer the customary ‘so what are you up to these days (meaning what job do you do)?’ question from someone who I hadn’t seen in a while. Conversely, I’ve felt a greater sense of self-worth, in when I could announce that I was working a job with a higher socioeconomic ‘status’. There is nothing wrong with working for the job that you’ve always wanted, then getting it, being proud of yourself and then telling people about it, but just know that your current job, or your occupational and or financial achievements and status alone, do not  make you a better person than someone who has ‘less’ than you in that sense. If you have this mindset, I feel that it will be hard to find true happiness as there will always be someone who has ‘more’ (in the material, physical and financial sense), than you do. Bob Marley said ‘money is numbers and numbers never end. If it takes money to be happy, your search for happiness will never end’.

This is by no means and exhaustive piece, but always wanting ‘more’ may result in the absence of self-love and result in one taking their eye off what really matters in life. Defining your self-worth purely on the physical things that you have and what people say to you is dangerous, because those things and those people are literally controlling you. If those things get taken away, or those people stop saying nice things about you or stop accepting you for who you truly are, then in essence they will take away your happiness. As much as compliments and nice things are nice to have and receive, immersing yourself and being too independent on them can be detrimental to your mental health.

One method in creating happiness is by writing down, or saying in your head, three things that make you happy and/or that you’re grateful for, once in the morning and once at night time before you go to bed. It doesn’t matter how ‘big’ or ‘how’ small these things are. From personal experience, doing this exercise changed my outlook on life, increased my happiness and made me realise what how lucky I was to have what I had, opposed to wanting to chase ‘more’ stuff, or to obtain ‘more’ validation or do ‘more’ to change myself to fit in. My problem is that this enlightenment was temporary, as I haven’t always been disciplined to enough to stick to this exercise! Therefore, this exercise isn’t a suggestion that I’m giving just to you as readers, it’s also a reminder for me to get my sh*t together!

Another way of curating increased happiness within yourself, is by writing down the reasons that you are grateful for a particular person, and then calling that person and reading out that letter to them. Soulpancake completed such a study (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHv6vTKD6lg&list=PLzvRx_johoA_QznlVHjbByQdHZAhWRQzr) and subsequently found that their participants’ happiness increased up to 19% after telling someone why they were grateful of them.

As Infinite Waters (https://www.youtube.com/user/Kemetprince1) says, happiness is our ‘birth right’. We should own it, protect it and live it. When we are fully committed to being happy, then we may truly be able realise what it is to have ‘more’ than we will ever need.

I hope you were able to take something from this. Thanks for reading this post!

Please leave your comments below.

Much love,

Ashley Samba.