5 Things You Should NOT Have to Give Up to Be Happy

1. Your God-given truth. There will always be people who refuse to respect you – the way you look, the way you talk, the things you say, the styles you enjoy, your beliefs, your interests, your loves, etc. In other words, they won’t support you in being true to yourself. The good news is, it’s up to you if you want to let them mess with your character, or if you would rather stand up for yourself and accept yourself just the way you are. I beg you to choose the latter. Do your best to be as good as you can be, and if that’s not enough for someone, it surely will be for someone else. You are not here to please everyone, and you are certainly not here to please them at the expense of your own truth. So care less about what they say and smile more about what you know is true. Live your life and be happy with yourself, without their judgments. 2. Responsibility for your own life. Sigmund Freud once said, “Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility.” Don’t let this be you. When you blame others for what you’re going through, you deny responsibility – you surrender power over that part of your life. Make no mistake, in the end, the price of happiness IS responsibility. As soon as you stop making everyone and everything else responsible for your happiness, the happier you’ll be. If you’re unhappy now, it’s not someone else’s fault. Ultimately, your happiness depends on your self-reliance – your unshakable willingness to take responsibility for your life from this moment forward, regardless of who had a hand in making it the way it is now. It’s about taking control of your present circumstances, finding your true self by thinking for yourself, and making a firm choice to live YOUR way. It’s about being the hero of your life, not the victim. 3. Love that comes naturally to you. When you love openly and honestly, you always strive to become better than you are. When you strive to become better than you are, everything around you becomes better too. There is never a perfect time or place for love like this either. It happens naturally and accidentally, in a heartbeat, in a single flashing, fluttering instant in time. As Robert Frost once said, “We love the things we love for what they are.” And this is precisely what gives life it’s magic. Where there is true love, there is true life. Don’t let anything stop you from loving. Don’t let anything stop you from living. 4. Your curiosity. Joy comes easy to us in our youth because we haven’t become set too firmly in our ways. Our willingness to curiously assess new situations and varying perspectives allows us to experience flashes of insight and beauty wherever we go. Those of us who fight the draw of our comfort zones as we age, who sustain our curiosity into our later years, learn a lot more and experience far more happiness in the long run. Curiosity, after all, is the foundation of lifelong growth. It allows us to retain a beginner’s mind even as our wisdom expands. In this way, an enduring curiosity permits our hearts and minds to grow younger, not older every day. So always remain curious and teachable. Keep an open mind and do not stop questioning and learning. Look forward, open new doors and experience new things. Do so because you’re curious, and because you know that today’s journey is always just beginning. 5. Your ability to make progress. Happiness isn’t possession. It’s progress. It’s seeing your efforts create outcomes. So don’t let the fantasy of an easy life imprison you. Short-term discomfort and failure are two of the surest stepping-stones to long-term happiness and success. Find the strength to keep going, even when the going gets tough. Good things don’t come to those who wait. Good things come to those who are patient… while working hard for what they want most in life. Remember, every day you may make progress – every step may be rewarding – and yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to a place where there is nothing left to experience and learn. But this, in a surprising way, only adds to the joy and glory of your journey