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I've spent the last few months wondering over what it means to be me. At least from my last blog about happiness, and all the ridiculousness that has gone on in my life since then, I can sort of finally try to piece together what remains of my life, and try to move from that. Just as importantly, I can try to understand who I am, face what I've become, and see if I can find a way forward.
In my next few blogs, I will try to write about a single, focused idea that makes me think because at least now, it feels so prevalent in my life. Probably some people won't understand the exact amount of thought behind the words, or some people know exactly that, and much more than I. Either way, I think just reading and thinking about these thoughts about life are one of the most important things we can do as human - to be self-aware.
Earn Your Happiness
I have honestly started to hate, in an envious way, how some people have their lives made out for them. Rather than learning by pain, they've been lucky growing up that good things just came to them and protected them from the pain others go through.
Of course, this is really bad for me to feel, because there's always this nagging sensation that I'm being arrogant. I'm better than you, I've suffered more pain than you. And that is wrong. But it doesn't make me think any differently about pain. The more pain you endure through, the better a person you emerge, and I will cling onto this ideal until I die.
Pain tells you to grow. It teaches you to think about what you've done, and leaving it requires you to reach inside yourself and pull out something both powerful and empowering.
This is why I don't respect people who have their lives made out for them as much as I should - people who haven't earned their happiness. We have so many habits that we never really question why we have them, where they came from, and never really understand what they all mean. And we rarely see what they are unless the habit failed us - unless we have to re-grow that part because the first time it grew, it sucked. And that's really what makes us truly appreciate what we have.
When we can see what we have is wrong, why and how it's wrong, how it can be righted, and then righting it.
But people who had their life made out for them don't really understand this idea. People like that don't really understand how great their lives are. They don't really understand what little things they do daily that others grind through sweat and tears to achieve.
If you have been there and you have been through that struggle though, life just seem so much more fuller since you've had to jump through that hurdle.
Lots of my friends never even think about it. And they never do because all this shit has gone right for them throughout their life. They had parents that understood how to raise them. Parents that were able to teach them the right way to handle situations, the right way to befriend others. They didn't have ones that berated them for their accomplishments, that corrupt with wholly ignorant views and shitty attitudes about life, that don't provide any sort of positive role model-ing for their children.
They didn't have to go to school in environments that shat on them, and had to work with parents as role models that didn't teach any of the right things. That opportunity didn't come knocking to break out of their shell, or the opportunity wasn't taken. That no one was there to help them, and they spiraled out of control by themselves.
Yes, you are supposed to help yourself, and when you finally do come to that understanding, it makes you appreciate all the simple things in life that you've taken for granted. You appreciate things about yourself that you actually earned, things that you fought hard for and won.
You've competed in any sort of competition. And you come 4th. Not great, but respectable. When it comes time to get your reward, you get a reward for 1st place. But the 1st place award means nothing to you, you haven't earned it. You only got 4th place, and getting the 4th place reward is perfectly satisfying - it is what you've earned, and only you truly know that you've earned it.
We all start in varying difficulties of life - from a child living in poverty to a spoiled kid in an metropolis and everything inbetween. But we truly appreciate only what we have earned. And we can only earn it when we have almost lost it.
That's why I love the idea of earning your happiness. My happiness is hard fought, and it is still being fought for. It is a pain. It requires me to examine every single part of my life. It requires me to bash every part of myself in a wall when I do something stupid, and feel that suffering in order for me to understand, and rise above it the next time.
We earn our happiness when we fight for it, and it makes being happy just so much more special.
 
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Your idea of "earning" seems to be based on some kind of cosmic principles of fairness, justice and inherent value. You should think those over.
EDIT: Okay, not be that dickish first post: You say it yourself that you "love the idea of earning your happiness". It´s just that, an idea that gives you the possibility to be better than those who appear to be better than you. Break the cycle and be happier for it.
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United Kingdom1702 Posts
Why hold it against people who don't have such a struggle? Of course you can appreciate something, even though you haven't sweated blood for it. It just depends on the values which you are taught and arrive at, and what you choose to do with your life from the start you're given. Crappy parents and a horrible school is, or should not be not a prerequisite for respect from others in your success.
You also can never be quite sure how hard people have worked to achieve what they have achieved just from looking. I know this as somebody who often seems like they breeze through on talent or luck or both, and gets this kind of thing from people all the time. I am also of the opinion that you have to earn happiness, but contrary to you I don't think this has to be some kind of fight, or that I can't be happy or deserving of respect if my life isn't demonstrably unpleasant in one way or another.
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Whiny and condescending.
You simply envy anyone who had it better or easier than you, alas you want everyone to suffer - at least as much as you think you did. This reads like a very bad "How i became a supervillain" story.
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i know how you feel. i know that feeling of envy for people who have easy lives, who dont have to suffer, and who can live without a worry. and even though you know that it's wrong for you to feel that way, you still do. it's difficult to change your emotions and attitude. but it can be done.
what you have to realize is that each individual has his own circumstances. each person was born and grew up differently, made different decisions based on his experiences and environment, and influenced by different situations and different people. basically, it's not their "fault" that they are like that. and it's not your fault either, that you happen to have a more difficult life than they do.
and for those people who don't go through a difficult life - who they are is the direct result of what they have gone through. maybe they won't know how to deal with suffering or the lost of a love one as much as someone who has experienced it. maybe they break down in the face of a challenge. maybe they simply take things for granted, and cannot appreciate the small things in life. maybe they can't find happiness in everyday things that someone who has suffered can.
and for those people who do go through difficulties - they are also shaped by what they've gone through. they're tough and know how to handle difficulties because they've handled them before. they're mentally stronger. they are grounded and in touch with their emotions. maybe they have deeper relationships with the people who they suffered with. or maybe they are able to empathize and connect with others more intimately because of what they've been through.
the experiences given to each person are unique, and the person is shaped by them. and the person who goes through pain and suffering is the one who grows stronger. OP, continue to challenge yourself, and handle and endure the difficulties that you face. they are what make you what you are. they're what really brings you alive. you probably don't want an easy life with no hardships or adversity. cuz then there's no growth. you'd become like one of those people you don't like.
don't be jealous of those who have easy lives. understand them. and then, you might even pity them.
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Hey.
It doesnt matter if people had a easy life or not. Someone once said to me, people who fall very deep have the ability to rise even higher. Life throws challenges at us, and not everyone can overcome these challenges (for example: I lost a very good friend to a heroin overdose, he used to study for engineer at university untill his father committed suicide..and he never got over it).... but if you do overcome these challenges and just refuse to give up, even in the face of those who look down upon you, you will achieve alot of great things.
Some of the feelings you write down sound familiar to me. In the past i used to be somebody who gave up very quick, but after alot of shit happened, and yea, it was pure hell, but it made me stronger, and it made me who i am today, and that is what is important, not the memories of the past, but what you do with it in the present.
Good luck.
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You can't change the past or the circumstances or surroundings you were born into, so stop being angry about stuff like that. It's completely pointless to think about things that you can't change in the first place and if thoughts like that continue for a long time they almost always spiral downwards into emotionally dark places. You should focus on how the bad things that happened to you helped you to get into the position you are in now, which is to be a happier person that can enjoy and see more of the happiness that is going on everywhere. And from these thoughts you can review yourself and think about where your envy is coming from and how you can shut these emotions off little by little.
Also, having an easy life doesn't correlate with having a happy life or with being able to value your life more and living a more intense life, it just means that they had it easy. But are the things that are easy really the best things that happen to you and that you remember? Not really.
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+ Show Spoiler [my first comment] +At first my comment was strewn with hate and me just breathing fire at you, because really what you have said here is ridiculous. I know a kid who has had everything given to him, but that doesn't mean he hasn't earned what he has deserved, he works fucking hard. He got into Columbia University off his parents connections, but he still got all A's in school, even if his parents were huge donors so the kid got extra chances. He worked his ass off, and though you can be jealous of his circumstances, if you worked that hard, believe me you'd already be in his shoes if you had his talent. I know people whose parents are awful but they are given everything, I know people whose childhoods were awful, but they had a lot given to them. I'll be honest with you, I've felt this way before; it's meaningless. If you envy them so much, work so you can give the same for your children. If you are so jealous by how lucky they have it, then they probably don't have it out of luck. I know people who the system forgot, but they worked their assess off to get where they are. Earning it is relative to what one earns, and more importantly this seems to be an enormous case of sour grapes.
I'm just going to spoiler the original. It's too aggressive for how I want to comment. After thinking more about it, I just kind of think we all get like this sometimes, but it's useless thinking. Easy life = happy is not the case.
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abloo abloo abloo other people didnt have as hard of a life as me and now i judge them
one star for you, whiny dick. earn your 5 star
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I think you are contradicting yourself. You explain in detail how great it is to have to work for things. But then you're upset at the people who don't have to. By your logic, shouldn't you be pitying them?
Either way, it seems kind of harsh to look down on people for being lucky.Do you feel everyone who has had a harder life than you, e.g most of the world, is right to hold the same negative views about you?
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I don't understand why people thought I was at all angry or whining in the blog .. okay, I'll explain before I ruin what little reputation I do have, except half of you need to not attack me in doing so... none of this was whining, and especially not at the people I am envious of and the anger was directed inwards to how stupid I was to end up at this point.
I completely agree with people that hate what I said - you definitely should not be envious, jealous, or hate people that seem to have gotten off better than you. I completely agree, because the reasoning always ends up circular. You may have it bad, but someone else out there, and many more out there have it worse. Similarly, you may think that others didn't have it bad to get there, even though they did, and you just don't really know. The reasoning is pathetic, and the idea is completely wrong.
Yet why did it still pop up?
It came because at some point in my life, this idea grew in my mind, and my mind was not able to squash it before it ingrained itself in my being. And that's what differentiates me from a lot of people who haven't had to go through the phase where they had a stupid ass idea, or ideas, that screw up how they interact with life.
Suppose I was racist. But one day, I became aware that I was racist. Of course, all the years leading up to this point, I never thought of myself as being racist, or that anything I did was perceived as that, but now I know. This meant that throughout my life so far, I never encountered the situations or lived in the environments that would have prevented me from being racist. However, many others do, and many others don't. But now that I am aware of this racism now, and I am forced to struggle through getting rid of it, which is not going to be easy. But if and when I do get over it, not being racism is so much more fulfilling to me than it would be to others who haven't had to fight to earn the right to not be racist. Rather than it having cultivated itself naturally as others have, I feel not being racist has been earned, and the happiness you get from overcoming these broken beliefs is stronger than the happiness had you just never been racist or considered the possibility of being racist.
Maybe earned isn't the best word, but I can think of no other.
When you earn your happiness, you have had the experience of not being happy. You lose the happiness, or you realize you never were happy, and need to overcome obstacles in order to actually be happy. And now that happiness means so much more to you than it did before, because you've earned it. And later you'll earn it again when you forget why you earned it.
I know that it's completely wrong to hate people for that, and I don't. I hate myself for feeling that I should hate people, and I am angry at the fact that I have to hate myself for this and learn these lessons after a quarter of the way through my life.
I am happy that you guys are so passionately angry about this, because it says that this is an important point in your life to understand. But I wish half of you weren't such dicks telling me about it, though maybe it wouldn't have had the same impact otherwise.
Oh, and I want to say that nothing I'm talking about is about academics or whatnot. I'm a firm believer in that everyone can become anything if they actually want to and try to.
Also, next time I won't write stuff when I'm falling asleep.
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So can I be black if I really want to? I love Three Six Mafia and I'd like more fast twitch muscle fibers.
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On May 01 2013 08:34 farvacola wrote:
So can I be black if I really want to? I love Three Six Mafia and I'd like more fast twitch muscle fibers.
er, sure... I'll talk about that in another blog.
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On May 01 2013 08:34 farvacola wrote:
So can I be black if I really want to? I love Three Six Mafia and I'd like more fast twitch muscle fibers.
Sorry, reverse Michael Jackson is not possible. The technology just isn´t there, yet.
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On May 01 2013 08:19 Blisse wrote:
I don't understand why people thought I was at all angry or whining in the blog .. okay, I'll explain before I ruin what little reputation I do have, except half of you need to not attack me in doing so... none of this was whining, and especially not at the people I am envious of and the anger was directed inwards to how stupid I was to end up at this point.
I was the only one who used the word anger though, and to be honest that was the point I was trying to make, although I'm not sure I did a good job. It's pointless to be angry at yourself/hate yourself because of your past, you should use your past to be happy about where you are now. Some people are good at that and they go through horrible shit in their lives and are still mentally stable and healthy, while other people regret everything about what happened and want to change everything that happened and everyone involved. It's pointless though.
Also, I personally liked your blog. Seemed honest and I didn't see you as a bad person at all when I read it.
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Julian Simon wrote a book on something similar to the OP. He suggested that when feeling depressed about something, one of the best practices is to refrain from comparing your life to others. As someone else pointed out, different circumstances reflect different matters. Perhaps what you see on the outside of who you envy shows their easy life, but maybe its a difficult life as well, in its own way. On the opposite side, there are people in third world countries who have considerably less, but we don't reflect on that comparison as a negative view of ourselves, we just consider ourselves lucky and continue on.
Much of life is just luck, so just be glad in the fact that if someone is "handed" their life, that at least they're making use of the opportunities and fortune and not just pissing it away (believe me I have friends that do this, and its far more depressing to watch than someone who's had an easier road than me).
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EPT
