The “Just Live” Attitude

The key to adjusting your happy levels

We love the concept of happiness.

We spend so much time daydreaming about how we will feel once conditions X, Y, and Z are met, yet when we achieve them, we mentally tick a box in our table of conditions that form the idea of happiness and move on to the next box that needs checking without taking the time to appreciate what we have.

It means we were wrong to believe that reaching our goal would make us happy, yet, we will make the mistake of waiting to be happy when we gain the next thing all over again.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results. — Albert Einstein

We have the definition of happiness all wrong, and rather than redefining it, we let ourselves feel disappointed.

Changing Your Mindset

The “live to work” attitude fails because there is more to life than your work, even if you realise your dreams working the perfect job. It is unsustainable and unbalanced.

The “work to live” mentality is misleading because it is assuming that not enjoying your work is acceptable since you can make sure to enjoy the rest of your life. You will be told that this is the sacrifice you must make in order to live well outside of your job. But it doesn’t work that way because you are living while you work.

You can help turn yourself off after work and use many tactics to ensure you disconnect your professional and personal life, but it’s awfully difficult and it would be easier if your work was at least half-enjoyable.

Furthermore, you are also living while you work a large percentage of your life, so you might as well do whatever you can to enjoy it. Actually, this is the least you should do.

The saying should be “Just Live”, and it should mean being happy while simply living through your work and your home life.

We can’t afford to live for only a few exciting moments in the form of holidays and weekends. We have to find a way to enjoy every day because every day will not be adrenaline-inducing and extraordinary.

Aiming for the future is great, but we have to take into account that the things we care about today aren’t going to be things we necessarily care about tomorrow. When we work towards our future, to some extent we are making the assumption that our desires will always be the same when in actual fact, they’ll change.

Absolutely invest in your future, but enable little luxuries to help you enjoy the present.

This year has really taught me this because, for the first time in I don’t know how long, I’ve not had anything to *really* look forward to. I haven’t left the country, all the big events we had planned were cancelled, and we’ve been unable to book anything remotely exciting for the future. But guess what?

I have never been happier!

Now, I’m not saying you should stop looking forward to the future. I’m saying shifting our focus to enjoying daily life is important too. This is the silver lining for 2020, and I feel grateful for the lesson.

Love Has Infinite Value

My husband says everything starts off pure but nothing remains pure.

Almost everything loses a percentage of its value once it’s touched, even by the air.

A car loses value once it’s off the car sales parking lot.

Gold loses value once it’s worn.

There is one thing that stays pure, no matter how long it has been exposed to everything.

That is love.

Love wins every time because it is timeless and always relevant.

I’m talking about the strongest, deepest form of love.

The love people feel for their parents is neverending and more powerful than you can ever imagine.

Love Is the Ultimate Goal

That’s why everyone does what they do. That’s the ultimate, highest form of motivation. Everyone’s end goal, whether it be for their family or themselves, is love. Everything they strive for is for that feeling.

Knowing this, you can fuel your energy and focus on doing what you love because it is the most valuable asset you will ever have.

Some people will say that love won’t buy happiness. Some are so bitter with resentment for their awful circumstances that they don’t think such a simple thing will fix it all.

But think about it, consider it for a second.

Love Yourself First

Every single person whose circumstances are awful, whose feelings are low, who are poor or unhappy, are living with an extreme lack of love. A lack of unmistakable, unbreakable kind of love.

Suicide happens because of a lack of love.

A person can be loved by every single person in the world but still feel depressed and miserable if he does not love himself. RIP Robin Williams. RIP Kurt Cobain. RIP to all the great people who thought dying was better than living.

Suicide is at an all-time high. Depression and anxiety are loud in the world we are in today, and we as a global population are miserable and anxious.

Love should be the first and last resort. Love should be within all our projects, goals, and plans. If all else fails, try love.

But first, try love.

The only condition which everyone has the power to change individually, without any group effort, manifestation or vote to make this world a better place — is love for themselves and others.

Love for yourself should be easy in theory but we are so consumed by what’s out of our control that we let exterior circumstances rule our inner state of mind.

Take control of your thinking, and reward yourself with what you deserve the most.

Be Childish

My son is happy 99% of the time, making his happy bar extremely high, and his average state of mind.

Children are generally happy because they live in the moment, appreciating the little things, the things that we as adults take for granted.

Children love easily.

If we were to become “childish”, we could be happier if only in the short-term. Children constantly seek to be entertained and play, and we should be doing the same as adults, especially during our lowest times.

We have to outweigh the sad and bad moments with happy ones in quantity and quality to raise our own levels of happiness.

Be what you might think is selfish, and block out all negativity. Become ignorant of what the world is telling you and give caring for yourself a good try, above everything else. See the results for yourself. Dance, paint, read, learn, laugh, fill your mind with goodness, and enjoy just living like children do.

Sylvia Emokpae, thinker and philosopher, is passionate about self-love, motherhood, and pro-race. See more work like this.