The new year has come and gone. With the new year coming, the most common new year resolutions are to lose weight, to get richer, to get married, to have children, to buy a home, to change car, etc..
But how about honoring yourself and being who you truly are?
This is important because this becomes the key to our goals and resolutions.
Part of the needless and often unnecessary self inflicted suffering that I see many people are going through is because of the constant discontent. Of being convinced that they are not good enough, not thin enough, not pretty enough, not rich enough, not famous enough.
When we loathe our bodies, we sign up for a gym membership or get determine to go and exercise. And give it the most 2 or 3 months, most people just stopped going and resume back to their self, feeling even more self loathing. If you have an eating disorder or a weight problem, have it ever occurred to you that your desire to keep stuffing yourself is in actually a coping mechanism for the trauma, emptiness and unhappiness within?
During my corporate days, I see many of my colleagues become very unhappy and being stuck in stressful, unfulfilling jobs so that they can use their high salary to afford to buy bigger house, bigger car, afford overseas holidays, more designer bags and clothes just to console their hearts. To look good and to impress people who are really not worth impressing. To be able to afford gifts for their kids when what is more important is spending time with their kids. Some become so stressed and troubled that they would be puffing away constantly at the side of the buildings.
Actually, no matter how a workaholic you are and how much you work for the company, seriously, no one cares are you resign. Don’t feel sad, don’t feel betrayed. It is not that people really don’t care but they are struggling with their own issues and survival. It does not mean that you don’t work hard but don’t work in such a way that you sacrifice the valuable family time and relationships that you cannot replace once the time is gone.
It is very important for the sake of your inner peace and happiness that you aim and set for the correct goals. If not, down the line you may find that you have made a huge mistake.
Really, it is not the clothes you wear and who you are. There are people I know who are deeply unhappy inside because they felt they could not find love. They go about trying to impress people by buying really expensive designer bags, driving expensive cars and behaving in a way that is not their real self. I know because I’ve spent a lot of time with them and have glimpses of their real self…. kind and giving but totally lacking in self confidence, self acceptance and love. And they have lost touch with their real self and stopped listening to their inner voice a long time ago.
The sad thing about life is that we are being fake, we would attract fake people in our lives. Sometimes when we do this long enough, we fail to differentiate between what is real and fake. We would then never be happy.
I say this because I have spent a large part of my life trying to be someone that I am not. Being not true to myself did not make me any happier. I was getting more and more miserable and unhappy. With a number of health complication including unexplained kidney pain and sinus. Till I just told myself, screw it! I would learn to be true to myself. And it was strange… the kidney pain that was bordering me for a few years went off.
The funny thing is that I used to have terrible sinus during school days and when I was in the corporate world. Each time I quit the corporate world, my sinus problems just dissipates.
In the world where everyone is dressed to impress, people learn to quickly be able to see through the person fairly quickly. I’ve seen new managers who join who dressed well and are very impressive in their talk but lousy in their work delivery. In no time, the big bosses saw through them and they get often singled out and scolded in meetings.
The economy trend is moving downwards. Artificial intelligence (AI) are set to replace human beings. There is no such thing as job security anymore. Many large corporations are downsizing and some are going out of business. You would never know when that rainy day would come….it could be a loss of job or an illness (either ownself or loved one).
If you are splurging your hard earned money into misplaced priorities, you would be hit very hard once you suffer a sudden loss of income that cuts that lifestyle out. You’ve got this life. Granted, you’ve got responsibilities too. You may have already have a family to support and you can’t just dump them and go off a mountain somewhere.
But you’ve had a choice…. do you want to be the perfect cool person dictated by movies, society and social media? Which means buying luxury products, the latest gadgets, the bigger car, etc?
Or you would want to be yourself, not to waste money buying things that you don’t need to impress people who do not matter. Remember, if people like you for who you are, it does NOT matter if:
You are rich or poor
You are fat or thin
You are pretty or not
You dress well or always look shabby
You drive a nice car or a 20 year old creaking junk car.
They will like you for just you. I say this because I am walking the talk. I give up impressing people years ago and it just make my life simpler and happier. I was able to save more money so that when I had to for involuntarily ‘early retirement’ (I quit my job to be a full time caregiver for my mom), at least there are a little money that I managed to save for rainy days.
So my friend… are you READY? Ready to be just who you are?
