STOP LOOKING FOR THINGS THAT DON'T EXIST

You're looking for love.

You're looking for confidence.

You're looking for happiness.

You're looking for closure.

You're looking for recognition.

You're looking for stability.

You're looking for freedom.

You're looking for peace.

You're looking for the right relationship.

You're looking for someone who finally understands you.

Where exactly are you planning to find all this shit?

The supermarket?

Between the frozen peas and the gluten-free pizza?

“Excuse me, where's the confidence?”

“Aisle seven. Next to the almond milk.”

😂

Most of these things aren't actually things.

You don't find confidence.

You behave confidently.

You don't find love.

You behave lovingly.

You don't find communication.

You learn to communicate.

You don't find freedom.

You develop the capacity to make your own choices and deal with their consequences.

You don't find happiness sitting around waiting for the universe to finally deliver your fucking parcel.

You create conditions in which happiness becomes much more likely.

And confidence?

Start ridiculously small.

Keep your word.

Especially when nobody else is watching.

Tell yourself you're going to do something…

and then fucking do it.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Eventually something changes.

You start thinking:

“Hang on.

When I say something, I actually do it.”

That's trust.

And when you trust yourself…

you don't need quite so much approval from everybody else.

That's where things get interesting.

Because we spend an extraordinary amount of energy trying to make other people validate a version of us that we haven't even decided we want to become.

“I want people to accept me exactly as I am.”

Okay.

But…

do you?

Do you actually like the way you are?

Are you proud of the way you live?

Do you keep your promises to yourself?

Do you eat in a way that supports the body you want?

Do you move your body?

Do you choose people who challenge you?

Do you protect your attention?

Do you manage your money?

Do you learn?

Do you create?

Do you take responsibility?

Do you do the difficult thing when the easy thing would be more comfortable?

“I'm perfect exactly as I am” can be wonderfully liberating…

…but it can also be one of the most beautifully decorated excuses ever invented.

You don't need to hate yourself to improve yourself.

Actually, quite the opposite.

You can look in the mirror and say:

“I fucking love you.

And we're not staying here.”

That's a very different relationship with yourself.

Not:

“I'm broken. I need fixing.”

Not:

“Everybody needs to accept me.”

Not:

“The world owes me understanding.”

But:

**“This is where I am.

Where do I want to go?

And what am I willing to do about it?”**

That's responsibility.

And responsibility is strangely unfashionable these days.

Because responsibility means you have power.

And power means you can no longer blame everything outside yourself.

Your environment matters.

The people around you matter.

What you eat matters.

What you repeatedly think matters.

What you repeatedly do matters.

Your beliefs matter.

Your standards matter.

Your attention matters.

And yes…

shit happens.

Of course it does.

You can be born into difficult circumstances.

You can be betrayed.

You can lose someone.

You can get hurt.

Things can happen to you that you never fucking asked for.

But eventually the question becomes:

“Now what?”

That's the part nobody can answer for you.

You can spend fifteen years explaining why you're fucked up.

Or you can eventually ask:

“What am I going to do differently now?”

Understanding your history can be useful.

But understanding isn't the same as changing.

Knowing why you behave a certain way doesn't automatically teach you how to behave differently.

Awareness is different.

Awareness gives you a chance to catch yourself while you're doing it.

That's where change becomes possible.

And maybe this is the biggest illusion of all:

thinking that something outside you is going to give you what you're looking for.

The perfect partner.

The perfect teacher.

The perfect political system.

The perfect community.

The perfect identity.

The perfect explanation.

The perfect fucking answer.

Maybe there isn't one.

Maybe you're supposed to become the person capable of creating more of what you want.

Want love?

Learn to love.

Want confidence?

Keep your word.

Want respect?

Become respectable.

Want freedom?

Become responsible enough to handle it.

Want happiness?

Start paying attention to how you're living.

Want peace?

Stop feeding every fucking war that someone puts in front of you.

And if you discover that something you've believed for years is no longer useful?

Change it.

You are allowed.

You don't have to defend an old version of yourself just because you've already invested ten years in it.

You don't have to keep wearing a fucking coat because you bought it in 2012.

If it doesn't fit anymore…

take the fucking thing off.

Your identity is not a prison sentence.

Your past is not a prophecy.

Your beliefs are not commandments.

And your life is not something that happens to you.

At least…

not all of it.

So stop for a moment.

Take a breath.

Look around.

And ask yourself one brutally simple question:

“Is the way I'm living actually creating the life I say I want?”

If the answer is no…

don't fucking panic.

Don't look for another label.

Don't find another person to blame.

Don't build another bridge.

Don't enter another beautifully decorated cage.

Just change something.

Then change something else.

And keep going.

Because maybe happiness isn't something you're supposed to find.

Maybe it's something you become increasingly capable of experiencing…

when you finally start living in a way that you can respect.

Forward.