We’re all consumed by the same aggressive drive to succeed and continuously improve that we rarely pause to allow ourselves to bask in our own glories, to take notice of all that we have accomplished, and appreciate all that we do have.  Honestly, I find it really selfish of us that we always want more and more, even if it is from ourselves.  It seems as though we’re never satisfied with what we have.  Of course this is a good thing in terms of motivation, but is it not based on selfish motives? We work as hard as we can and we do whatever it takes to get where we are and to achieve a dream and once we achieve it, we make another and another and we ask for more.  As noble a pursuit as this concept is, I feel torn between admiration and disgust.  It’s honorable to progress, but not if our ambitions to succeed overcome us.

Note to self: Recognize every achievement as a blessing and seek not to succeed in power, but in happiness.

I think one thing we can all relate to in feeling and ambition is that we’re all trying to figure ourselves out.  We all want to know ourselves, who we are and who we want to be so that we can figure out the rest of our lives, but it’s something we have to do on our own and so on that count, we share this same sense of loneliness with everyone.  I think our differences in this is simply a matter of how much we have discovered about ourselves, but it’s never black & white, whether you do or you don’t because no one really knows for sure.  Maybe we’ll never know or maybe we’ll only know at the end of our lives, but through the course of it, we’re continuously on the same journey, but along the way we set new goals and change our ways.  Although it’s all very confusing, I find it quite comforting to know that even lost in this inescapable aspect of life, I am surrounded by a world of people as alone as I am.

I like to think of self discovery as something similar to the concept of nirvana.  However it is also a contradicting idea because in the state of nirvana you supposedly lose sense of self, whereas the goal in mind is to find yourself.  Nonetheless both are lifelong struggles in the pursuit of happiness, each with the goal of achieving enlightenment. Likewise, I believe that in either objective, you must be at peace with yourself and in harmony with the world because in order to truly understand yourself, you need to be understanding of the world around you as well.

Change is important and inevitable to growing up, learning, and maturing but I think the problem is that people try too hard to be someone they’re not, myself included.  Often times or at least at some point in our lives, we feel lost from the rest of the world and so we force ourselves; we try to be a person we’re not meant to be.  We try to be that person everyone else likes. We try to be someone that lives to please others.  We try to be an “individual” and in doing so we keep from doing just that. We do all of this in order to feel like we’ve found a place in this world, in order to belong, in order to be someone when we don’t know who we are.

How many of us are really ourselves anymore? Right down to the very core of our being. Does anyone really know who they are? OR Is is an unanswerable question for anyone?  Everyone has/had a desire to change, to be better, essentially to not be the same person we are now; but does that necessarily mean we’re working towards being the type of person we really are or are meant to be? OR Are we denying ourselves and becoming someone else entirely?  Doesn’t everything we do build up our character?  Are all the evolutions of our change a journey of  different alter egos that bring us to know who we really are in the end? OR Do we really change so often that the final result of who we are does not matter but is just who we become?

This idea makes me wonder if anyone’s really happy with who they are or rather, who they’re trying to be.  Then again, is it so wrong to want to be different? After all, it is what we all want, what we all strive for. We should all strive to be a better version of ourselves.  I believe everyone does try, sometimes only because of our own selfish agendas, to better humanity by focusing individually on ourself.  However, in trying to be someone else, we all end up being quite the same, whether or not that was part of our intentions. It is my conviction that it is really our forceful attempts at change that keep us from being who we are, but instead it brings us all to the same place, leading us to be the same unpleasant people the world is overflowing with already. In doing so, we leave hope for ourselves, our generation, and humanity at a standstill, without any significant difference made.

So how does one go about being themselves?  Ignore expectations and avoid comparison.  Allow yourself to be left alone with your thoughts, to think freely and apart from others. After all, “Personality begins where comparison ends.”  We’re each our own person and we should be who we are

I started off my letter with the proper greeting and “I don’t have much else to say”, but now I can’t seem to end it.  All that I figured I’d add in after that, while writing somehow became paragraphs.  It’s all words of endless thoughts on paper.