happiness
Team BPI Athlete Victoria D’Ariano shares her thoughts on what it takes to achieve “real” happiness.
Bad posture and good posture. Too fat or too skinny. Blonde or brunette. Why does one have to be beautiful and the other not? Through my journey of self love, I am starting to learn how subjective beauty is, and the impact my perception of beauty can have on my happiness. Here’s what I believe “fake” happiness is and what real happiness should feel like:
“Fake” happiness:
  • Basing your self-worth on your body
  • Only being happy when your body looks a certain way
  • Basing your happiness on the validation from others
  • Doing anything to reach an “ideal body”
  • Never being satisfied with the way you look but always chasing the next “goal physique”
  • Valuing the opinion of others about yourself more than you value your own opinion of yourself
  • Comparing yourself to others and thinking if you look that way you’ll be happy
  • Missing out on life to achieve a “perfect” physique
  • Settling for mediocracy and being “safe” verses taking a chance and following your heart and perhaps failing
  • Being “rich” even if you hate what you are doing
See all of these things? We think that achieving them will make us happy, and yes, perhaps it will, but eventually that happiness will fade because it’s not real, it’s just temporary happiness based on these superficial things.
What I THINK real happiness is (and am working on):
  • Basing your self-worth on who you are as person on the inside, regardless of what you look like
  • Basing happiness on the ability for YOU to love yourself, NOT through the validation of others
  • Putting your health first, both mentally and physically over looking a certain way
  • Being able to be present and happy with the way you look right now and not feel the need to change it (unless you genuinely want to, for YOU)
  • Allowing yourself to change in order to grow to make you a better person, NOT because you don’t like who you are
  • Making your opinion about yourself the most important thing regardless of what others have to say
  • Acknowledging you are YOU for a reason and not wanting to be someone else but instead the best possible version of yourself
  • Enjoying life and understanding that there is more to it all than just looking a certain way
  • Following your heart and going after your inner greatness even if it will threaten and upset people
  • Following your passion regardless of how much money you will make
  • Opening up your heart so you can really get to know yourself, experience life fuller and also be kinder to others
These bullets are the ones I am striving towards.