So, this blog is turning out to be a place where I can share my “words of wisdom” which really translates to me sharing my mistakes and what I’ve learned from them for others’ benefit. I find myself wishing I had had people in my life that shared their experiences with me so I had “tools” when I made decisions. Like grandparents or parents that were there for me.

Anyway, I don’t want to sound negative because I’m sure good things come out of every failure because we only become wiser with each one.

This time, I want to share the concept of making choices for ourselves. Unless we have amazing parents who have it all down, it seems we all seek approval wherever we can get it. We lacked the approval that we apparently needed from our parents. So the rest of our lives become a fruitless scavenger hunt to find the approval we feel we need to finally be happy. Most people attempt to get this approval by trying to control everything in order to still earn their parent’s or society’s approval. They constantly try to figure out what they’re supposed to do to finally fit into their parents’ or society’s predefined idea, hoping that they’ll get some sense of satisfaction because they did the “right thing.”

This can become a frustrating misdirected mess that essentially is being decided upon by someone else, not you. So, my words of wisdom are that you will never get the approval you seek either from your parent(s) or by society by doing what you think you’re supposed to do. Never. That may seem harsh but a parent and even society will only respect you for doing what makes you happy. Not what makes them happy. They only want to see you be happy on your own terms. The reason for this is because they went through the same thing you did before you and never found the answer themselves. They searched for that answer to happiness by finding approval and never found it. And that is why they rarely or never give their approval, they want their own. So, when they see you actually figure it out on your own terms, they look up to that.

The problem is somehow we must try and see past the need for this approval and see that the only way to be happy is to figure out what we want for ourselves and what might make us happy. But how do we know? We only know what we see or experience already. That’s why the approval of others becomes so important because that is the only thing we have experienced growing up. We need to get out and experience life and see what feels good to us and try to never judge something based on what other people think. Only make decisions based on how we feel and how our hearts feel about them. Listen to your heart.

This is hard to do. It normally takes time to learn this naturally through trial and error. It takes us trying things and finding that nothing makes us truly happy except something we choose on our own with our hearts. This is why I am just now figuring this out. I just hope I have plenty of opportunities to actually put it to practice.

So, good luck, everyone. Really :)