The worst thing you can do to yourself is be identified by one person who isn't you.
I love movies. You love movies. Everyone loves movies.
It's almost impossible to track down someone uninterested by movies.
A great thing about movies is that there is so much diversity and volume. You can watch just about anything you can think about watching. Movies are powerful too. They shape the way people think, act, dream, and unfortunately fail expectations. And while it is often easy to suspend our disbelief when it comes to light-sabers or a planet overrun by apes, it's much harder to when the characters seem so real and the settings feel so optimal.
Many times I have fallen victim to falling in love with movie depictions of real life. At times, it was pretty bad in high school. It still happens sometimes, although, to a much lesser degree. Unfortunately, I see the same kind of missed expectations in a lot of people. I mean a LOT of people. The worst by-far is the way movies paint love and relationship dynamics. This is often the most hurtful. Especially to the person fantasizing.
There are literally thousands of movies that follow the same kind of formula:
1. Boy sees girl. 2. Girl unaware of boy's existence. 3. Boy develops crush. 4. Boy and girl interact, boy falls in love. 5. ?????? 6. Girl loves boy. 7. Life is perfect. There are no problems ever and true love exists between these two because they are soulmates.
A very sexy idea.
The formula works and people eat it up. And although many of us do realize it's just a movie, the more we see this kinda stuff the more you get conditioned into believe certain aspects of the fiction.
For one, we place the achievement of our own happiness based on the actions of others. In our above formula, the entire time leading up to the guy getting the girl he is completely miserable and has an impossible time finding joy in anything if she's not in the picture. I've been there. Hell, I'm there sometimes even still. And although we all have some strange biological desire to be with someone else, the addition of certain social pressures make this an unholy approach to life.
It's not even exclusive to romantic relationships. You don't have to be a hopeless romantic to place your happiness in the hands of others. I know people (myself included) who are absolutely miserable if they're not either: hanging out with someone, texting someone, checking their Facebook, scrolling their Twitter feed, etc. It's unhealthy. For some reason, spending 10 minutes alone with yourself has become an impossible task (I type this as I just put down my phone from checking my instagram feed).
As such, we're producing a culture that doesn't care about themselves individually. Not to be confused about what you look like - which is a function of: what will people think of me? How can people like me?
Perhaps I use the word happiness too flexibly, but it's the only word that comes to mind. Have you noticed that the word itself has become watered down? Are you ever really happy in your life? To me, the word means that overall, on a long enough time scale, you are not only pleased with what, who, and why you are, but to the point where nothing and no one can knock you off your throne. Frankly, we all live on too short of a time-scale to actually experience happiness.
Think about what you do in a day? You do and think about millions of things and the amount of time you put in doing one single thing is so negligible that you can almost barely say it's happened at all. Our attention spans have reduced to not being able to engage in something for more than 5 minutes. We're constantly giving ourselves breaks - FROM EVERYTHING.
Is this what it's come to?
I know I'm making generalizations and perhaps it doesn't really apply to you but I've seen it. I live it. I have been in a position where my entire days goes on hold until I get a text back from a certain special someone. I have been in a place where because I forgot to bring my phone, I felt alone and scared although I am completely surrounded by people. It's funny. Our generation is often critiqued as being too individualized. We can see it in the number of people with headphones on walking down the street. Or how many people we see with a cellphone in front of their face just browsing the internet all day - even in groups of friends. I would argue differently. It's not really an individualization. It's a detachment from the self. We can't stand to be alone. This is furthered by how sick to our stomachs we can make ourselves feel by over-thinking something. And guess what? The only time you over-think is when you're by yourself. Something we don't practice doing enough.
It's like with any new venture, activity, job, class, etc. The more time you spend doing it, the more comfortable you get. The less time you spend doing it, the more dreadful your experience is gonna be when you do decide to engage. Public speaking is like this. I don't care who you are, unless you actively practice speaking in public to some degree, you fucking hate it. It makes you sick to your stomach. The same kind of sick to your stomach you get when you don't practice thinking. When you don't practice being with yourself.
I leave you with a closing sentiment. I think adding people to your life is the best way to increase just how rich and deep your experience on earth is. The true beauty of life comes from the embracing of it as your own. Being able to control your own outcomes and play the game by your own set of rules is truly the most rewarding of lifestyles. Take a minute to think about where you place your ability to be happy:
Is it in your hands or someone else's?
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