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Think about what you want in life. Now compare what you want in life to what you have. Do you have it all? If the answer is yes, then I congratulate you and you can close this article.
For the rest of us who answered no, the first step to having everything you want is to be honest.
Honesty means more than just being honest with yourself, it means being realistic and pragmatic in the way you approach reality in order to assure you reach your goals in the most efficient way possible.
Ask yourself how you can get what you want in the most efficient and practical way possible. No fairy is going to come down and grant you three wishes. Trust me, I’ve waited.
I used to walk around like I was God’s gift to Earth even though I had absolutely nothing but my ego. I realized that I was acting like I had everything I wanted when I didn’t have any of it; my definition of arrogance. One day I decided to take a good, long, and painfully hard look in the mirror and said the four words that would change my life forever:
“I am a mess”
It’s completely okay if you don’t want what I wanted. After some deep reflecting. I realized I wanted to have a good body, perfect skin, a model girlfriend, better grades, and to be an all-around cool and interesting person to be around. I realized that the only way to reach these goals was to admit that I don’t have them and plan out the most efficient way to get them. I started going to the gym, a great place, assuming you can ignore the people sitting at one machine for a half hour. I changed my diet, I stopped eating greasy foods and ate fruits and vegetables instead of chips and soda. Model girlfriend? I changed that goal to a woman who makes me happy. The most important change I made was reading books and traveling more to become an interesting man. I’m known for being a bookworm and reading about foreign places and people I find intriguing.
Since this newfound respect for honesty was working so well, I decided to try it in my interpersonal relationships.
My best friends didn’t care at all, they actually admired my newfound drive to improve and boldness. However, my acquaintances began to hate me, and rightfully so. I was being a jerk in order to make up for my own insecurities. I would give people my opinion without being asked and I would crush somebody’s ego just to do it. Not cool, and I feel like a jackass every time I think back to those days.
Of course, this isn’t to say you need to be honest all of the time. Voltaire said it himself, “Everything you say should be honest but everything honest shouldn’t be said” You don’t want to be at a funeral saying you’re happy the person finally died, or at a family gathering comparing the food to garbage then using my articles as an excuse. Please don’t. I don’t want an E-mail from your angry grandmother blaming me for your mistimed honesty.
There’s a time and a place for honesty with others and it’s when people ask you for it. Don’t make the same mistake I did of just completely crushing people’s egos calling it honesty when really it was to make up for my own insecurities.
I know that it’s extremely hard to look into the depths of your soul and admit to yourself that you have a problem and don’t have everything you want. I know it’s hard to dig into the depths of your mind and deal with yourself. I wouldn’t be writing this article unless I believed that such painful actions were necessary for my betterment, and that you can benefit from my experience.
It takes courage to look in the mirror and admit that you have problems, and I’m here to let you know that even when you’re beating yourself up that you need to take it slow and forgive yourself if you screw up. If you’re trying to be healthier, you will crave sweets. If you’re trying to get a better body, your body will hate the adjustment and will try to make you stop. If you’re trying to get perfect skin, that piece of pizza will be screaming your name and you’ll have to plug your ears. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t even try because you’ll make mistakes, but if you make a mistake it’s not the end of the world and you have to get back on the horse and be a little harder on yourself.
I’m nowhere near perfect and I’m not yet the man I am striving to become—I know it’s going to take a very long time. However, I’m willing to continue to grow. If there’s one thing I’ve learned so far, it’s that we can never be perfect but we can always be better.
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