What do you want your life to look like?

As kids, we wanted to be astronauts, soccer players, veterinarians, doctors, ballerinas, and teachers. As we grew older our dreams vanished; If I asked you now, what do you want to be when you grow up? First, you would take into account how much money you could make out of a career. Our culture is deeply obsessed with having unrealistic life expectations. Constantly bombarding ourselves with videos about how to manifest or dreams, how to be happy, healthy, skin, rich, sexy, productive, and even famous. You will never be happy if you continue to search for happiness. You will never live if you continue looking for the meaning of life.

Hundreds of years ago commoners knew they were ordinary, but now somehow our culture believes that we are destined to do something truly extraordinary. Think about it, if everybody was extraordinary then no one would actually be extraordinary. The average has become the new standard of failure. Our appreciation for lives basic experiences has decreased, we are ordinary for a reason because that is what matters. We fall into a pit of ambition. Our mindset is based on what we see online and that is what we aspire to. Bali trips, surfing in Australia, buying the newest Louis Vuitton bag, getting your first Forbes interview, becoming a billionaire, and having thousands or millions of followers on social media. Is that the happiness you look for?

Most of us are pretty average people. The vast majority of life is ordinary, indeed it is quite average. Extreme and exciting people are the ones that get all the publicity known as fame. Only the exceptional are the ones that catch our attention. We are bombarded with extreme information that makes us believe that exceptionalism is normal, no one wants to be ordinary, we all just want to be the exception and stand out. This information makes us feel insecure and desperate, we feel like we're not enough. The media is overexposing us to unrealistic standards we fail to live up to. The internet is an open door to insecurities, self-doubt, and shame. We all believe we are the main characters. SPOILER ALERT! We are not, we are not different nor special this is narcissism. Feeling as though your problems are served to be treated differently. Let me give you an advice, don't be special; Because you are not. For any change to happen in your life, you must be wrong about something and you are completely wrong about that.

Let me introduce you to a trend called "The Law of Attraction". It "uses the power of the mind to translate whatever is in our thoughts and materialize them into reality." But standing in front of a mirror and repeating affirmations we intentionally repeat because we believe they're not true and we wanted to attract, that is nonsense. No truly happy person feels the need to stand in front of a mirror and repeat that she's happy. She just is. So be it.

Happiness comes from solving problems. The question for whether you will live a happy or not life is “ what pain do you want in your life? what are you willing to struggle for?” A pain-free life doesn't exist, you have to choose something because happiness requires struggle and grows from your problems. Happiness doesn't just grow from flowers, it comes from the fulfillment of solving your problems. Our struggles determine our success. You can't win if you don't play.

With great responsibility comes great power, the more we choose to accept our responsibilities in our lives the more power we will exercise in our lives. Accepting responsibility for problems is the first step in solving them. People are so often afraid of success for the exact same reason they're afraid of failure, it threatens who they believe themselves to be.

Death scares us, we avoid talking about it. We try to construct a concept that will live on forever. This is why people try so hard to stand out, they put their names on buildings, statues, books and even the internet to be remembered. We wish to be idolized even when there's no physical self here anymore, this is called the immortality project. Don't be scared, don't be worried, don't be sad because, in the end, it doesn't matter how much money you have, how many followers you have, whether you were famous or not; We all have the same ending. Death. Why do you care that I'm dead when you're still so afraid to live? There is no reason at all not to do anything; Shame, embarrassment, and guilt are all just concepts in our minds they don't actually exist. Picture this, you have been diagnosed with cancer, you know you are going to die, but do you want to know what keeps you going? The fact that you took risks, the fact that you looked for adventure, love, accomplishments, those memories are the ones it was worth living for.

You live a lie, a fake life, a universal simulation. You live for beauty standards, gender roles, followers, money, fame, and unrealistic life expectations. Stop waiting for the validation of society, the only validation you need is yourself's. Once you stop caring, it all becomes easier. But in order to take control, you need to break free.

This article was written with concepts and ideas from Mark Manson's book "The Subtle Art of not Giving a F*ck."