‘If I belong, will i feel happiness?’ What does it mean to belong? Is it a feeling or is it a title? Do i really belong somewhere if the world says that i do?
How come our feelings don’t always coordinate with the title the world has given us?
Just a few of many questions that i’ve asked myself, but have never found the answer to… until now.
To belong isn’t a feeling nor a title. It is a peace of mind.
Not everyone is lucky to live an ideal life. In other words, many people feel as if they were born where they don’t belong. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t change that.
What if you compel yourself to belong? It might not make sense right away but bare with me.
We have all been in situations, where we have thought ‘I would rather not be here’. It could be because others don’t understand you or because the whole scenery isn’t in your comfort zone. But what if you changed those ways. I don’t mean the regular be with people that are like you etc. I mean, what if you could influence everything around you to accept you.
Imagine this. You are sitting on a beach with a group of people. People, who are nothing like you. Certainly you don’t feel like you belong there. Maybe they are all more energetic than you or maybe even the complete opposite. Maybe they are all laughing and you are the only one sitting quiet or maybe they are all silent and you feel like you could explode at any moment.
It doesn’t have to be like that though.
Maybe truly belonging means to accept every experience. Not every experience is a good one, sometimes things happens at the wrong place and time. But maybe accepting it, will bring peace everywhere and anywhere you go. If you accept that people are different than you, have patience with them and try to understand their mindset, even if it doesn’t match with yours, you could achieve a small step to feeling like you belong with whoever and wherever.
By accepting everything around you, you automatically achieve acceptance too. When you try to understand others and not judge them, talk to them about things that they are interested in, you might be surprised with their reaction and action.
Some perceive the soul within themselves through knowledge, others through meditation, and others without clear set desires.
The mechanism of our century demands strong selves with clear goals and identities.
We as individuals are shaped by internal and external factors.
Society wants us to believe that an individual’s life is set in the first decade. That we cannot change our personality nor the options in life that have been ‚offered‘ to us. But both of those obstruct our vision of what is possible.
The whole point of ‘self-esteem‘ is not only to make us feel better, but allow us to live better.
In whichever way you view and value yourself, it reflects gravely on the way others view and value you.
If you respect yourself and act accordingly to those beliefs, you have more chances of getting that exact response from others. However, if you have low respect and love for yourself, you have even less chances of receiving it from others.
To face life with low self-esteem is to be at a severe disadvantage.
Self-esteem is a fundamental need, regardless whether you believe in it or not, it works its way into our knowledge and lives without our consent.
Being confident does not mean that you will never be put down or that you are immune to anxiety and depression. It just means that you can overcome it easier. High level of self-esteem will help you fight off and transcend.
The level of self-esteem that you posses, is exactly the level that you attract from another individual. For example, individuals with high self-esteem and love for themselves, attract one another.
We tend to feel most comfortable with people that resemble our mentality.
Of all the judgments we pass on in life, none has a greater importance than the one we pass on ourselves.
To be confident is essential.
The problem is that we view it as something that is nice-to-have, instead of a must-have.
Neither our upbringing nor our education have prepared us for a world with so many challenges and choices. That is why the issue of self-esteem has become so important. That is exactly why, people with high level self-esteem influence others and force themselves to belong everywhere.
So when you achieve a ‘peace of mind’, in other words, accept and be in peace with everything and everyone around you, you might just get the same out of it.
