Happiness is Believing in Yourself
Our best friends believe in us. “Sure you can!” they say. “You can do it. You can make it. You’ll get there.” If they have to guess whether we’ll come through for them or not, they put their bets on us. They trust us. They know they can count us to do our best, to be reliable, to hold up our end of our bargains, to go the extra mile. They know that we keep our word, that we have integrity.
And they know that when we slip up, it’s a temporary glitch, an out-of-the-ordinary happening, and not a character flaw, not who we are. And they’ll say so, and forgive us, and assure us that next time we’ll be better.
That’s the way a best friend sees us. And if we’re going to be our own best friends, it’s the way we need to see ourselves. We need to believe in us, to know that we’re reliable, that our word has meaning, that we’re consistent and dependable in who we are.
If we don’t succeed at something we have our hearts set on, we need to remind ourselves that we did the best we could and that it’s just a matter of time until we can give it another try. If we slip up, we need to pinpoint why so we can go on in our intended direction. We need to know that we live by our core values, that we’re rooted in them. And while we have no illusions about perfecting ourselves, and can forgive ourselves for our shortcomings, we need to know that we’re always striving towards increased excellence, always raising the bar for ourselves, always finding joy in growth and refinement and expansion of our talents, skills and strengths.
When we know these things about ourselves, when we’re good enough friends to ourselves to see them, we see them in others as well. And that makes the whole world a more trustworthy place.
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