The Problem With Motivation Porn And The Shallowness Of ‘Success’

We have drawn a circle around certain things – skinniness, wealth, belongings – and called them success. We’ve spread the word that everything outside of that circle is the enemy of success.

In so doing, we have robbed ourselves and our world of those things that are not shallow and appearance based.

But we’re left with a void. Because the shallow doesn’t provide meaning. The shallow doesn’t provide a life.

Just a lifestyle.

The more we focus on the shallow the more that void grows. And grows. And grows. We search for more lifestyle elements to give us life.

And we alienate those who don’t exist inside our perfect little circles that we’ve drawn. That alienation homogenises “success” even more.

The key now is to erase that circle. To accept that success is a wide range of things. A broad palette. Success is living.

So we have to learn to accept that bodies don’t have to be size 0. Bank accounts don’t have to be in the billions. And we learn happiness.

Which I think is what it truly comes down to. We have to relearn happiness and success on new, old terms.

[This post by Jon Westenberg first appeared on Medium and has been reproduced with permission.]

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