I Celebrate Myself

In today’s society, we are very distinct from nature. Most kids would prefer to spend their days hanging out with their friends or on the internet instead of sitting and admiring grass. We live in a very fast moving world, where if you don’t move fast, you’ll fall behind. But is this a valid excuse for separating ourselves from nature, and most importantly, our inner selves?

                Another thing we often don’t do is celebrate ourselves. We’re raised in an environment that pushes you to achieve, to do better, to never settle. I was raised to push myself every day, and to do and be the best I could be. While I would often receive compliments for my hard work, I rarely complimented myself. “I can do better,” I would constantly think, and often still think. It’s helped to achieve what I have, and allowed me to be in the place I am now, but every now and then, I should allow myself to relax, and reconnect with myself, my real inner self. I’m so caught up in all my work that whenever I feel my immune system weaken and myself getting sick my first thought is, “I don’t have time to get sick.” When I do get sick, I don’t give myself time to recover until the weekends, when I finally have the time. Why do I do this? So that I can go to school and do all my work and not fall behind. Why? To succeed in school and enroll in a good college. Why? To get a good education and allow myself to succeed. Why? Because success leads to happiness. That’s what we’re fed at a young age: hard work will lead to success, success will lead to happiness, and happiness is what should be achieved. When are we ever told to sit down and admire grass, because grass is almost as complex as humans are? For most of us, never.

                Transcendentalists believed in going against the social norms, and doing what they believe is morally correct and what makes them truly happy, not what they’re told will make them happy. They believed becoming one with nature, and going back to our roots, to our real old selves, before society developed and become a place that told you what you liked and who you were the moment you were born.

                I believe we should all have a little of transcendentalists in us, and learn to celebrate ourselves for what we truly are and what we have achieved.