Slap A Tattoo On It And Call It A Day

Within the institution of our own minds, we continuously strive for happiness and validation to create a sense of importance pushing us through our existence. Social media is distorted to see what our eyes want to be exposed to without showing the “real life” circumstances that can provide insight into who we truly transpire. The feeling of needing to be remembered long after we’re gone will completely stretch ourselves thin as we try to obtain this goal of being happy that will backfire leaving us to decipher what we actually will need in order to feel this overall happiness we strive towards. People and events become tattooed onto our blank canvases that cannot be removed and is a permanent reminder of our past that will pose as a threat to this “happiness.”

When challenges arise, we continuously drop down into our depression that will numb us to the core. Waiting for it to stop happening, stop becoming a permanent tattoo, and finding happiness once again. I feel like sometimes I’m redundant with the list of challenges that wear me out. It’s like I’m on this merry-go-round where people can get on as they please to then hop off before the spinning stops, but I stay stuck. The merry-go-round keeps spinning. But is it even spinning in the first place? Am I the one who jumps on and stays in this eternal cycle of self-sabotage? Do I start the merry-go-round of being this victim of choosing how to feel when challenges occur? Do I let the permanent tattoos choose how I hold myself? Am I the one holding the tattoo gun?

Finding overall happiness can be exhausting, yet I won’t stop until I am comfortable with myself and how I let difficult times define me. Materialistic necessities provide a minimal amount of happiness that disintegrates once a new set of ink sinks in. We often think that once we obtain a certain amount of money, a new relationship, materialistic objects, or a new destination that we will be happy forever. That the depression will stop. Instead of basking in this bliss of what we already have and how each day we wake is a blessing. We search for this happiness as if it’s a place or person that can change how we feel about ourselves. Yet, once it wears off, we are left with self-doubt and that depression sets in again. So, we start the repetitive cycle and post about how amazing we are doing while the lies catch up to you and the façade doesn’t work like it used to. These challenges continue to define you and how you go throughout your life trying to catch up to the happiness and the peers that you thrive to become.

Instead of searching and longing to find happiness, try becoming happy by simply acknowledging the way you feel and what’s surrounding you that can help prevent reappearing tattoos and will stop the cycle of the merry-go-round. Redirect your thinking of becoming happy once you get to a certain point and live within the moments currently. This happiness isn’t going to be an object, person, place, or event. It’s going to be self-acceptance, bettering yourself only for you, and continuing to become the best version of you daily. Don’t wait for people or events to slap a tattoo on you and call it a day, while you wait to become a masterpiece. You’re already a masterpiece. Find happiness within yourself and don’t allow challenges to stop you from being happy. These challenges often shed light into what will help you in the future and instead of allowing old tattoos from reappearing and letting them define you, choose it for yourself. Be selective with your choices of tattoos, after all you hold the ink and the gun.