Healthy Glow: Healthy Eating, La Mode & Ramblings

A few days ago a friend of mine posted on Facebook a New York Times opinion piece entitled, “America the Anxious” by Ruth Whippman. After reading the article, I kept it open on my browser for a few days and really thought about what it means to be happy as an American.

“The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.” — Eric Hoffer

The line of the article that stood out to me the most was “Am I happy? Happy enough? As happy as everyone else? Could I be doing more about it? Even basic contentment feels like failure when pitched against capital-H Happiness. The goal is so elusive and hard to define, it’s impossible to pinpoint when it’s even been achieved — a recipe for neurosis.”

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Everyday, the first thing I do is check social media. I check my Instagram, my Twitter account, my Tumblr, my Facebook, my email, my blog, other people’s blogs, my Google Reader (a newsfeed of blogs I read reguarly), just to see what is going on in other people’s lives. I am usually truly interested, but there is also a nagging sense of I am really just checking in to compare myself to others (I know you do it to.). I think it is really subconcious act of comparing myself to others. Maybe it is because I am always searching anxiously to see if I am truly living a full life.

My friends write to me telling me that my life is going so well, but I am always searching for more, comparing myself to others achievements, wondering if I really do have it all. In truth, at times it seems like I don’t have enough. That is not say that I don’t love the life I live. I am a unmarried woman, working as a Diplomat, wonderful family, am in love with my boyfriend of almost 4 years, but if I have too much time to think or I spend too much time on social media I start to think, “I WANT MORE.”

I am pretty happy with my life and I need to remind myself of why everyday. I suppose everyone else feels the same but maybe not.

Read the entire of the article here.