I recently was scrolling through Facebook and saw this video pop up on my timeline. In the video, pop sensation Lady Gaga discusses her journey with mental health and how she was able to find herself amidst the chaos of Hollywood and the darkness that once dominated her mind. She realized that one of the most important facts that someone must come to acknowledge is that “part of [our identities] is saying ‘no’ to things [we] don’t want to do.”
We become so wrapped up in what everybody else is doing that we feel we should also be doing those things. It can be as simple as deciding to go out on a Friday night because everybody else is, or as difficult as choosing not to be with the person you love because everyone tells you that you shouldn’t be together. We have learned to say “yes” to everything we don’t want to do because we don’t want to let others down.
Newsflash: someone is always going to be miserable as a result of your decisions. But the person who should never be miserable as a result of your decisions is you.
You become miserable when you grow afraid of the word “no.” Always saying “yes” means always saying “yes” to what someone else wants you to do with your life. When we say “yes” to things that we don’t want to do, we begin to feel that little anxiety monster twist up our stomachs and poison our minds. With every “yes,” that monster grows stronger and stronger until one day, you have no idea who you are. Your only purpose now is to live for what others want you to do. And that is truly a miserable life.
But the greatest part about life is that we don’t have to be miserable. As much as we have learned to grow afraid of “no” and grow comfortable with “yes,” it is also completely possible to tell “yes” who’s boss and embrace “no.” By telling “yes” who is boss, we also tell the other people in our lives that we get to choose which path our life takes–not them.
As Lady Gaga says, “It is your right to choose what you do and don’t do.” This is your life, not somebody else’s. You are the key to your own happiness and success. You are the only vessel in your life that gets to decide what you do. You can’t live your life worrying what others are going to say or think about your decisions because at the end of the day, the ones who truly love you and care about your happiness will support any decision you make. And those who question you and fight you? Forget about them. When you’re living your best life on your own terms, their crappy attitude won’t even matter.
“It is your right to curate your life.” -Lady Gaga
TESS CARCALDI 