23 Feb Living a Life Worth Living
I started off the year by pointing out I thought it was best to have aspirations instead of resolutions. I thought this because it felt like an easy way to be gentle on yourself and realize that accomplishments and success are personal and subjective.
I’m typing this on Valentine’s Day having spent the day talking with my youth about self-love.
I’m currently reading “The First to Die at the End” by Adam Silvera. It’s the prequel to “They Both Die at the End,” which is a tear jerker—I mean a sobfest. As I quickly read through this book, I’m flooded with emotions and wondering if I am in fact, living life. As the titles of both books indicate, people die. I won’t give any spoilers, just use this opportunity to weave some good old fashion DBT into our everyday lives.
In simple terms, DBT is supposed to, among other things, assist you in living a life worth living. Sounds cliche, and as I read this book, I wonder how my day-to-day life is doing and what actually brings me joy. Joy, quite literally, is a feeling of great pleasure and happiness. Obviously, subjective, which means you can make it what you want.
Radically accept yourself for who you are. Perfection does not exist—you do. Radical acceptance is complete and total openness to the facts of reality as they are, without throwing a tantrum or responding with willful ineffectiveness. What does this have to do with my aspirations? It allows me to accept who I am and where I am in life. With that, I can make decisions towards joy, whatever that looks like.
My aspiration for myself is to constantly reignite my joy. We are not stagnant creatures, we are meant to change and adapt. We are able to reinvent ourselves as much as we want. The point of the books mentioned above is quite simple; why do we wait until we’re dying to start living? Go be beautiful.
Authored by: Tyler Diaz, LCSW