How to find fulfillment in simple things.

Jk.

I wish I had an answer to that question.

The truth is, I don’t usually find pleasure in simple things like watching the sunset and playing games in class after getting through all the AP exams.

It’s frustrating because I really want to enjoy those moments of ease, and I used to love them as a child - more precisely, before ed transformed my brain.

I expected to have the utmost relief and contentment after dragging myself through my 5 AP exams last week. I overexerted every bit of energy to be fully prepared for the exams, pushing myself to the brink of breakdown many times. Now that the exams are done, I’m not nearly as ecstatic as I thought I would be. I passed the BACE exam with a 90% on Monday. The happiness of that accomplishment was gone by the end of the school day...

But is that really the truth? Or is it because I’m so used to thinking that I can’t be easily pleased?

I asked one of my teachers to describe me in three words for a project, and he said, “Driven, realistic, and….”

“Confident.”

Confident? My instinctive reaction was to argue that I’m in no way confident, I’m very self-conscious and scared of judgment, and I…

Wait.

Maybe I’m confident. Or at least appear to be.

I realized that I had an almost negative reaction to being called confident because of the incongruence between how I view myself and how others perceive me (thanks, AP psych).

What’s wrong with being confident? Why can’t I be confident?

I challenged that restrictive belief.

I do act like I’m confident and unbothered by others. But I never intentionally accepted that fact.

My point in this is: maybe the reason why I can’t appreciate little things is that I’m holding onto that belief because it had become habitual to think that way.

So I hope you take something away from this long and convoluted brain dump and check if you have similar tendencies of holding onto unhelpful beliefs.