You are worthy no matter what you achieve
Old Happy culture has told us over and over again that our worthiness comes from what we achieve. It comes from how productive we are (why else do we have to justify self-care as productive?!) It comes from how much we can accumulate, how we conform to a specific standard, how much power we can wield…
But when that is your basis of self-worth, you know what happens?
You can *never* stop achieving. You can never stop being productive. You can never stop pushing yourself. You have to keep competing with others. You have to grit your teeth through burnout and illness and grief and loss and pain to keep working harder and harder. Because you have been taught that your value is externally derived from what you do. That’s why we are all so terrified of not being productive and successful, of pausing, of taking breaks, or treating ourselves like human beings.
This is all a lie, of course. The truth is that you are worthy simply because you are a human being. Nothing that ever happens can take away that worth. Nothing that anyone thinks of you (even what you think of you!) can reduce it. Our worthiness doesn’t require anything from us. But life sure does get a lot easier and more joyful and peaceful when we recognize that it is always there.
The reason we named this culture ‘Old Happy’ is that because once we can give a name to something that we take for granted, we can start to reduce its power over us. So name Old Happy when you see it. Notice how it shows up in yourself and around you. Start to catch yourself in these beliefs, the ones that have been hammered into us since we were young children. From that place, we can start to define for ourselves a new, better way to live — for everyone.
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