What is Clarity and How to Achieve It for a Happier Life
In this blog post, I’m going to share with you what Clarity is, why you need it, and how to obtain it. My name is D Alonzo Lang, and I’m here with Moment of Clarity Wellness. As you can see by the channel name, the goal of this organization is to provide adaptable wellness solutions to anybody and everybody because we believe that everyone has the potential to be happy. My goal is to provide an adaptable solution that anyone can pick up, apply to their own life, and see results.
Why Many People Aren’t Happy
I think the reason why a lot of people aren’t happy is because they lack Clarity. When I say Clarity, I mean the most general definition of clarity applied to your life. If you Google it, Clarity is the quality of being coherent, intelligible, transparent, or pure. Applying that to your own life, if you don’t go through life with a sense of transparency about how you feel and what you value, you’ll always be pursuing things that aren’t authentic to what you actually care about.
For example, if you care about going to the NBA as a kid, you have to practice playing basketball. You have to passionately pursue that goal. You don’t just wake up one day, pick up a ball, and go to the league unless you’re blessed with the genetics for it. Even then, you have to choose to make conscious decisions about your life. You need a Moment of Clarity to define that.
What is a Moment of Clarity?
A Moment of Clarity is exactly that—it’s a moment when you can take a chance in your life to ask yourself, “How do I feel?” When you ask yourself that question, you have to be able to answer it. But there’s a reason why many people struggle to have that Moment of Clarity and that sense of self.
The big reason why people are becoming increasingly unhappy is because we’re dealing with systemic oppression and distorted perceptions on a mass level. Systemic oppressions are social issues that require community to properly address. Distorted perceptions, on the other hand, are interpersonal issues. The way you treat people is more of a reflection of how you feel about yourself than how you feel about that person.
Systemic Oppression and Distorted Perceptions
Systemic oppression refers to prolonged cruel or unjust treatment or control. It’s a set way of cruel and unjust treatment or control. For example, affirmative action statistically helps more white women than it does black people. When the system is set up like that, it’s out of your control. But that’s also part of the problem—they’re out of your control, so you can’t stop yourself from being exposed to it.
However, you can control your response to it. You can’t control whether you run into a bully, but you can control whether you stand up for yourself. Systemic oppression requires community to change, while distorted perceptions require the individual to change. When individuals on a mass level change their distorted perceptions, the community starts to change as well, and then systemic oppression starts to change.
The Power of Clarity
Clarity is about defining what it means for you to be happy. When you ask yourself how you feel, you then have to make decisions to achieve that happiness. The hardest part is coming up with the plan. Beliefs form thoughts, and thoughts reinforce beliefs. If you believe something negative about a situation, you’re going to think negative thoughts about it, reinforcing the pre-existing negative belief.
The only way to break this cycle of dysfunction is by recognizing the power you have at both parts of the process—the beliefs and the thoughts. You have to recognize your thoughts in the moment so that you can consciously produce thoughts that align with the beliefs you want to have. Conversely, you have to recognize the negative beliefs you have about a situation so that you can prevent those negative thoughts from automatically forming.
Steps to Achieve Clarity and Happiness
Here are the steps to achieve Clarity and happiness:
1. What makes you happy?
- Think about what truly makes you happy. Be honest with yourself. For me, it’s playing video games, enjoying a nice drink, spending time with friends and family, and following my dreams.
2. Why aren’t you currently doing that?
- Identify what’s stopping you from doing the things that make you happy. Is it a lack of confidence, money, or something else? Recognize the walls so you can find a way around them.
3. How would you feel to be doing that?
- Allow yourself to dream again. Visualize how it would feel to be doing the things that make you happy. Let your joy come back to you.
4. What can you do right now to get closer to that?
- Take small actions that allow those feelings to come. Feel the joy about your result before you reach it. Keep going forward, regardless of success or failure.
Happiness is subjective. No one can tell you what happiness is because it’s not going to be the same for you as it is for me. That’s the beauty of life. You need moments of clarity to define what happiness is for you. Once you’ve defined it, create a plan to pursue it and pursue it regardless of success or failure. Just keep going forward.