Make Your Mark

Step 1 Decide what you stand for

YOU ARE HERE TO MAKE A MARK THAT NO-ONE ELSE CAN. OWN YOUR DIFFERENCE. RE-IMAGINE YOUR FUTURE. STAND FOR A CAUSE FAR GREATER THAN YOURSELF.

We all have different ideas of how to be happy. Some work — sort of, or at least part of the time. Others don't. In fact, sometimes people can make themselves royally miserable in their misguided quest for happiness. (They can make life tough going for others too!)

We humans are complex creatures with a vast host of needs and desires, biases and beliefs, often wrestling with each other behind the mask we wear for the world. Some of them we can articulate; others we can't. But they are there nevertheless, in the background, out of sight — often even out of our conscious awareness — guiding our choices, directing our actions and steering us away from anything that might be perceived as remotely threatening to our safety or sense of identity. It's why, despite the pickle some people can get themselves into they continue to do more of what's already not working in the naïve, if not deluded, hope that eventually it will.

The reason is simple: whatever we're doing, it is always meeting a need on some level. A need for belonging, approval or admiration. A need for security, safety or certainty. A need for prestige and power. A need for pity, to prove our unworthiness or to validate our powerlessness.

ON SOME LEVEL, EVERY DECISION WE MAKE PROVIDES A PSYCHOLOGICAL PAY-OFF, EVEN IF THAT PAY-OFF IS CAUSING US ALL ...