Got Mental Health?
by Stephen Doherty
April 7th, 2025
“Maybe it’s about unbecoming everything that isn’t really you,
so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place.” -Paulo Coelho
As I continue my own personal journey of self-discovery, amid the welcome avalanche of all that life can concoct and throw my way, I have elevated mental health to the top of my ever-evolving list of personal priorities. I have embraced the very simple truth that absent mental health – there simply IS no health worth having.
Further, as it relates to my life – I am referring more to the specifics of emotional health, versus the more complex and clinical mental health universe. To me, the distinction is important because I believe we have much more control over emotional health for a variety of reasons.
In my opinion, everything in life is a subset of the pursuit of happiness. Otherwise, what’s the point? Everything (or should) we do or engage in, needs to have a component that at least considers happiness as a critical ingredient.
The happiness “sum” needs to be greater than its collective parts. As James Clear so brilliantly articulated in his best-seller, “Atomic Habits”, “Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity.”
The beauty of this approach is the flexibility it gives us. We can add or shed events, circumstances, people, situations, and an almost infinite (and growing) array of toxic and negative sources of cultural and societal “noise” that pollutes our respective spirits, hearts, and souls. The end game should be obvious – and extremely satisfying. We get to shuffle our respective deck of cards on a continual basis. Happiness stems from little more than the good things on our scales outweighing the bad things.
One of the most satisfying and exhilarating activities we can engage in, is the continuous adding and shedding of things that we love and the things that we despise. It’s called choice and the list of potential candidates for each of us is almost infinite. Toxic people in our sphere that are vexations to a healthy spirit. A social media that seemingly thrives on negativity and providing us with new and creative ways to soil our inner scales. Consuming anything that we know will erode our bodies and thus infringe on our ability to function at 100% – physically and mentally. Engaging in any harmful dissipations that rob us of critical energy so necessary for pursuing a positive and happy life.
There are so many things in life that can cripple or damage us that we simply have no control over. How sad and unnecessary to add to that list by accepting, even encouraging, destructive forces into our lives that we do have control over. In my humble opinion, one of the greatest benefits of getting older is our heightened awareness in how we choose to position anything we invite into our lives.
Much like a surgeon excising any dangerous mass, how awesome is it to excise things in our lives that add nothing, and actually damage our spirits and prospects for happiness. If my musings leave you with nothing else, hopefully it’s not just the knowledge, but the willingness to make the hard cuts and jettison the things that suck us dry. The trophy we seek should be the self-generated euphoria that accompanies a scale heavily weighted towards our own happiness.
“You can’t control everything. Sometimes you just need to relax and have faith that things will work out. Let go a little and just let life happen .. ” -Kody Keplinger
