[Image] Pretense is how you start

I have to take issue with this quote in terms of being motivated. I understand what you're trying to say, in the ideas that believing in oneself is the first step to change. However I feel like this image speaks more to a state of depression and hiding rather than truth and motivation.

Having lived with depression and having worked with students who suffer depression and anxiety I can tell you that the response of I'm fine becomes the go to answer when someone asks if you're alright. You begin to repeated so often that you start to believe that the depression, possible suicidal thoughts, feelings of loneliness, and the deep rooted anxieties as being normal. The individual starts to normalize these feelings and say "well this is my life."

Well a lot of issues with depression or treatable through therapy and medication, dieting and exercise, people who normalize it cut themselves off from the ability to feel happy the right to feel better. If one resigns to the mental condition as being what they deserve and what life is going to be like, then you have what your quote suggests.

The truth of the matter is that they deserve to feel confident when they reply that they are doing fine, not because that's what they think society wants to hear, but it's because that is how they truly feel. When I meet people like this, and if they've opened up to me, I tell them that they're deserving of love. That it's ok to respond and say you're not alright, not everyone will understand but it's more an admission to themselves than to the world. That they deserve to be as happy as they see the people around them are. There are ways of dealing with the issues and that they aren't alone for that journey if they don't want to be. They deserve to feel loved in the ways others know they love them.

What's most motivating is hearing that they took that step to get better, and that they can admit where they were wasn't a good place, but where they are now is truly good.

/r/GetMotivated Thread Link - i.imgur.com