More is less, actually.

The more you laugh (on things that are not even hilarious sometimes), the less happiness you have in your life. 

Here are some lyrics to a song from an old Bollywood Hindi movie: “Why are you laughing so much? What sadness are you trying to hide?”

Maybe you fear judgement from people for coming across as a weak person if you show your pain. Or maybe you have difficulty expressing your emotions. Sometimes people laugh due to nervousness also. It’s called nervous laughter.

The more you show your money through your possessions, the less value you have for yourself—which you are trying to create through display of material things.

Maybe you have felt smaller in your past due to the higher financial status of someone else, and now you have the money to fill that void in your life through expensive possessions. Filling the void through expensive possessions is a limited way of living. Filling the void with self-love means you love yourself unconditionally—so, whether you have money or you don’t, you don’t feel that you are smaller or higher than anyone.

The more comfortable you are in your skin, the less you want to try to keep yourself busy.

Maybe you have a fear of judgement and you feel that others don’t respect you because you feel you have a lesser value, for example, as a homemaker than a working woman. Maybe you don’t value yourself in your own eyes, as you measure worth only through money—so you try to show that you are busy, thinking it will look valuable in the eyes of others (or maybe to yourself).

Trying to keep yourself busy is a way to escape from the fear of being alone or lonely or being called useless (which means worthless in your own eyes). You can choose to waste your life getting busy with anything just to look busy, or you can discover yourself, accept yourself, be comfortable with yourself, and then decide what you want to do with your wonderful life.

A life spent with your kids and family, building strong bonds and great values, is not a waste of time.

The more you talk, the lesser peace of mind you have.

Talking without reason is a compulsive reaction when you feel nervous and anxious. People who are peaceful find peace in silence also. For a person who is anxious, the silence becomes awkward, and they compulsively want to talk meaningless things. It is important to find your inner peace rather than trying to avoid these moments that make you awkward and being stuck in old habits.

The more you try to run away from pain and show you are happy, there is less possibility for you to get rid of the pain.

It’s like you exercise one day. Next day you feel pain due to sore muscles. You pause from doing exercise due to pain. When the pain goes away, you start doing exercise again. Next day, you feel the same pain. This way, you will never be able to get fit. The result will come when you continue, despite having pain. Then one day, the pain goes away on its own. The cure is the same for emotional pain.

The more you apply makeup, the less beautiful you feel you are.

The more you try to hide yourself in your makeup or filters, the less beautiful you feel in your own eyes. The more you feel you are beautiful, the less you want to hide your freckles and other imperfections because you feel perfect and beautiful with your flaws. It is better to find your self-love and self-acceptance rather than learning new makeup techniques.

The more you are conscious about your looks, the lesser confidence you have.

If you are confident about yourself, you will be comfortable with how you look, sound, and so on. You will not even care about it. Confidence means you know who you are and you are comfortable with it. Others’ opinions are not of any interest to you.

The more you display your love for your spouse, the less love you have in your relationship.

Some couples ask their partners to show loving gestures in front of relatives and family. Some wives ask their husbands to hold their hands at parties. It is because they feel unloved by their partners and they feel scared and ashamed about it and don’t want people to know. When two people love each other, the need to display the love is less, and in some cases, happy couples publicly make fun of each other in sarcastic ways as they are secure in each other’s love. 

The more you show your attitude or arrogance, the less self-worth and self-respect you have for yourself.

When you lack self-worth, you try to tell yourself that you are superior to others in some ways, and others are inferior. Actually, it is your own lack of self-worth that makes you start measuring yourself in comparison to others, resulting in behaving in arrogant ways. A person full of qualities and accomplishments is humble and sees beauty in everything without comparison.

The more knowledge you have, the less you want to show it.

The more evolved you become, the more you understand the differences and accept them. Whether they are financial, social, cultural, physical, racial differences, you become more open toward accepting different people.

The more humble you are, the less you want to be known for the good work that you do and be recognized for it.

When you have a lack of self-worth, you do things to get attention, validation, and appreciation from others. People with a genuine interest to help and do good in society will do great actions without trying to get noticed. It is better to invest time and energy in knowing yourself, and accepting yourself instead of constantly looking for attention. 

The more connected you are with yourself, the lesser need you feel for the company.

The need to be social arises from the void inside you, which you feel you can fill from external connections. People try to do social activities but end up feeling unfulfilled after spending that social time. The key to feeling fulfilled is to find an inner connection with yourself instead of finding random tinder connections or meaningless friendships.

The happier you feel in your family, the less you feel the need to socialize.

This is one thing I have observed closely with happy families is that they don’t enjoy socializing much—because they enjoy their family time. Even I can relate to it myself. I was a social butterfly only when I was single. When I got married and started to enjoy my family time, I lost interest in all the things I used to enjoy when I was single. To create a more fulfilling life, you can create more quality time with family and nourish family relationships.

The more you are confident about your own self, the lesser you feel you need other’s opinions or validation.

On many occasions, you feel the need for external validation. Sometimes it’s about your looks, and sometimes it’s about your words, actions, or behaviour; sometimes it could be some strategy toward a business or some personal matter. You feel that external validation is giving you clarity of mind or reassures you.

But in reality, it’s making you weaker and more dependent. The more you learn to trust your instinct and make decisions based on that, the more confident you will become in your life in making your own choices. The most important part to be able to do is to accept making mistakes. Do not fear if it goes wrong. If it goes wrong, you will learn.

If you are interested in self-development, improving the quality of your life, or creating a more fulfilling life, you can reduce doing some things to create more meaning.

The more you are enjoying the moment, the less you will click pictures, or maybe you’ll forget about taking pictures.

The more you are stable inside, the less instability you feel in your life from outside.

The more you are happy, the less hunger you will feel for food and for shopping.

The more you are connected to god, the less rituals you will do to show others about your dedication to god.

The more interesting you are, the less you will try to impress people.

The more love you feel for someone, the less jealous you will feel.

The more you feel ashamed for ageing, the less you will enjoy the experience of ageing.

The more you focus on your blessings, the less you will feel bad for your struggles.

The more you give yourself, the less you will expect from others.

The bigger the group of friends, the less one-on-one heart-to-heart connection, which is felt in deep friendships.

The larger the buffet, the lesser the appetite.

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