Is less really more?

 “Who strive – you don’t know how the others strive

To paint a little thing like that you smeared

Carelessly passing with your robes afloat,-

Yet do much less, so much less, Someone says,

(I know his name, no matter) – so much less!

Well, less is more, Lucrezia.”

This expression first appears in Robert Browning's poem, Andrea del Sarto, in 1855. The main point of this statement is that you may overdo something. Consider having a lot of dialogue in an action picture. Many individuals would be dissatisfied since they expected battle scenes but ended up sitting about and talking. This theory can be applied in a variety of scenarios. One commonly held idea is that having less personal possessions leads to greater happiness. But, is less really more, though?

 In the previous six years, I've turned into a very different person. My brother looks at my newborn photographs and playfully says, "Oh, you ate this Vidushi up," but he has no idea that I swallowed her entirely. She was so feeble, and all I felt was pain and pity for her. Everything has altered since I last discussed my personality development. I am now less of a people pleaser, I have purposefully lost all of my friends (made a few in the process, but will eventually lose them all, leaving only two friends who weirdly refused to let me cut them off), and I have dedicated my life to developing what I do. My contact with people decreased, and I began going out less and spending less money, essentially subconsciously reducing everything I did in my life. Did it make me happy? Not at much, but did it make me feel peaceful? It definitely did.

But what's the sense of being peaceful when you're sad? What's the point of sitting peacefully at home when you know the people you love don't care about you? What's the point of having so much peace that quickly turns into an empty void, and the next thing you know you're in a big pool of sadness surrounded by your stuffed animals, crying to your one friend who goes to school in another city? I despise it when people see me cry; my father photographs me when I cry so he remembers that I am capable of crying. My friends (the ones who remain) claim I've changed; my desire for self-preservation has resulted in me being unable to converse with others; my once outgoing self, who had 40 people at her birthday party, may now have only three.

The concept of less is more does not make my life easier; rather, it complicates it even more. People grow up to be more extroverted and confident, while I'm devolving into a more closed person with a sword in her hand, ready to stab everyone who gets close. I've grown silent and nonchalant, which only adds to the suffering in my life. Yes, it brings calm, but only at the expense of great sorrow. Less may mean more - less enjoyment, more suffering, more despair, and more numbing music in my head as I sit alone in my room.  I believe all of this derives from my tendency to hate myself; if I can't live with myself, how can I have friends? I don't think my present friends care about me; I strive to do everything for them, but I believe they take me for granted, as my absence has no effect on their lives. "Less is more, less is more" is what I tell myself when I think about the life I want to live, but let's be honest: at the bottom of all my words, I just feel like a liability in everyone's lives. I feel as if I bring no value, no delight, nothing at all. Sometimes when I'm talking to my friends in a group, their expressions change in the middle of a phrase, and I almost want to die.

I just don't understand why, in every aspect of my life, I show someone how wonderful I can be for them, but they only show me how bad/indifferent they are to me/towards me. I harmed my leg at a party a few nights ago, and I called my friends  but none of them showed up, called me the next day to check on me, or came to my door. Maybe I'm expecting too much, or perhaps I should expect less. Less is more, but I'm not sure where "less" is and where "more" is. I mix up my life's less-more concoctions, only to find myself in a puddle of misery surrounded by my stuffed animals, this time with no friend on the line - just me and myself.