1. Stop going to your #dark place. The older you get, the more happiness becomes a conscious decision you have to make every day. You can’t expect to automatically feel good when you wake up. It’s something you have to work toward. Actually, at a certain point, everything becomes a job. Staying fit, balancing career and relationships, monitoring your partying. The maintenance on simply existing is exhausting and usually doesn’t come with health insurance but if you don’t take care of yourself, the alternative is so much worse. But at the same time, be sad. Grieve the bad things that happen to you. Allow yourself to feel terrible because it’s the only way you can ever really feel good again. Don’t say “I’m fine!” when you’re actually not because it’s only going to make you feel worse. There’s no shame in spending an afternoon in bed feeling sorry for yourself. There’s no shame in giving someone an honest answer when they ask how you’re doing. It’ll feel liberating actually. Saying “I feel like crap!” is the fastest ticket to “I feel great!”
2. Don’t feel guilty about doing something you knew would hurt you. Don’t beat yourself up about sleeping with the boy who you told yourself you wouldn’t sleep with, or a night in which you got too drunk because it doesn’t do you any good. You just shame spiral about it, which makes you more inclined to do it again. You have to be like, “Yikes! I shouldn’t have done that again because I know it makes me feel bad but, oh well, I did so let’s move on and hopefully learn from my mistakes.” Understand that you’re going to be doing a lot of stupid things in your life so you can’t fixate on every single one.
3. Do more of the things that make you happy and less of the things that don’t. This might sound simple and obvious but, hi, it’s not. Sometimes you don’t even know something is making you unhappy until you actually take a step back from it.
4. Try to do things that terrify you because it will make you feel like a strong evolved person. It’s hard because when you do try it out, you just want to go back to what you were comfortable with. But when it is over you’ll scream, “I’m a person who conquers fears. Yay!” You might even be able to join some sort of club, or at the very least, get a gold star.
6. Let go of your past. It’s not good too hold onto things for too long. Whether it’s burning old memories that haunt you, or just moving past emotionally. You have to live in the present and look forward to the future.
7. Feed your brain. Treat it like a plant you have to water. Go see a thoughtful movie by yourself on a Sunday afternoon, linger at a bookstore and read a novel in the corner. In order to be happy, you have to treat yourself with respect. You have to treat yourself the same way you would a best friend or a lover. What’s that golden rule? Treat others how you want to be treated? LOL! As if. It’s usually the other way around. People seem to treat others with more regard than they do for themselves. So, let’s remix that golden rule, shall we? Value yourself. Practice self-love. All that good stuff.
8. Be comfortable in your own skin. There are days where you don’t want to get out of bed, or go out in public because you look like and feel like crap. But even celebrities look horrible in pictures. It’s only human, we were not made to be perfect.
9. Expanding on being comfortable, be comfortable with yourself. Who cares what others think, the most easy thing to say yet the most difficult thing to do. Accept all of your flaws, this is hard because society and people pick in those the most. There are things saying you should love anyone with flaws that annoy you. Well damn, you’ve got to be kidding. The flaws is what set us apart and drive us to do better and become a better version of ourselves over the course of our lives. I think recognizing your flaws are an important thing. You’re able to point them out and be okay and content with it.
10. Being able not to go insane if left alone. You have to have a perfect mix of independence and reliance. A tip of the scale in the wrong direction could potentially make you go overboard.
11. Be honest with yourself and other people. In this day and age, there are so many opportunities for BS. This is one thing that makes everyone’s life so much easier. “Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth. ” -Buddha
12. Trust. The definition is “firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something”. Trusting others will give you peace within. We are all so worried about everything. Having trust in the ones is important, with friends it’s trusting that if they say something, they will stand by it. With relationships, it’s the same as friendship but an added twist of trusting them with your heart. With family, it’s trusting them with your heart and life, completely.
14. Realize that being happy is a conscious decision. You could be one of the lucky ones who has happiness come easily to them, but most people need to make a concentrated effort to feel good. This doesn’t make you weak or a phony. It just means that you’re a person who knows how bad life can get.
Grab his waist, then pull him close to your body. Look into his eyes, look at his lips while biting yours, look back at his eyes again. Grab his face gently, then slowly lean in whisper into his ear: “The lannisters send their regards” then stab him in the chest, whilst his mum watches.
