Let Yourself Be Happier

We all have stretches of time where we allow our life’s circumstances and the bad things that’ve happened to us determine our level of happiness. The key word is allow. Even in our darkest times, or most stressful times, we are always given a choice. When going through a difficult situation, it is oftentimes inevitable to have our quality of living, strength of resolve, amount of joy, and positivity of attitude be impacted. It’s not my intention to make light of anyone’s struggle or pretend that it’s easy to have a good attitude and truly be at peace when suffering or going through a hectic period in life. There are many people I know who have suffered from much worse tragedies, and lived far busier lives than I ever have. However, I have had my share of rough times, which were mostly caused by myself, and I’ve also had busy times in my life so I do feel I have enough experience to give a worthwhile opinion. What I’m saying is nothing anybody hasn’t heard but I think it’s very important. Take life one day at a time, appreciate the little things, and try to not think about the past or the future too much.

The past is over and it will never change. You can only learn from it, forget about it, or let it eat away at you, which will have a negative effect on your present and future. I’ve done all three, and right now I’m glad to say that I’m only attempting to learn from it. It’s been treating me much better and makes my today’s better than my yesterday’s and my tomorrows better than my today. The past includes this morning, it includes two hours ago, it includes five minutes ago. It includes that test you did shitty on, that opportunity you missed, that shot you shouldn’t have taken, that double double you bought when you were drunk and really was too full to finish but you did anyway (maybe I’m losing my connection here.. It happens, ok!). It includes that time you were annoyed with your parents and took it out on them, it includes that time when you were too busy thinking about your own problems to really listen to and help your friend with theirs, and it includes the good things too. I focus mostly on the bad things here because that is the stuff to learn from. Treating people poorly and doing anything less than your best in every aspect of your life will make you less happy so it’s good to just take your bad moments and make a mental note to try not to act that way again. In my opinion, almost nothing is a mistake if you learn from it. If you gain knowledge from it it’s just a learning experience and the result is a better and stronger person.

My long, drawn out point here is to not let your past own you. Own your past and let it improve you- force it to make you a better person.
It’s also helpful in the pursuit of happiness to genuinely appreciate the small things that come your way. You have to enjoy what you should, and make the effort to enjoy the things you normally wouldn’t. Working for a bank a solid amount of the people I talk to don’t like me before I even begin the conversation, so I try to really enjoy the exchanges where I get treated like a person or thanked for helping someone out. I have to let it refresh my mindset or I wouldn’t be able to make it through the day and come home in a good mood. I’ve never gotten a moving violation so I have to be thankful that it only cost me 100$ to replace a tire that I gashed against a curb three houses down when I was just changing a song in my car on my way to work which was really really really dumb and unnecessary. I have to be thankful I have a car that runs fine and a phone that plays music now or I’d resent my car for its speakers not working 3/4 of the time I’m driving. You have to learn to be thankful for the time you got to spend with a person when you lose them, or else thinking about how it could’ve been will bring you down.

‘What if’ is a terrible question to ask- ‘what now’ is what you have to start asking. ‘What if I had done a better job at work and I wouldn’t have gotten fired’ won’t help you. ‘What if I’d been a more attractive and exciting person to be in a relationship with’ won’t help you. ‘What if I’d showed up to class and actually passed’ won’t help you. I promise. Let your failures guide you, and you’ll be much happier. ‘What now should I do with my free time, what’s a job that I can like going to everyday and how should i improve my work ethic’ is the question that will take you where you want to be. ‘What now do I know about myself and how I am in a relationship, and what improvements can I make to become someone I love and the type of person I’m interested in could love’ is the question to meditate on. And finally ‘what am I going to do to pass this class next time and what can I change with my school habits’ will let you move forward.

I know none of this comes easy, and if your close to me you know I definitely haven’t followed the above advice. You won’t catch me telling myself I had a good basketball game when I had 2 turnovers and 0 points, and you won’t catch me saying I did a good job on something when I didn’t fully apply myself. However, recently, maybe even too recently for my best friends to have noticed yet, I’m making some changes in my life and working on thinking more positively. I won’t tell you I played a shit game ill tell you I wish I had done this better this is what I want to work on next time , at least I played decent defense. Ill tell you I didn’t apply myself 100% in some aspect of my life but tomorrow ill try and be better.
No matter where your at in life, if your not where you want to be, try and figure out where you want to be and start moving forward to get there. Appreciate the journey and recognize the things in your life and about yourself that you already like and don’t ever give that up.

If every day is a struggle, try and wake up every morning knowing its a new day. Yesterday is gone, you won’t get it back. Your not going to get a single day of your life back so do your best to live every day without creating regrets, and when you fail, push those regrets behind you and learn from them. I’m not there yet but I’m on my path and I do love life and there’s things I don’t like about myself but I do love myself. I used to hate a lot about life, and wasted a lot of days focusing on that. Oh well. Midnight is passing- it’s already a new day.