What I’ve learned this Year:

IMG_5895We’re always learning, and in a year a lot can happen. Here are some of my earth shattering moments of epiphany.

  • To love without expecting love in return.
  • How to trust in both myself and God.
  • Everything is exactly how it needs to be at this moment.
  • Friendships aren’t always meant to last forever, but they should all have a good lasting effect or they weren’t with the right people.
  • That I don’t always have to be in a rush for good things to come.
  • How to fully forgive.
  • That sometimes you have to fix your own bad habits in order to fix others.
  • If you’re asked to do a favor for someone you love and you can do it, even if you really don’t want to, do it. There is no greater act of love than giving.
  • You cannot control your emotions, but you can keep them from controlling you.
  • I can make a mean butter cream icing without a recipe at hand.
  • You can reach out to someone you haven’t spoken to in months. It won’t be that strange in action. Sometimes it brings hearts back together.
  • I’m my mother through and through, just with different quirks and hobbies. She’s my mirror, and I’ll never be able to repay her for raising me that way.
  • That my talents aren’t things that I should be undermining, but rather things I should make explosive.
  • Everyone has something that gets their soul going, and as long as it’s not evil, those passions are the ones that often make us fall in love with them as humans.
  • Read instead of getting on social media, even if it’s just once or twice a week. It drastically changes your life.
  • How to spill my soul out on the table and not be embarrassed by the mess I made.

Everyone needs something that they can look back and claim: That was the year I fell in love with myself. That was 2014.

The Key to Lasting Happiness So Far.

IMG_3400This past semester has been entirely freeing and all together soul finding. I realize that’s not really a term, but I’ve really come into myself, and it had nothing to do with my classes, in fact, I’m not a hundred percent sure what triggered it. All I know is that I’ve figured out my passions, I’ve sorted out my goals, and I’ve learned what makes me happy.

Honestly I think the key to happiness isn’t as hard as people try to make it, but it’s a process. It has a lot to do with the people around you, the way you spend your time, and what you do with your livelihood. It’s something we all have to figure out, a kind of self awareness that won’t come to us until we’re ready. I’m early on this boat, from what I can tell. Many of my friends are lost in the process of being an adult in their early twenties, thinking about rules, careers, and long term choices which they might find to be short term after all. We’re trying to hard and we’re not trying hard enough.

Let me elaborate. We come up with an idea when were younger, whether it be in 6th grade or 11th, that this is what we want out of life, that this is what success looks like. Sometimes it has to do with money, other times it has to do with how many cities we can visit before we die, but it’s always restrictive in someway or another, because once we have it we only have the one path, and when that path ends up being a grown over once we start down it, well, that’s when the problems start. It’s been coined the quarter life crisis. The “what the hell am I doing with my life?!”. It’s in this way that we’re trying to hard. People like blaming society for this, but in reality we form all our opinions, so while it’s been influenced by the “american dream” and the successes and failure stories our parents raised us on, it ends up on our shoulders. Only we can stop trying to reach our ideal idea of success. You need to lose it, throw it to the side.

When I said we aren’t trying enough I was referring to our generations constant downplaying of themselves. The “I can’t achieve that” or “I’m not good enough”. We pigeonhole ourselves by downplaying our abilities, our talents. Or, by thinking our abilities and talents are good enough when they come to our idea of the perfect success.

It’s a constant, we forget that nothing is permanent, not money, jobs, even relationships. Though I’m not knocking the idea of a soul mate here, I believe in love and that they can last for a lifetime. But people die. We retire or get fired. Money means nothing when your in the ground. You don’t know how nice of a coffin your is. People travel the world on a dime.

Now, happiness is knowing what makes you happy. Saying that we all nod, because we all know what makes us happy, chocolate and college basketball, but we have to go one past that, we have to force ourselves to do the things we enjoy when we don’t feel like doing anything, and we have to above all, remove the pressure. If you’re constantly looking for happiness your not ever going to find enough for your liking. It’s when you start learning to be content in the ups and downs. Life’s a cycle of ups and downs, we need the downs to appreciate the ups and we need the downs to teach us the hard lessons. Neither the ups or downs are permanent. You have to learn how to live with life as it comes, not as you imagine it.

I guess learning how to be happy has a lot with accepting that life will never fit into our ideals, but it doesn’t mean it can’t be damn amazing. Learn what makes you happy and do it. Learn all you can no matter were you are learning, and force yourself to do what you love most, even if you don’t have much time.

Life Tips (series 1 out of ∞)

-Compliment people, always.
Seriously, it takes nothing away from you and it adds so much to someone else’s day. I was having a conversation with my roommate about this. We think all these little things that we choose not to say because we don’t know a person, or because they are walking fast. Take the time, say it anyways. It always brightens peoples day and even more so, it has saved lives before.
And note that compliments are different from cat calls, please and thank you, no one needs any of that.
Walk like you have your dream man behind you
Good posture, long neck, good swish.
Confidence shines in more way than in which you talk.
-Never lie about of hide your emotions
One of the best things that I have done is tell people how I feel when I feel it. I’m in a time right now where I don’t feel like I have the biggest social life. I recently told someone how lonely I was, guess what, they stepped up. This isn’t the first time something like this has happened. Telling my parents I was depressed, well, it saved my life, and it gave me the chance to be happy again. So here I am.
-Man up, text them first
Okay, face it, if everyone on earth decided to play the popular game of “if they want me in their life they’ll contact me first” than no one would have anyone in their life and we’d all be on the curb over what? Not a damn thing. Just remember that if you reach out and they make an effort to talk back, they want you in their life, if they don’t make an effort and shut you down every time, then you can re-look at the relationship. Just remember, everyone is busy, and you’ve been at points in your life before, that you needed someone to text you first. So just man up and do it.
-Spend more time outside in the sun
Fresh air is good for you.
Sun has been proven to help cure depression.
Adventures happen outside, you should look into them.
-Never expect people to change.
Do people change? I want to say no, but there have been cases were that would be very wrong to say. You know, people can change, but you shouldn’t count on it. Put expectations on yourself and the person you can be. Not other people and the person they might could be if they only decided to do this, this, this, and oh, those other five things.
-Never get obsessed
Love is much healthier.
If you don’t know the difference if, you should figure that out.