To everyone else, I preach about the importance of fighting for happiness, and how you have to choose to be happy, and be positive, and how "life's what you make it" and all that nonsense.
When it comes to my own life though, far too often I'm a Negative Nellie, focusing on what's going wrong in my life, and feeling sorry for myself, and not doing much of anything to try and make things better.
I'm at a place right now, however, where I think life is just telling me to make some changes. I've had some shitty, sad times lately, and the need and the opportunity to make changes and make myself happier is here.
Roommates, work, friends, family, romance, health, money, you name it. I've had things go wrong and things stress me out in every aspect of my life over the past few months. But I'm going to make positive changes, and I think I can sort out most of my issues. Here are some of my generalized, applies-to-everyone, try-to-be-happier pieces of life advice.
1. Spend time with your family. Some of my happiest days in the past year have been spent playing board games and laughing my head off with my mama and aunties. Even hanging out with my dad, who I normally argue with constantly, can put me in a better mood some days. Spending time with people who love you no matter what is essential to being happy. Of course, some days you won't get along. Some days they'll drive you crazy. But do what you can to ignore those annoying habits, and not spring into defense mode when they say something questionable. Life's easier (and happier) if you accept your family as the weird, annoying, overprotective, whatever they may be and just enjoy the time you have together.
2. Reach out to your friends, and make an effort. Way too often I get into slumps of feeling sorry for myself and thinking I don't have any friends. Swallow your pride and be the one to make contact! Reach out to friends you haven't seen in ages! More often than not they're more than happy to hear from you. Friendship works both ways, and you can't sit around waiting for people to call you. It might seem scary, but unless you want to sit around and be lonely and sad, sometimes you have to be brave and make the first phonecall/text/email/visit!
3. Take care of yourself! It's too easy to let your health slip. Eat enough, and eat the right kinds of food. Get some exercise once in a while too! And get enough sleep, even if you think you're fine to run on five hours of sleep a night. I was slackin' on alllll these things, and I felt like crap, physically and emotionally. It's really not hard to make a few changes, and it's worth it. You only get one body in this lifetime, take care of it!
4. Be responsible with your money, but don't stress about it. I've always been a notorious saver. Every penny would be accounted for, and either spent on necessary bills or put into a savings account. Sure, it's important to be smart with your money, but you can't become too stingy about it! My mama always says she's never seen a bank truck following a hearse. Which basically means you can't take your money with you when you're dead. So enjoy it a bit while you're alive! Don't feel bad about spending a lil on a special treat for yourself; you work hard for your money (I'm assuming) and deserve to spend it on things that make you happy.
5. Don't spend your time pining over someone who doesn't love you or doesn't treat you right. They're not going to suddenly change how they act, and they're probably not going to suddenly fall head over heels for you. Wishing they would is a waste of your time, and will just make you sad. Someone else will love you the way you should be loved, but it won't happen until you move on from that asshole!
6. Notice the good things. When something nice happens in your day, take a minute to appreciate it! Too often I've ignore the little happy things and dwell on crappy things that ultimately don't matter. Even something as trivial as "oh! some of the snow melted out of my driveway!" made me a lot happier as I got into my car this morning. Stuff like that. Just take a second, and be happy about the happy things.
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