What Makes You Happy?

I posted this status on Facebook today, "What is one thing you've done today to make yourself happy?" We all need those things to make it through the week, or hell, through life in general. Don't get me wrong, I still think life is good, great even. But sometimes the world can let us down a little bit. It's all circumstantial, really. Life is innately good, and we're left with the world to balance it out with complications. So we really need those little things throughout the day to make ourselves feel good about things.

And you might say, "But Ian, I had three tests today. How am I supposed to be happy with that workload?" Easy. Make time. Take your tests, and when you're done make yourself do something that will improve your mood. Simple as that. You have to do it, if you don't you'll get worn out before too long.

I really had to do this for myself the past couple of days. Don't get me wrong, things are great, they really are. My mood is on the up-and-up, my appetite is vastly improved (if only my diet would follow suit), and I've been far more social than I've ever seen myself be. But recently I just feel like maybe I'm not up to where I want to be yet. It's hard to explain, I just feel like I'm missing something. I know everything is a work in progress, but I'm the kind of person that can be frustrated when the status quo just continues for too long. It was running me down a little bit the past few days, not to the point of running ragged, but still not feeling the same heights of happiness I felt mere days before.

As I was reading through the comments that came up on that status I thought to myself, "Well, what have I done recently?" What could I do to get myself out of this "rut" I was feeling myself fall into? What makes Ian happy?

I'll tell you what I did. I read an entire book, No Country For Old Men, within one day, and while doing so I plumbed the depths of a mad killer's deterministic insanity, and wondered how everything in his philosophy made sense in the sickest of ways. After that? I pulled open my laptop and indulged myself in a few hours of Pokemon and Dishonored. Okay, you might scoff at me for playing Pokemon, I know. It's just for kids. Here's the thing. Pokemon was a big part of my childhood. My cousin and I would watch the show, play the games, trade the cards, everything like that. If you ask me, if I couldn't still hold on to that one, small part of my childhood I would be vastly disappointed in who I am today. Plus, I evolved my Rhyhorn to a Rhydon. Suck it, Pokemon League.

Old childish things aside, that's what I did. I took the weekend to make myself smile with those things. Is that such a bad thing? To take time to just be alone and make yourself smile with inane little things and just leave your problems behind? I don't think so. In fact, I wish more people would. If more people did that, I feel like we'd have a happier world to live in.

As I'm finishing this, I'm wondering how similar this is to my last post... Oh well, I guess I don't mind repeating myself as long as I do it with different words. But I'll leave this post with the same question I started with: What have you done lately to make yourself happy?

Until next time...

Step Back

I want you to do me a favor. I never ask for much on my blogs, but I want you to do this for me.

I want you to take a deep breath and take one step back.

I know it's been a long couple of weeks. You're stressed from exams, essays, mid-term insanity, whatever it may be, you're done with it. There's that one test you may not have done so well on, but there's one you think you nailed. I want you to stop thinking about the one you didn't get the grade you wanted. I want you to think about the one you nailed. Take that victory. The failure? A drop in the ocean. Do you know how many more tests you're going to take? Exactly. A lot. Don't sweat this one, there's plenty more to come.

Whoa there, don't step up again just yet. I know we just had Fall Break, but I know a lot of you are still crazy stressed. So here's what I want you to do. Close your eyes. Place yourself somewhere else, somewhere far away, somewhere quiet, somewhere relaxing. Breathe in. Breathe out. Open your eyes. I want you to take thirty minutes just for yourself. No social obligations, no school work, no distractions. Just you, the planet, and all the time in the world. While you're there, away from everything, think about your life. Think about how incredible it's been. Think about the places you're going, the places you've been to, look at the shape of your life. Even if there were downturns, wasn't it still worth it, seeing everything whole?

At some point in that thirty minutes, I want you to go outside. Hell, might as well do the entire thirty minutes outside. Sit in the grass. No, lay down in the grass. Watch the clouds move overhead, feel the grass react to your weight, think of how small you truly are and find comfort in that. We're less than a grain of sand, but when you look at how beautiful the entire beach truly is, it's worth being the tiniest part of that.

Let that be your comfort. Everything will work out. It's the weekend now. Take the next week as it comes. If it shoots hardship at you, you just shoot it right back. Life is good. It will continue to be good. Don't let the weight of the world keep you down.

Until next time...

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