Warm Water

If you can figure out why your parents did this or that, you’ll be able to forgive them and take a huge step towards accepting yourself just as you are.

When it comes to beating yourself up for past mistakes, don’t forget that you made that decision because you felt that it was right for you at that time in your life.

If you’ve been hurt by someone, tell them how you feel, but choose your words wisely. Instead of saying, “You betrayed me!”, a much better way to open a dialogue is to say, “I feel betrayed.”

Try to have desires and goals that are your own and not somebody else’s. When we try to live another person’s life, we destroy our own.

You can change your life if you just step out of your comfort zone and start doing things you’d never imagine yourself doing.

You don’t have to be nice and accommodating for everybody and give up your own desires and expectations. It’s perfectly okay to say “no”.

Don’t wait for the right moment, take steps to make your life better every single day.

Each stressful situation pulls you out of your comfort zone. And with it, you’ve gained new experience that will help you learn your lesson so that you never repeat the same mistakes again.

Do everything that’s in your power, and then let the situation work itself out. It’s pointless to stress over something you can’t change and have no control over.

Remember you’re the person you spend your whole life with. No matter how much everyone else praises you, if you don’t like yourself, you’ll still be miserable.

As long as you are not hurting anyone, hurting yourself, being irrational, or breaking the law, you can express yourself however you feel. Piercings, hair dye, clothing, go for it.

You can always come to me for getting birth control. I will take you to get treated for STD’s. The whole nine yards. I would rather say that I had a child who was safe than sorry.

As long as you do your absolute best in school, work towards goals, and take care of your responsibilities, you can do whatever you want, as long as it’s legal. I don’t want to hover over you. You’ll never learn for yourself that way!

I don’t care about the race, ethnicity, religion, etc of the person you want to date. All I care about is that they are respectful - ESPECIALLY to you.

You are allowed to break society’s stereotypes of gender, race, etc. In fact, please do! 

If you’re homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual, pansexual, asexual, or don’t want to label yourself, I will always support you. Date whoever makes YOU happy.

I will support your interests - sports, arts, liberal arts, social justice, math, science, whatever your calling is, go for it. 

1. Don’t try to read other peoples’ minds and don’t expect others to be able to read yours. Communicate if it is important to you.

2. Don’t expect to be friends with everyone. We all are different – and we all like different things. Instead, invest your time in a few good friends. That’s all you really need to feel happy and fulfilled.

3. Create a budget and live within your means. Accruing lots of debt will only cause you to feel stressed.

4. Kill off the monster of jealousy – and only compare yourself with yourself.

5. Organize your clutter and get rid of excess stuff. It will leave you feeling calmer, and will save you lots of time!

6. Stay on the sidelines and don’t get drawn into pointless scenes and dramas in other peoples’ lives (unless it’s a crisis – and you know you ought to help).

7. Finish what you’ve started - and then do something else.

8. Treat every person you meet with respect, and err on the side of being gentle and kind.

9. Accept that there are things that you can’t change or control – and focus on those things that you can change or control.

1. Seek to focus on what you want instead of what you don’t want: A mistake we tend to make when we’re faced with a problem is to think and talk about it all the time - instead of focusing our thinking on what we want instead.

2. Recognise that every problem comes with a lesson: There’s a lesson to be learned from all that happens to us. We can become a better person - even when things have gone wrong.

3. Don’t believe everything you think: Our problems aren’t as big as the mind tries to convince us. Don’t believe all those negative and self-defeating thoughts.

4. Choose to be grateful in everything: Although it’s hard to be grateful when things are going wrong, we can usually find something we can be grateful for - and the more we choose gratitude, the happier we’ll feel.

5. Let go of your need for perfection: If you try to be perfect in everything you do, you will always feel you’re failing, and you’ll live with constant stress. Do you best – as perfection’s not a realistic goal.

6. Let go of your resistance: Accept things as they are - you don’t always have to change them. Life’s not meant to be a struggle, or a constant battle ground.