The Elephant & The Gazelle

It's all a matter of where your head is at.

This simple sentence changed my life:

"How to be happy: decide you're in a good mood"

I woke up one dark Monday morning to go to work. I was in a terrible mood after a lot of stuff went wrong in my life - serious adult shit that put my teenage worries to shame. I had read that quote the previous day and decided, fuck it, I don't want to be the self-pity party - I am going to be happy.

I consciously took joy from little things around me. It was difficult at first, but I forced myself to smile and made myself notice the pretty clouds on the way to work, I found a dandelion and blew it, I noticed the bubbles the kids in the daycare next door to my work were blowing. I intentionally noticed the people who did something silly on the street, or something nice for someone else, or whatever else. Find the small, good things in life; yours or someone else's, and use those things to improve your mood.

I made up silly, ridiculous stories for people I passed on the street and I MADE myself happy.

It's so simple but if you take those words to heart and stop wanting to be sad (I'm not trying to be mean; I've been terribly depressed and sometimes it feels good to feel sorry for yourself - but it feels a lot better to be happy). Tell yourself you are going to be happy and make the decision to change your state of mind.

Your problems will work themselves out - and if they don't - well then you need to just accept that and work around it. I can't speak for anyone else, and I don't know specifics, but I've had a plethora of health issues in my time and a lot of bad things happen that made me very, very, very unhappy for a very long time.

It wasn't that the problems went away and that bad things stopped happening, the thing that changed was my perspective and how I dealt with unfortunate circumstances.

You are going to be strong and deal with the issue.

If you can't change it - suck it up and move on, get on with your life and work around it. It is not worth wasting minutes, hours, days, months, or years being sad over. It's not worth ruining your mood over, THAT is not healthy. Living in depression, darkness and sadness, you need to be aware that by feeding the darkness, you make everything worse for yourself. 

You are STRONG and you need to realise that nothing is too big to get over. Nothing is so big that it will overwhelm you. Not a failed exam, not a lost friend, not a death of someone close to you. NOTHING.

You are in charge of your own happiness and you need to actively make the decision to be happy.

Find something that you get enjoyment from, try something new. Whether that's learning another language, cooking, or getting fit (that's what I've found), or knitting, sky diving, scuba diving, or ceramics. Find something you love doing.

Exercise - it's not only good for you physically, but it does wonders for your mental and emotional state too.

Learn something, set goals, challenge yourself.

Bad things happen in life. That's a definitive. It's how you handle those bad things that shape who you are, and define your state of mind. So breathe in deep, tell yourself you are GOING TO BE HAPPY, and live your life the way you should be living it - joyfully, noticing, loving, and enjoying the little things.

I don't know what changed in me - but all of a sudden the puzzle pieces fell together. Those sappy, cheesy lines about happiness and how to acquire happiness all of a sudden made sense and I just worked out how to be happy.