#amargedom

If someone else’s happiness is your happiness, that is love. instagram: @vishhenri

Stop looking for reasons to be unhappy. Focus on the things you do have, and the reasons you should be happy.

“Relax.”

If there is one thing I know that I will say on my deathbed, it’s that I wish I hadn’t worked so much and worried less. It’s a consistent issue that I’ve quelled a bit as I’ve gotten older, but I’m always so uptight about something. Seriously two seconds can’t go by without remembering something I need to do for work and checking my email or generally feeling like I’m wasting my time. 

-Justin (Slytherin)

There’s a big part of me that says that I can’t tell younger me anything because that could be detrimental to who I have become, but maybe that’s because I’ve seen the downside of time travel one too many times.

Another part of me says that there isn’t really anything I could tell me that I didn’t already know. I knew I needed to relax, I knew it would get better, I knew the sort of things they make videos for younger kids about to help them know they aren’t alone in their struggles. I sat there silently knowing that the world is full of chaos and heartache, but there’s also flowers and sunny days and Girl Scout cookies and Christmas mornings and so many little things worth living for that I had just enough strength in me to keep pushing forward to the next of these little happinesses even when things were at their worst.

But then the last little part of me, after thinking of all the things I didn’t need to know, whispered something.

My brother stopped living with us when I was 10. He was homeless, did the couch surfing thing, made it work one way or another for a long time.Then he joined the army. Unfortunately that was not long before 9/11. I’m not going to get into the politics of war or anything like that, so no worries there guys. But I will tell you, every single day we lived in fear of finding out we had lost him. From 10 years old until my senior year of high school. I think I could have used hearing that he would survive. 

P.S. He did survive. His life has been chaos for a really long time, but now he’s married and has some sweet daughters and is finally getting to go to college.

P.P.S Sorry I’m so long winded guys

-Jamie (Gryffindor)

Don’t be afraid of failure.

This may sound like a Ravenclaw thing, and maybe it is, but my entire life I was the “smart kid.” You know all those posts that talk about procrastinating due to perfectionism and being afraid to do new things because what if I fail? It me! 

Example time: I started (self taught basically) sewing like 3 years ago. It’s not something I do frequently. I cosplay, and it’s constantly a struggle not to compare myself to others. To give up because I’m not immediately good at it. To be proud of something I created but also disappointed because that one thing is wrong. Especially because my friends (*COUGH COUGH JAMIE*) are so good at it (note: Jamie went to school for this and has been sewing since she was nine, so the comparison is not fair). It’s all logical things, but I think it’s something I wish I could tell my younger self. To push through and just do the thing because you can’t be good at it without being bad at it.

-Amy (Hufflepuff)

You’re ok. 

Life moves on and you have to move along with it, and I think a lot of times, we’re so caught up in worrying if we’re on the right path. If we’re going the right way, if we’re doing the right thing, but if I could tell myself one thing, it would be that there IS no “right path”, only your own. Everyone moves at their own pace and has their own individual experiences that shape the way that they are. You’re ok. Wherever you are, whatever path you’re taking, you are completely ok.