The other day I had a discussion with my friend and I came to the conclusion that the reason so many people are unhappy with life right now is due to the fact that so many of us, intentionally or not, view life in a 'bucket list' format. A lot of my friends definitely view life as a success only by 'ticking off' goals or fulfilling expectations of either themselves or others. I, myself am also very guilty of this. The struggle is, I suppose, managing somehow to find happiness and not measure it in any way. However, that seems like an unrealistic expectation for anyone, as happiness is always measured somehow; either by yourself or by those surrounding you.
"Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful." - Albert Schweitzer
BE REALISTIC
This is definitely key to feeling better about life; having a positive attitude will enable you to to focus. If you stop measuring life by what you've achieved or not and instead concentrate on what is going well in your life, you will automatically be happier. By not having any excessive expectations of yourself you can find a find of contentment without feeling the need to be in constant control. I've become a bit of a perfectionist with age, so this is something that I do have to work at. However it's important to learn how to channel your inner control freak. Sometimes you have to think to yourself that if you're obsessed with having better, it will be impossible to be happy with what you do have.
"Life is like a camera... Focus on what's important. Capture the good times, develop the negatives and if things don't work out, take another shot." - Ziad K. Abdelnour
FOCUS ON YOU
Most recently, I've learnt that putting yourself first doesn't make you selfish. Sometimes you have to think about yourself in order to be happy, or at least feel happier. I'm sure everyone has that friend who never seems to be around when you need them, or when you have a problem. I've learnt that sometimes you need let these people drift out of your life. There's no point in begging people to be around you, especially if you're not feeling positive as it will just drag you down again. If you continuously focus on what makes you happy, and what you want then you're much more likely to get it. Confidence is genuinely the key to providing happiness, as difficult as it is to find. I doubt that anyone in the world is 100% happy with themselves but the sooner that you accept yourself for who you are, the more likely you are to find like-minded people and therefore grow a new, more supportive friendship group.
"Being honest may not get you a lot of friends, but it will always get you the right ones." - John Lennon
FIND AN OUTLET
Blogging has become a really useful way of letting out my emotions; I spent a long time thinking that life wasn't worth living and that I had nothing, when actually sometimes you need to make you life the way you want. I've always been creative and so that was an obvious thing to re-ignite within my life. As I enjoyed photography so much during my studies, I knew that was something I wanted to go back to, blogging has become a great way to mix photography with reality and it has become a visual diary for me. In the next few months I'm looking forward to starting to scrapbook alongside this as a way of keeping positive. I'm planning that whenever I'm down, I can look through the good times and remember that it can always get better. I've had a really rough year, most of it ruined thanks to negativity and depression but I feel as though I'm finally back on the right track; at last I'm looking forward to the future and actually feel in control of it.
"An entire sea of water can't sink a ship unless it gets inside. Similarly, the negativity of the world can't put you down unless you allow it to." - Anonymous
