What is your recipe for happiness? Do you even believe there is such thing as a recipe for being happy? I think there’s probably not. If there was, we would all be walking around smiling all day and the world would be a much better place. But, as it always goes, you need to experience sorrow to appreciate happiness, you need rainy days to make you realise the beauty of sun, and you need black so you could know white.
So, although we are constantly bombed with all these instant solutions to turn our lives around – the truth is none of it works. If you truly want to be happy it takes two opposite strategies: one is to live in the moment and the other is to think about your life and dedicate some time to planing it daily. Those are a bit contradictory you might say, you should live in the moment, seize the day and be spontaneous and at the same time you should think about your life and sort of plan it (you know the modern life philosophy filled with gratitude, meditation and visualization). Both of it could be a bit tricky at the beginning before you get used to it. I would always encourage you to live in the moment and to try to enjoy every day and take as much from it as you can. The second part of the equation is that you also need a bigger picture because simply enjoying every day without a purpose will probably not make you feel fulfilled. I guess the idea is to have a goal and a purpose but not to forget to enjoy every day that you spend on your journey to achieving it.
Two biggest enemies that will make this not so easy are fear and regrets. I read somewhere that fear is not real. Like I said before, the information on happiness and advice we get on making our lives awesome are quite overwhelming. Sometimes I read some of it and I roll my eyes, I know it can be too much and also sound cheesy, but from time to time it makes me think. So I started thinking about this ‘fear is not real’ thing and the longer I thought about it the more I agreed! Please, don’t roll your eyes at me here, just give me a chance to explain. Of course fear exists and we all experienced it on our own skin. It is normal to feel scared if you are in danger and you feel threatened. But what about the fear that we let hang over our heads about the things that haven’t even happened yet? Why is it so easy to worry about the future instead of enjoying the present? Will you get the promotion? Will she/he call you? What if you finally talk with your crush and you totally embarrass yourself? Well, let me tell you, worrying about any of those things won’t make them better. Fear that stops you from taking action will certainly not help you improve your life. Why? Well, fear leads to regrets. Regrets are so awful and pointless and the only way to fight them is by not making new ones. If you ask me about my biggest fear in life I would tell you it is that one day when I’m old I will look back on my life and regret not living it. The way to avoid it is not to let the fear stop you. If you want something – go after it. If you get a negative respond – try again. If you try and you make an a*s of yourself (this tends to happen in flirty and emotional situations) you will survive and one day you will laugh at it. Most importantly, if you tried it and gave it your all, you won’t have the “What if?” cloud hanging over your head.
As Marilyn said:”Fear is stupid, so are regrets.” So what are we all scared of? Now go and live your life with the courage that it takes to face any fears, and one by one, make them hide under your bed.
