Now, before you go and click the back browser button like it’s out of fashion, wait a little and hear me out on this one. I have written down and explained four rules to life. And I think you should read it, if only to get a little insight into how I think. But a little itty bitty word of warning….it’s quite long eheh?
But I digress. Rule no.1:
- Nobody is born happy.
(It’s true. The environment and experiences we grow up with mould and mature our personality and outlook.)
“Memory is one of the most important ways by which our histories animate our current actions and experiences.” - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
We aren’t born happy. As cruel as it sounds, we make ourselves happy. Even the most jovial person in this world was not born smiling in the womb.
It is our choice how to take on life. Do we see it as an uphill climb? Or do we see it as a flood of opportunity? Positive or negative outlook? Glass half full or half empty?
Technically the glass is never half empty. The top half of the glass is filled with air, a combination of several components.
So we make ourselves happy. But what is happiness, per se? It is a difficult thing to define, as are most emotions. It isn’t clear cut - there are several measures of happiness. There is joviality, pride, pleasure. Happiness can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people in this world. But I think that the measure I relate to the term ‘happiness’ is more of a quiet contentment with life.
Happiness is not absolute - there are bound to be challenges that may disquiet our peace, and there are bound to be situations that’ll hide our happiness away under dark clouds.
But that’s life. A myriad of emotion and situations. And I guess that’s what makes us all the more thankful for the moments in which we feel truly happy.
If you’re not happy, work towards becoming happy. Self-satisfaction is a great thing to aspire to, and doing things you feel proud of is another way to boost how you feel about yourself and life in general. Be confident in yourself, and proud of your accomplishments.
If you feel you have nothing to be proud of then do something that you can feel proud of.
Even if they don’t seem very noteworthy to other people, there are an innumerable amount of things you can do to prove your self-worth. Heck, you could plant a tree, or grow a sunflower. It’s all good. Whatever you choose to do, don’t even give a tossing thought to how anyone else might do it - just make yourself proud.
- Your life is what you make of it.
And to help you with that, you’ll need the help of goals, opportunities and aspirations…
Making goals.
Short term and long term. That’s what you need - goals for the now and goals for the future.
Short term goals:
No-one knows when they’re destined to die; life is spontaneous, and that’s why we need the goals for the now.
These ‘short term’ goals are like eating a bar of chocolate. It’s not really going to affect your future, but it’ll keep you happy and sated. Short term goals are mostly about self-fulfilment. Plans to write a short story, buy a new game, spend more time with friends. Little things that aren’t too hard to achieve but are necessary goals to make nonetheless.
It’s important however not to get wrapped up in achieving your goals. If a goal isn’t working for you and is just causing you stress, drop it and do it again at a later time in your life, when you feel better suited to completing it. Short term goals have to be achievable and should suit your personality and lifestyle. They are malleable and are made by you, to suit you.
It’s good to always have a few short term goals running on the back-burner. Even if you don’t complete them today or tomorrow, it’s healthy to be working towards something. In fact, always have a few goals on the back burner. It gives you something to work towards.
I’ll tell you now though that short term goals set in concrete are no good. Goals like achieving a high grade in school or losing 4 kilos of weight - these are what I call aspirations, not short-term goals. Short term goals need to be relaxed and malleable. Think of that chocolate bar metaphor I mentioned at the start.
Long term goals:
‘Long term’ goals are goals that you want to achieve by the end of your life. They are usually larger and more time-consuming than simple short term goals, but long term goals are vital for your future.
Think of long term goals like they are a bucket list - things to do before you kick the bucket and begin pushing daises for eternity.
Some people change their long term goals as they grow older. A young girl who wants to be a princess when she’s five years of age might want to become a nuclear physicist instead later on in life. And that’s okay, because as we mature, so too does our outlook on life.
Long term goals might be to learn a second language, travel the world, complete university. Others have more simple, but no less fulfilling, long term goals. Things like getting married, settling down in a nice house and raising a family of two kids and a pet goldfish. Everybody’s different, and this is reflected in our goals.
But never just sigh wistfully at your long term goals. Make them happen. Get a nice job and work towards that holiday. Buy a couple of books or hire a tutor to learn that new language. You can do it, and in the right circumstances anything is possible.
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Yup, goals are pretty important. Without them life seems pointless - you see, your life is what you make of it.
Why do people always look for ‘the meaning of life’?
There is none.
No-one is going to come up to you and just hand you the blueprints for your life. No, it’s much more simple than that.
Just make it up as you go along. Life means whatever you want it to mean. It’s your own personal blank canvas, and it is going to stay empty unless you do something with it. Don’t listen to anyone else: you have no destiny that is set in unmovable stone and there is no fate you cannot change. If life throws you a few challenges, spit in its face, cackle madly and work to overcome them. That’s what I do.
So goals are important. Keep short term goals, keep long term goals. But don’t ever stress over them. If they aren’t working, make new ones - because your life is your canvas, not anyone else’s, damn it! Don’t live life, live it. And damn those homonyms - you know what I mean, just go out there and live it.
Take life one step at a time, day by day. Enjoy it. Although it’s cliché, I’m going to have to say it: “Live every day like it’s your last. Regret nothing.”
And if you happen to achieve a few of those goals along the way then you’ve done me proud.
Achieving these goals.
Okay, so you’ve made a few goals.
But everything you want in life will not be handed to you on a silver platter. However, life will offer you many opportunities, and it’s up to you what to do with them. Some of these opportunities are blindingly obvious - others not so much. For example, a job offer - the opportunity for a well-paying job with the chance for career advancement and/or promotion. This is an obvious opportunity that has presented itself here, but on the other hand there are smaller, everyday opportunities hidden in obscurity. Like the opportunity to make a new friend, return a dropped wallet to its owner or the opportunity to offer help to a stranger who’s looking a little lost. These smaller opportunities are obviously on a different scale to the larger ones, but they are more about self-fulfilment than material satisfaction.
Basically, life is MADE of opportunities big and small - but remember that even one passes you by, don’t fret your pretty little heads about it - there are sure to be others further down the line.
I guess that’s how we move through life, we make decisions. They are made in the present, dictate our future, yet are influenced by our past. Isn’t it beautiful? :’)
Alright, so that’s opportunities covered. But let me remind you of what I said at the start - they won’t be handed to you on a silver platter. You’ll need to work for them. And look out for those more obscure opportunities, if you treat them right, you might be pleasantly surprised at the outcome.
Aspirations.
Ah, these little guys are what I mentioned earlier. Aspirations are what push us, the drive for us to achieve. I’ll make this quick because I’ve covered most everything in this section by now, but aspirations are challenges we set for ourselves. We get a lot more satisfaction out of completing an aspiration than we do our short term goals, because aspirations are much more challenging, and can push us to our limits.
They are tough by design, but are necessary for us to improve ourselves. Aspirations might include (as mentioned earlier) achieving high grades or losing weight, but they may also be things like the desire to win in a singing competition, the aspiration for 1000 views on a youtube video. Aspirations are easily definable - short term goals, much less so.
Conclusion.
So that’s point two covered: that life is what you make of it. Basically, life is our blank slate, or empty canvas - what we do with it is up to us. We have to build goals for ourselves, seize opportunity by the collar and aspire to great things if we hope to improve ourselves and achieve self-satisfaction with our life.
- You only live once.
(Exceptions being a certain MI6 agent who apparently only lives twice and the common household cat, whose nonuplous nature of life baffles even the most brainy of human scientists.)
So onto point three.
I’ll cut right to the chase: Don’t waste time.
No regrets, guys. Learn from your mistakes, live in the now and look towards the future.
“Yesterday is history, tomorrow a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why we call it the present.”- Alice Morse Earle, 1851-1911
Couldn’t have put it better myself. Today really is a gift, all 86,400 seconds of it. I’m not going to waffle on here, because the meaning is pretty clear. Don’t get hung up on ‘what if’s’, just make sure you make a responsible decision and go for it. Easy peasy.
- Life’s satisfaction is in the little things.
“It is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all.” - Laura Ingalls Wilder, 1867-1957
You know what I’ve found? Sometimes, life’s pleasures are in the little things.
The feeling of the cool breeze on our faces. The friendly nod of a stranger. The tickling of grass blades beneath naked toes and the kissing of sun on our eyelids.
It’s wonderful to just stop and feel sometimes. It’s why I’ve recently become fascinated by photography- there’s an ache in my chest that wants me to capture these feelings and this beauty.
I want to paint my emotion.
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Did you know I like the rain? But perhaps I enjoy even more the moment when the rain stops.
Many wonderful things happen - there’s the nostalgic smell of fresh earth that clings to the air, and colours shift back to their vibrant selves when the sun peeks out once again. And if you’re especially lucky, you might spot a rainbow arching across the sky!
And rain brings people together - huddled under umbrellas and bus shelters. Together we share exasperation at the natural phenomenon and secretly we share the common joy in splashing through those puddles. (admit it, we all have a child inside of us that shrieks in glee at the sight of a large puddle. I know I do.)
It’s all well and good to have goals and aspirations and this and that. But take a moment out of your day to stop, close your eyes, take a deep breath and appreciate what’s around you. Sometimes we forget just how beautiful this world is that we live in. We take it for granted. Human beings can be greedy creatures.
End Notes
And so that is that. Four rules to remember:
- Nobody is born happy
- Your life is what you make of it
- You only live once
- Life’s satisfaction is in the little things
I guess it’s not all that hard. Be happy, set goals, make the most of it and appreciate the day to day. Not much else to say really.
~Shining Sunlight~
Author’s Notes: Oh goodness, I’ve finished it. That actually took me many hours to write and a lot of editing. I think I deleted close to 1000 words in total! And now rereading this I’m cringing at the clichés. Haha. But I’m a sucker for clichés so yah. Hope my writing helps enlighten you in some way. I think I just needed to get my thoughts out onto paper. Or a word document, as it so happens.
Sorry about the hiatus in blog posting, some personal issues got in the way. But I’m starting to post again, see! The wonderfulness! :D
This is actually dedicated to a certain person. Live life to the full and be happy, no matter your circumstance :)
