1. You can easily define your life with your fears.
Don’t underestimate the power of what you are afraid of. It is the root of much of existence as we know it. You can neglect your full potential because of being afraid. Know that it is nothing more than a mind-game. Danger is real. Heartache is real. Fear is not. It’s a story we tell ourselves.2. The important questions usually can’t be answered.
There are many questions that people have tried to answer for thousands of years, but to no avail. Or at least not one that is universally agreed upon. The things that matter usually don’t have concise and easily attainable answers. The mystery is part of the magic.3. Much of your suffering is rooted in attachment and expectation.
Learn to jive with the ebb and flow of things. The most beautiful thing I have learned, through countless examples in my own life and observations in the lives of others, is that very often when things don’t work out the way you want them to, you hold onto what you think should be because you see no alternative. That alternative is right around the corner. Just wait for it.4. If you want meaning in your life, learn to apply it.
There is no universal meaning for life. It is, simply, what you make it. So make it what you want. There is nobody else who should dictate what your meaning is, so it’s up to you to apply it. I suggest applying it to the beautiful, everyday things that keep you going. The things you may overlook, but you’d be lost without: the things that really matter most.5. Being kind is more powerful than you probably realize.
You will be amazed at how many people, hearts and opportunities open up when you open your heart to them. It’s a tricky business, kindness, because we live in a world rampant with cruelty, and some may trickle in. Don’t let it close you.6. Happiness requires the ability to embrace uncertainty.
Happiness has everything to do with just living for today– something most of us are slow to master, if at all. People think that they’ll be happy once they have this thing or that thing, or at the very least, that they know love and success and wonderful things are coming. It’s like we need something to make today’s suffering worth it. But here’s the thing: tomorrow may never come. Love and success and wonderful things may never come, or they may, and they may leave just as quickly. Nothing is certain but what you have today, so it’s the only logical thing to base your happiness on.7. “Eternal silence is always at hand.” If you have something to do or say, now is the time.
You may not always have the opportunity to say what you think or feel. You may not always have the opportunity to tell somebody that you love them. I know there are a dozen reasons you would rather not, but there’s only one reason to do so if you feel compelled to: you may not have another chance.8. Life will rarely look like what you thought it would.
Some things will be worse, some will be better than you ever could have imagined… and some will just be different. Many grandiose visions that we have never come to pass, so learn to release them. Spending everyday comparing your reality to the ideas you had in your head will always leave you feeling shortchanged.9. “This too shall pass.”
The pain will pass, but so will the other things that you may not always have around to enjoy. It’s just a simple reminder that everything is fleeting and temporary.10. It is always the little things.
This has a lot to do with the concept of your baseline of happiness, something I’ve written about before. Your overall level of contentment will briefly fluctuate with great successes or major tragedies. You will eventually return to your baseline. To change that, you must fill your everyday life with the little things that make you happy. In retrospect, you will most often find, that the things you most remember and look back on most fondly are little, and would otherwise seem insignificant.11. If you don’t go after it, you’ll never have it. If you never ask, the answer will always be no.
All you need is a few seconds of courage. It’s scary when your pride is at stake, and you’re afraid of losing someone or damaging your reputation. But if you feel something is so inherently true and you are otherwise compelled to say so but are withheld by your fears, take that step. Even if it doesn’t go the way you wanted, you can at least cross one other avenue off your list of possibilities.12. Consider trying to adopt some qualities of the person you’d like to fall in love with. By that I mean, love yourself first.
You should always be your own person, I don’t mean to say that you should base your own self around someone else, I just mean to propose another way to learn to love yourself. Very often, the qualities that we would ideally like in a partner are the ones that we wish we had ourselves. Don’t wait for someone else to complete you.13. What you think, you become.
It’s an ancient principle, but it is one of the things I have found to be most true. Change your mindset, change your life.14. Equal does not have to mean the same: embrace and respect your differences.
Being human is all you need to be eligible for equality. You need not prove yourself as being “the same” as someone else to feel worthy of equality. You deserve it, as does everybody else, just because you are.15. When things least look like they are going to change, they usually do.
There’s only one way up from rock bottom, right? When things seem absolutely hopeless and you’ve all but given up, something beautiful and little and miraculous usually shows up and leads you to the revelation you’ve been waiting for.16. Never cease to be thankful.
Imagine if someone less privileged than you lived your life with you for a day. Imagine how grateful some people would be to have food in the refrigerator and a computer or fancy phone to be reading this on… lest we forget just the privilege to be able to read.17. Mind over matter.
10% what happens, 90% how you react. Always.18. There is an atlas in your gut. Listen to it.
Those little voices and feelings are not to be ignored. The tricky thing, though, is that they’re just that: little. Easy to brush off and ignore. So often arriving in a swamp of other “nonsensical” thoughts and feelings. Believe me, it’s worth your time to learn to differentiate what your gut feeling is. It will serve you in ways beyond what you can imagine.19. Always consider what you would do if money were no object in your life.
We are controlled by our need for money. It can be very difficult to differentiate what you want from your life with what you need simply because in our society you need money to survive. It may not always be practical, but it will always be beneficial to consider what we’d do with our lives if we were just here to be, and all our needs were taken care of. It will help you to define yourself for who you are, not what you are conditioned to be.20. You usually know what the right thing to do is. It’s just a matter of having the courage to do it.
More often than not, you do have the answer. It’s just a matter of having the courage to do what you know you should.
- Brianna Wiest, "The Truth about Everything"
