5 Happy Habits

Fortunately, 90% of my life is spent in a state of absolute happiness. Unfortunately, when other people ask me what my trick is, I don’t really know how to explain it.

I’ve comprised a list of my top 5 "happy habits". They might take a while to become habits, but they do have an immediate effect. For me, at least.

Start mornings right.

I take an extra five minutes in the morning to tell the universe how my day is going to go. Because I am the boss. I say things like “I am happy”, “I am loved”, “I am divine”, and especially, “Today will be a good day.”

To think that someone sits in their bed and says these things out loud first thing in the morning is totally absurd. But it always seems to be the most asinine things that have real results. Try this the next time you wake up and see how much positivity you can muster up in just the first few minutes of your day, furthermore, the lasting effect it has on the rest of your day!

Rock out in your car.

I believe in being that person at the red light going crazy because whatever song is on is the best song in the world. Specialize your playlists, choose your music wisely, and don’t be afraid to walk to the beat sometimes.

Personally, I don’t listen to sad songs. I like to leave those for funerals and the first 5 minutes after a break up until you realize life goes on. I’m very cautious of what slow songs I listen to, and for the most part, a lot of (if not all) of the music I listen to is upbeat, fast with meaningful or inspirational lyrics, or just puts me in a good mood.

If you're wondering who I've got in my playlist, it's a fine mix of Sara Bareilles, Corinne Bailey Rae, Kelly Clarkson, Katy Perry, Nelly Furtado, and a few men. Occasionally.

Keep to-do lists.

I started keeping a to do list when I was in high school because I found myself making “mental notes” in my head of things that needed to get done that never quite got finished.

I read about a study that scientifically proved the feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment that comes from the act of scratching something off a list. So I made an arts and crafts project of it and got a decorative notepad. On it, I would write down the smallest tasks like vacuum my car, or send an email. Sometimes the tasks were much larger, like booking a flight ticket or looking at new cars. Big or small, without the proper motivation, it’s hard to get them done.

Verbally communicate with yourself. Like, out loud.

Self-communication is one of the most rewarding habits. First it teaches you how to be comfortable with yourself. The more you talk, the more you have to say, and before you know it you’ll be talking about things you didn’t even know were on your mind, but sure feel good to let out.

Secondly, it teaches you to listen to yourself, and truly understand what it is your inner self is trying to say. Get in the habit of turning down your music (when you’re not rocking out in your car), and turning up your voice.

Be appreciative.

I always wonder how I can be so happy without even really having lived yet. I’m only 21, I’m still in university, and I’ve only travelled once. While some adults might think that the reason I am so happy is because I haven’t experienced the “real world” yet, I beg to differ.

I’ve learned the value of what I already do have in my life, so much that when I’m actually out there in the real world with things that bring me true happiness (my career, my children, home ownership) come in to my life it will just be an added bonus.

I believe that my experience in the “real world” will just be an elevated feeling of what I already feel. Sure, the reality of debt and job loss and stresses of home ownership and a sickening load of other haunting ideas are out there, but until I get there, my attitude remains unchanged, and will probably remain unchanged even if I find myself in the face of those realities. 

To be honest, I just have this crazy gut feeling that my future will play out just as my day does when I wake up in the morning and tell it how to go. 

Because I find happiness in the smallest, most minuscule things. Sometimes it doesn’t even have to do with me. Seeing other people happy, remembering something that makes you laugh so hard your tummy starts to hurt, a day where your make-up or hair turned out just as you had hoped, maybe even better, or sharing a moment with a stranger you might never see again.

There is a line in a Sheryl Crow song that sums this up perfectly. “It’s not having what you want; it’s wanting what you’ve got.”

Ultimately, we make of our lives and ourselves what we are able to. Our ability depends on the power we believe we have, and our belief in that power depends on our ability to see beyond just being human. And if being human is really all that we are, then you look around at the world we've created and tell me that isn't enough. 

The Art, and Act, of Forgiveness

The other day, I watched one of the most moving films I have ever seen in my life.

It wasn’t Titanic, or The Notebook. It wasn’t Schindler’s List or The Green Mile. In fact, I had never even heard of it before. It was a TV movie called “Bond of Silence”.

The movie featured actors I had never come across in my movie-watching career, which is usually confined to TV movies as I get fidgety when it comes to things that don’t have commercial breaks. I must have tuned in about ten minutes into the movie, enough to skip past the rather unimportant credits, horrible intro music, and scenery, scenery, scenery.

From what I could gather, it was New Year’s Eve. Two houses on the same street across from each other were having a party. One household was full of drunk teenagers, the other house held six adults; three married couples, two sleeping children upstairs, wine, and board games.

When midnight hit, the teenage party became louder and louder, prompting the three husbands, to go over and tell the kids to keep it down a bit. One of the men, Bob, who had lived in the house across the street, was very good friends with the parents of the boy who was having a party. So you can only imagine how upset he was when he found six or seven teenagers in his friends’ room smoking pot. He calmly told them to take the party downstairs.

Shortly after, one of the men that had made the trip across the street with him walked into the room to find him lying on the ground, not breathing.

An investigation concluded that he had died of blunt force trauma to the head, despite it initially being assumed that he died of a heart-attack. His wife, who had been across the street at home with her two friends the whole time, had no idea of what was going on.

The movie followed her journey toward closure. Nearly the whole town had rallied against her after one of the young teens in the room that night had been arrested. She was told to “leave them alone” and that “they were innocent”. Yet still, she persisted, wanting nothing but to be able to answer her children’s questions about where their father went, and why he wasn’t coming back.

For months and months, she felt as if she had been conducting the investigation alone, as the lead detective on the case had become tired of turning up nothing. Every lead led to nothing. No one would talk. The case was at a standstill.

There was one other option though. And that was to speak to perhaps the most intoxicated young teens there were that night, as he was present in the room, and may have held the key to what really happened that night. She thought that maybe if he could just remember who it was that punched her husband, who it was that kicked him, it might break the case wide open.

Finding him turned out to be very difficult though, as he, ever since that night, had become involved with heavy drugs and run away from home. But one day, he turned up at the police station.

“Just let me talk to him,” she said to the detective. He looked at her as if she was crazy, wondering what in the world that could possibly accomplish.

“I’m a mother. I know how to talk to kids. He’s probably scared, but he definitely wants to get it off of his chest,” she explained.

Within a few days, she sat with him in a room, face to face with the young boy that might be able to tell her who killed her husband. She showed him pictures of her children, of her husband, of her entire family together. She then looked at him, in this complete state of vulnerability and said,

“Please. Just tell me what happened.”

He agreed to talk to the detectives. She watched the interview from behind the one-way glass. And he explained that he was the one that killed her husband. He talked about being so fed up of always being picked on, bullied, and undermined by his peers that when the first group of guys got her husband down on to the ground and left, he stayed and took out his anger. He said that he had kicked him and kicked him until he couldn’t go on any longer. And then he left.

He was placed under arrest shortly after completing the interview and walked out of the police station.

She stood and watched him approach her, his face a mess from the trauma of reliving the night he became a murderer, her face a mess from discovering the truth. And as he approached, she wiped her tears away immediately, as if to be strong for him. Then she gave him one of the most gracious, graceful, and grateful looks I have ever seen one human give to another in my life.

In that moment, it was just understood that she forgave him.

I cried and I cried and I cried, not knowing how to respond to the simplicity, but depth and meaning of this scene. I thought about what this meant in the context of my own life, of all of our lives, and how important forgiveness really is.

The movie was based on a true story. The wife, Katy, went on to work with the killer, Ryan, in high schools, and talk about the dangers of alcohol and over-intoxication. The final scene of the movie was a real-life clip of them at a high school hugging after giving a presentation.

Sometimes we get upset at people because they hurt our feelings, because they blow us off, because they say something offensive, because they break our hearts, or just because. We hold grudges of the ultimate magnitude because we don’t know how to forgive, but most often because we do not want to forgive.

But in this case, there was a woman who lost her husband. Who had to be a single parent to two innocent children for the rest of her life. Yet she was still able to forgive the person responsible for all that. She was able to say, “I accept, I understand, and I forgive you.” By forgiving him, she allowed herself the chance at a life. A real life.

If she were to carry with her in her heart the anger that the everyday person would feel, can you imagine what waking up everyday would be like? She would overlook the joys of the simplest moments and indulge instead in the hatred and animosity that she may have felt, even if only for a brief moment, over and over again.

When we choose not to forgive people, we choose to be prisoners of the past. When we choose forgiveness, we choose to be students and residents of the future. This means that we get to learn, we get to teach, but most of all, we get to live.

The question we have to ask ourselves is how we can move on from these people, these situations, if we cannot find it in our hearts to forgive. If everyday we wake up with baggage from yesterday, how can we move into tomorrow with room in our suitcases for lessons, for relationships, for growth and knowledge?

There are two misconceptions about forgiveness. The first one is that you need an apology in order to forgive. False. You can forgive someone even if they are not sorry the same way you can hold a door open for someone who might not say thank you, or for someone who might go through the other one anyway. You are simply declaring that your door is open anyway.

The second misconception about forgiveness is that it is for the other person, not you. False. Completely false. In fact, forgiveness is almost more so for yourself than for anyone else.

Forgiveness is your freedom.

You might be holding on to a grudge, or two, or three, and you may not even know it. It may be locked so deeply away in the secret vaults and hidden chambers of your heart that you feel you are completely free. But ask yourself, are you?

If you ask me, Katy is free. Maybe Ryan is too. He spent 5 years in jail for the murder, and I’m sure that gave him a lot of time to think. While some people might think that 5 years is nothing for someone who took the life of another, Katy might think that 5 years is just enough for him to have really reconciled his heart. And isn't that worth more than a man who spends 25 years in prison but comes out the same person he entered as?

In the movie, she said, “this is not about revenge. It’s not about vengeance. It’s about peace.”

Everyone deserves peace. Even Ryan. But the truth is, we will never be at peace, we will never be free, until we can truly let go. Letting go doesn’t just mean letting go of the things that have been said and done to us, but also the things we have said and done to ourselves. So let go, and live on.

Not everyone deserves forgiveness, but everyone, and I mean everyone, deserves to forgive.

The 8 Simple Steps to Happiness

Having experienced my fair share of bouts with negativity and sadness, and what my thirteen-year-old self thought was depression, I have come to recognize happiness in all forms. More importantly, I have come to understand the little things that can contribute to our overall fulfilment, satisfaction, and happiness. Here, I share with you, 8 simple steps to becoming a happier person and living a happier life.

1. Make a space for yourself, rather, make your space yourself.

      A personalized space made to suit your personality, hobbies, and interests is an essential part of all-round happiness. This could be your bedroom, your office, or your car. Whatever space this is for you, it needs to be a place that you can identify with. It is crucial that your space is reflective of you, complete with pictures of your favorite people, reminders of your fondest memories, and pieces of yourself everywhere. It must be a space that, when entered, allows you to connect with happiness.

      

      2. Keep good company.

The people you keep around you have a huge effect on your overall contentment. While some cases are so drastic that the immediate removal of these people from our lives is necessary, there are other options available. Simply becoming more in control of the effect our company has on us can do the trick. Pay attention to how you feel around certain people. If particular crowds make you feel less at ease, and maybe even a bit anxious, either stop hanging around them, or desensitize your emotions prior to meeting up with them. Sometimes, these people are our closest friends or family members. We might enjoy spending time with them, but they can still rub us the wrong way. You have to pick and choose what matters most; happiness, or keeping them in your life. Or, if the answer is both, find equilibrium.

3. Understand the impact of music.

Music brings happiness, when used wisely. Make playlists for times you need to cry, practice your model walk, or rock out to in your room. By controlling what you hear, you control how you feel. If a song that makes you cry all the time comes on, skip it. If the song your lame ex used to sing to you is next on shuffle, skip it. Opt for the upbeat, more light-hearted songs that light a fire within you. Then, burn shit down.

4. Spend time alone and be comfortable doing it.

Some people just cannot stand to be in their own company. This is a sign of an unhealthy dependence on others. Surely, we’ve all been at that place where all we wanted was company, but learning how to be alone is a lifelong skill that will reward you exponentially. Being home alone on a Friday or Saturday night is not the end of the world, and there are one million and two mothers and fathers and full-time workers in the world that would love to exchange places for your lonesome on any given day. So go on a solo shopping trip, watch a couple movies in your basement, or just jam out to your favorite music until you fall asleep. Just make sure that whatever you do, it is a bonding experience for you and you. 

5. Practice wellness.

Trust me; I'm no health and food expert. I have poutine and chicken fingers on speed-dial. But at some point, you have to remember that your body has needs too. Catering to these nutritional needs help you to feel much better about yourself, physically and mentally. Eating healthier, getting enough sleep, and the occasional workout (no matter how in shape you are) helps you to feel more energized, which in turn allows you to do more, and ultimately to live more. Substitute a salad for French fries every once in a while. When you’re in dire need of that poutine, you can eat it and enjoy it without feeling like you've just committed the ultimate sin. Remember: everything in moderation.

      6.  Do good things.

I'm still mustering up the courage to donate blood after hearing about the wonders that it worked, not only for the lucky recipients, but for the souls those who donated blood.

“As soon as I was done, she showed me the bag of blood and told me I just saved a life. Nothing feels better than that,” I remember my friend Paul telling me after he had been to a blood drive.

Doing good things, no matter how small, allows you to feel better about yourself. Smile at strangers, hold doors open for those in front and behind you, and always give up your seat for the elderly. These small tasks can really fuel your purpose as a citizen.

7. Kick pride to the curb side.

Having too much pride can get in the way, and even destroy, a lot of things. Apologize when you’re at fault, admit to being wrong when you’re wrong and my personal favourite  “Keep your words sweet in case you have to eat them.” This creates a set of realistic expectations of yourself, allows you to make mistakes, while still teaching you a lesson each time. 

8. Acceptance.

When I was 17, I had the genius idea of getting the word "redemption" tattooed on my foot. The idea behind it was that every step we take is a chance to redeem ourselves from things we have said or done in the past. But after a short while, I realized that I didn't have to redeem myself from anything really, and that bygones were bygones. I changed my mind and got "happiness" tattooed on my right foot instead. Because every step we take should be a step in the direction of happiness, and the future is much more important (and interesting) than the past.

This is the ultimate key to the ultimate happiness. You must accept things for what they are. Things like your past, matters that are out of your control and people that are no longer in your life need to be let go of.

Let go.

Move on.

And if you ever feel the need to revisit your past, do so, but only for a brief moment. Send positive thoughts to the people of your history, and then refocus on the people and circumstances of your present. Finding peace can only happen if we make room for it.  

So there you have it. The recipe for the most delicious dish of fulfilment  satisfaction, and happiness. Bon appetit mon amis!