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. 

Conversations with Yourself

There is great danger in silencing the voices that speak the quietest within us. They often have the loudest things to say.

I put that little sentence together today, while driving home from Downtown in the sunny-then-rainy-then-sunny-then-su-oh-nevermind-rainy-again weather.

Then I muted my radio and began talking aloud.

I had done this countless times before, but usually only at night when people couldn’t look over into my car and wonder who I was talking to. But being that it’s been exactly one month since my last post, and a long time since my last oral conversation with myself, I decided to have a talk.

This all started a few years ago while I was driving and got so sick of the radio that I wanted to sing my own songs instead. I turned the radio off and started singing whatever song came to my head. It felt so good to just belt out whatever was within me that I did it repeatedly a few times after.

I got into the habit of driving without the radio on, but sometimes I didn’t want to sing (actually, certain days I just couldn’t hit the high notes). So I would speak instead. I would just talk to myself, out loud.

Growing up, I always heard my mother say things like “They just love the sound of their own voice,” about people who were very conceited and self-centered. I began to wonder if that was why I would have these repeated conversations with myself, did I love the sound of my own voice?

Or did I just need to talk?

Today, I needed to talk. I needed to let it out. I needed to speak without being judged, without hurting anyone’s feelings, and especially without any feedback. Some people have pets to do this kind of thing with, but me?

I’ve just got myself.

The conversation started off with what it’s been like to watch my mom fight cancer. Usually when I talk about this kind of thing I get teary eyed and lumpy throated, but today when I was speaking, it didn’t hurt to swallow. My eyes never welled up and I didn’t have to pause to collect myself. I could just speak.

I talked about the recent relationships that have formed in my life, as well as the ones that have dissolved. I spoke truthfully about how I feel, the mistakes I made, and what happens next.

I talked about school and work. Am I excited for September to come around again? I congratulated myself on getting a raise, and reminded myself to put the extra money away for after graduation, and trying not to focus on shoes, purses, and my new obsession with scarves.

I moved on to random topics. The conversation was evolving, and I could feel myself arriving at a deeper sense of peace. The more I spoke, the more things began to make sense. And the more able I was to put the pieces together.

I thought about how hard it had been for me to write this last month, and realized that it probably has something to do with the lack of reflection time I’ve given to myself recently.

To experience something and write about it is just to reiterate the experience itself. But to experience 

something and recognize what this experience has done for you is to put it into context, understand, and appreciate what it means to you and for you.

Before my conversation could evolve any more, a very quiet and almost unrecognizable voice in my head, albeit, mine, said, “Why the silence?”

This is a hard thing for me to explain. It was also a hard thing for me to talk about, even with myself, and the longest pause hadn’t even saved me from answering the question.

I stopped at a red light, allowing myself a few seconds to gather my thoughts and address this issue, which admittedly, had been on my mind.

I thought about all the things that could have been the cause of this. I thought about what made me turn off the radio and begin speaking. I remembered saying “I’ve had enough”, referring to the music, and pressing the mute button.

I dug a little farther back, and thought about the last few times I wanted to say something but didn’t, and instead thought,

“Just bite your tongue.”

The sense of curiosity faded immediately, and I realized that I had picked up the terrible habit of doing just that.

I feel like I bit my tongue once, twice, maybe three times. And maybe my tongue was starting to bleed. 

Maybe I hadn’t noticed the pressure of my teeth on my tongue because it didn’t hurt anymore, physically because I had gotten so used to the feeling. But it kept bleeding because I kept biting it, and now the blood was running down from the corners of my lips.

Metaphorically, the conversation I had with myself revealed to me that I need to stop biting my tongue, as well as how horrible of an idea it is to actually bite your tongue when trying to withhold words. Almost as horrible of an idea as withholding words, in my opinion.

But nothing is sillier than not saying what you need to say.

The fact of the matter is this. We know who we are. We know how we feel. And if we feel that way, why shouldn’t we, and why can’t we say it?

Why is it that saying something untrue is considered a bigger issue than not saying something that is?

Why?

I used to want to have all the answers to every question there would ever be in the world. But slowly, I’m realizing, perhaps it’s better to ask the questions.

Perhaps I want to see things, discuss things, and discover my soul’s greatest curiosities. Perhaps I want to dance in the mystery of wonder and add squiggly lines to all the periods and make them question marks instead.

But I wouldn’t have even known this if I didn’t allow myself to speak freely, without the duct tape of the innocent “shut up” from friends and family, and the deafening volumes of our loud society, and Dr. Dre’s Beats headphones.

Every once in a while, you need to check up on yourself. You need to sit down and have a talk with the inner you the same way a parent does with a teen, or one good friend to another. You need to compare where your head is, where your heart is, get them matched up, and move forward.

You need to give yourself a voice.

But even more so, you need to hear what that voice is saying, especially in times where no one else will.

If you open your mouth to speak, be it to yourself or to someone else, you must also open your ears to listen.

When I finally parked my car, I sent out three things I wish for into the universe, hoping that having them on my wish list would make me work harder at actually getting them. The first thing I wished for, I had no 

control over. But I had hope, and sometimes that’s enough.

The second thing I wished for was a little more understanding. And I know that they say if you tell people what you wished for it won’t come true, but I’m telling you what I wished for because it already has.

Don’t be afraid to live your life differently. It’s not a crime to have conversations with yourself. In fact, Nelson Mandela wrote a book called "Conversations With Myself", and he's a pretty notable figure, right? 

It's also not a crime to seek a deep, genuine connection and to go about nurturing the relationship you have with yourself as if it were a garden that has to last all seasons, but might not.

Because that fear is the driving force behind why a majority of people are so out of tune with their inner desires that they wouldn’t recognize their greatest aspiration if it showed up on their doorstep tomorrow morning.

In all honesty, this garden that I’m watering here was full of weeds prior to today. Sure there were still some really pretty flowers underneath, but it just looked like a wave of dandelions.

And while dandelions are beautiful, they’re nothing compared to the tulips, roses, and daisies that come in after a good afternoon spent digging.

I hope you find your words, and I hope you find your voice. And I hope that when you do, you use it. I hope that you dig and you dig until all the words buried deep in the garden of your body and soul come to the surface like flowers in bloom and I hope that it’s beautiful.

That was the third wish. And like the first wish, I have no control over it. But I have hope, and sometimes that’s 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.

Defeating Defeat

Today, while trying to work out yet another budget, I became overwhelmed by the expenses of everyday student life and had a silent, but deadly meltdown. I had just finished having a stressful conversation, although it was really more of a rant, with my parents about all the money I owed to my school and I listed off my concerns:

1. I had to pay back a few thousand in just a few months in order to enroll next year.

2. If it wasn’t paid in full, I would miss the courses that would allow me to go into the second half of my university career at another campus.

3. I had a trip coming up that I needed to save for.

4. I still had bills to pay in the meantime.

And on and on and on.

As the echo of the conversation became unbearable, I took a break and went surfing through my phone. I came across a photo with four squares, each containing quotes about why worrying is useless. One box said “Everything is only just inside your head. Stop worrying.” I gave myself a few minutes to let those words sink in.

While I sat back on my bed, holding back the kind of tears that come from feeling entirely helpless, I got a text message from my Dad. The text said:

“Remember Steph, I love you and we will work this out. Ok? Love, dad.”

My eyes welled with tears and began to stream down my cheek. I’ve cried thousands of times throughout my lifetime, but this time, the tears felt so different. They weren’t the tears that come from feeling sad. Or the kind that come when you’re angry. They weren’t even the tears that fall from feeling happy.

They were the kind of tears that come from having no hope in one instance, and more hope than you know what to do with in the next.

When I got that text message, I felt relieved. Something about the question mark after the “ok” made me feel like he was almost reminding me that this was no big deal. It was just a part of life that everyone goes through, but a part of life that cannot be faced, dealt with, and overcome without some sort of strength, and much less worry.

Ultimately, life doesn’t “just flow” for everyone. In fact, life doesn’t “just flow” for anyone. It is people that make life go smoothly. It is the decisions that they make, the words that they speak, and whether they take it all in stride.

It was really a case of:

“Whether you think you can or you can’t-you’re right.”

I looked at all the numbers and felt defeated, so my thoughts, actions, and words followed suit, and if there hadn’t been the intervention of that picture, paired with the text message from my Dad and my memory of Henry Ford’s quote, I truly believe I really would have been defeated and consumed by this debt, or rather, the illusion of it.

When I got back to budgeting, I broke it down monthly, then weekly. I did all the calculations I could that allowed me to live comfortably and productively. In the end, I saw that only a few minor cutbacks were needed, I would still get to go on and enjoy my trip, and by the time September came around I would be in great shape.

Henry Ford must have found himself in my exact situation, or at least one like it, when he spoke those words of wisdom and genius. Although I highly doubt that in his time, he was juggling a Rogers bill and a student loan, unless of course they had those in the early 1900s. But the fact that even one hundred years ago, these words rang true, is a testament to the power of your own thought.

That picture with four quotes about the uselessness of worrying, reminding me that “worry is a misuse of imagination” made me feel like maybe I hadn’t been imaginative enough. I should have been using my imagination to construct the scene of victory, rather than a war-torn path to bankruptcy. Instead, I clouded my own thoughts, my own imagination, with pessimism, ew!

If I were optimistic in this instance, I would’ve seen that I had the tools to help me get through this rut:

1. I got a new job that pays twice what my last job did.

2. I recently created the Gail Vaz-Oxlade budget (which I will be blogging about this sometime this week).

3. I was living rent-free.

4. I had a vacation to look forward to.

And on and on and on.

If you ever find yourself feeling defeated, which might be anywhere from a few times daily, or a few times yearly, it is up to you to defeat the feeling of defeat. Find some sort of ritual; listen to a certain song, have a good cry, get lost in an amazing book, or have a very large class of your favorite alcoholic beverage. Do something that allows you to be a stronger person for the time it takes to overcome whatever situation you find yourself in.

More than having a go-to ritual though, we have to set ourselves up for victory; mentally, physically, and emotionally-which means preparing for breakdowns such as the one I had today. The truth is; most people set themselves up for failure too easily. When we hear people tell us that we can’t do it, we believe that we can’t do it. It might not get to us at first, but after we continue to hear it, we start to believe it.

Take that and flip it. If the more we hear something, the more we believe it, then everyday we should be telling ourselves that we are winners. Everyday we should tell ourselves that we can do it. And in the case we, for some reason, cannot find it within ourselves to say the words, we should have people there to tell us what we need to hear to keep us going.

In this case, it was my Dad. It was his short text message, the thirty seconds he took to type it, and the need in my heart to hear it, which in turn allowed me to believe that yes, we will work it out.

Because everything always works out.

Yet still, we worry. Still, we get upset. We get frustrated, and we get angry. But how far can a car make it with the engine light on, the oil light on, the gas light on, and the service light on? Every piece of worry, every piece of frustration, every piece of anger, is like a light on your dashboard that needs to be turned off in order for you to run better, perform smoothly, and most of all, arrive at your destination.

If you’re going to be in the car, you really ought to think about taking the driver’s seat.

Self-Love

Yesterday someone asked me, “What do you look for in a partner?”

This is a question that I had a well-rehearsed answer for whenever it was asked. It was one of those questions I anticipated being asked in that first phase of a blossoming relationship, or one that was blossoming for the time being at least. I loved this question because I got to outline my expectations.

But as I have come to learn, expectations lead to disappointments.

My aunt once told me, “Don’t ever tell someone what you want in a partner, because they act as that person just until they have you. Once they do, there is no need for the act anymore.”  For me, that lesson sunk in immediately.

It’s as if in that very moment, I realized where I had gone wrong in my past relationships. I had such a clear vision, of who I wanted, and what I wanted in that person, that I fell in love with their performance of my vision, rather than recognizing it was an act.

My retrospection on relationships illustrated to me how blinded and consumed I was by my romantic involvement. I often felt myself at odds with myself for not paying attention to my own needs, and neglecting my desires. I broke promises I made to myself, I shunned some of my closest friends, and I felt like I had no time because all of it was spent with the variable him.

When I was asked what I look for in a partner yesterday, my response, for the first time, was “Actually, I’m not looking for a partner.”

If you know me, you know that I’m always looking for a partner. I’m always looking for someone to talk to before I go to sleep, someone to text during class, someone to go out with on a Saturday night, and someone to spend Valentine’s Day with.

But something in me has changed, and a revolution has arrived within me.

My partners are my friends; the few that I have that promise me a good time even if we spend hours in a small space with nothing but our words, and always seem to deliver. My partners are my parents; who are in the living room when I come home, waiting to hear about the events that unfolded in my crazy life that day. My partners are my books; who fill my head with knowledge, inspiration, and food for thought when I need something, anything.

But most of all, my partner is me.

I am not going to re-enact the Women’s Liberation Movement, or belt out “Independent Women” by Destiny’s Child. I am not going to pretend I don’t get lonely at times. But I am going to profess the new found love that I have for the individual that I am, in my complete state of raw imperfection.

I am my partner.

I am the one person that doesn’t abandon myself when things hit the fan. I am the one person that knows everything from my lies to my truths, and everything in between. I know every flaw, every imperfection that makes me perfect. I know. I just know.

While I was writing this, I looked down at my right arm. And I had the simple thought, “My skin looks so soft.” That thought turned into a gesture of me wrapping my arms around myself. For a few minutes, I just sat there, embracing my own body, rocking gently back and forth. The embrace was so warm, so genuine, and so full of love that I began the most peaceful cry I have ever had in my life. Each tear was a piece of my freedom, a part of my emancipation, and a testament to my liberation.

In my head, I repeated, “I love myself. I am beautiful. And I am divine.”

I did not let go until those words travelled from my lips, to my head, to my heart, to my toes, through to my fingertips that radiated self-love to the flesh of my body.

I think that if any of that were untrue, I might feel weird about writing that, and a lot weirder for publishing it on a blog. But because that is my truth, I admit it shamelessly.

You are a mirror of your own world. If you want your world, your life, and your relationships to be full of love, you first must fill yourself with a love so unprecedented, so unconditional, that not even the wildest of fires could burn it, or you, down.

I have endured my fair share of tragedy, and I have endured my fair share of heartbreak, but in all those instances, I was my own healer. It was my hands that healed my wounds, and my voice that provided reason.

If any of that were untrue, I might feel conceited for writing that, and a lot more conceited for publishing it on a blog. But because it is my truth, I admit it shamelessly.

Find your truth. Find yourself. And find the truthful love that you have for yourself, within yourself. You might not want to profess it to the world. But one day, you will wake up so full of love for your life, for your friends, and for the world that you have created around yourself, that nothing short of standing on top of a mountain and screaming it out until you lose your voice will do you any good.

I realized that the reason I answered “I’m not looking for a partner,” surely wasn’t because I’m not looking for a partner. Like I said, I’m always looking for a partner. I think really and truly, it’s because deep down inside, I already have a partner.

Me.

The 4 (+1) Noble Truths

If there is anything that the last year has taught me, it is the following five philosophies that I have come to learn are the most basic, simple, but necessary insights in living a fruitful and enjoyable life. I hope that they offer some guidance, something to hold on to, or at least serve as words of comfort. Here are the 4 (+1) Noble Truths.

1. Don’t seek revenge.

When Mahatma Gandhi said “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind,” he was entirely correct. We tend to have this tit for tat mentality that poisons us, impedes us, and blocks us from giving and getting love in different areas of life. If someone wrongs us or hurts us, it can sometimes be our only desire to hurt them back. In theory, this sounds like a simple and logical concept, and kind of sounds like the concept of karma. But in reality, no amount of your attention and energy, no matter how small, should be spent on what could be devoted to so many other beautiful regions of life like friends, family, and self-discovery.

The solution isn’t to strike back, it should be to move forward.

Even the phrase that I once loved, “living well is the best revenge,” has it slightly wrong. It assumes that we should want to live well as revenge against people who have wronged us, when really; we should want to live well regardless. Revenge can be healthy; you just have to learn how to eat your vegetables.

2. Speak less, listen more.

My Dad always used to repeat a Guyanese saying, “Mouth open, story jump out.” Coming from the same man that always told me “Less is more,” I didn’t actually value these sayings until I grew older. I used to think that at all times, everything I felt and thought needed to be made public. Later on, I would find myself re-evaluating my thoughts and feelings, not sure of how to articulate my new ones because I adamantly proclaimed the first feelings and thoughts I felt.

How many times have you wanted to eat your words, take things back, or feel like you should have said less?

I’ve come to learn that when it comes to speaking, “quality over quantity” is the rule of thumb. It’s not how often you speak, but what you say when you do. How you feel or think about something might not be the same a week, a month, or a year from now. Don’t commit to your immediate feelings and thoughts, leave yourself, your mind, and your feelings open to change. When you get there; write it in the sky.

3. Take your time.

People who make it to the top have an air of being cool, calm, and collected. Look at Barack Obama. The guy is the President of the most powerful country in the world and every time we see him he looks like he’s enjoying a golf tournament. Taking your time with things, everything from deciding on the words you choose to speak, down to the way you drive, is the key to being grounded.

Patience is a virtue; one that we must always exercise in order to not get bogged down by the things that pile up on us in life. Everything can and will be dealt with; this we know. So why become flustered and impatient when things have not yet come to fruition in the specific way we intended?

Slow down and pace yourself. Life doesn’t need to be lived in fast motion.

4. Find your peace.

I once read an article that said the simple phrase:

“Being at peace is being with what is.”

After my mind processed the words, I felt that in that moment, I had found my peace. We often have this idea that peace is when we get everything we want and find the ultimate satisfaction in all areas of life. But if you’re like me, that hasn’t happened yet, and might not happen for a very long time.

I’ve come to learn that peace, instead, is being happy, and more importantly, being okay with everything in your life the way it is at this very moment. This means removing the people and things that you don’t want in your life, and choosing to focus instead on the people and things that you do. It means narrowing your vision to the things that advance you forward, lift you up, and fuel your aspirations.

Your attitude is everything. Using it wisely will help you find your peace.

5. Lessen your needs.

I had a very interesting discussion today with my ultrasound technician, a beautiful Pakistani woman named Sarah, about how funny it is that we have all these technologies that we view to be “necessities”, simply because they have been introduced to us. We talked about the idea that some women refuse to give birth without an epidural, when hundreds of years ago, that wasn’t even an option.

This got me thinking about the things that we can live without, but choose not to. Things like our cell phones, having a certain amount of money in the bank, having a car, or having a huge pool of friends.

The truth is, we can live without all these things, we just prefer not to.

By humbling your needs, you humble yourself. More importantly, you experience a more quintessential version of life. Remember that you are a human, and humans are capable of a lot. If you don’t believe me, look at the world that has been created around you. To think you can’t make it through the day without your cell phone is an insult to yourself. To think that you need to have thousands of dollars to survive is untrue, and to think that you must be driven somewhere is to forget you have two feet.

Be honest, be realistic, and be fair in what you think you need. Don’t devote your life to things that distract you from living it.