We all go through issues big or small low-key constantly, whether you’re a teenager or an adult, everybody has things going on in their mind. I want to lend you a hand to pull you out of the darkness around you and let you spread your own light to make you stronger. I give you a few things to remind yourself every day and make every day easier and better.
1. How you look – let you define YOU!
This is the first and foremost, and the most significant feature of one’s personal body and mind – One’s appearances. Physicalities may matter to the people around, help them get an idea of what you want to portray to the world on the outer core but are you truly being yourself, the way you want to be portrayed?
Now society has a major role of effing up with your mind here. It restricts you from being you. Clothes define your character, blah, blah and blah. It surely does, but what it defines is your confidence, stability, and your comfort zone level instead.
Dressing the way you want, lets you be in charge of your own body increases your confidence and lets you be you. Like literally. You explore yourself and your own physical potential and helps you grow on a mental level. To put yourself out there and dress exactly how you imagine yourself might not seem a big deal to all the people but it actually is. All it takes is a little courage and careless attitude towards the opinions around you.
For instance, me. I always wanted short hair, but my mom preferred otherwise. If you’ve typical Indian parents, you’d understand how they want their child to be the way they prefer. Not like I had super long hair, I didn’t get the right vibe. This is what you’re supposed to do, work in areas that matter to you. After finishing school, I fought against her and made her understand how important it is to one’s identity. Here I am now, rocking this look and it so feels like me.
So, put that bold lip colour or those overly ripped jeans that elderly keep gawking at and throw away the worry of people’s opinions around you. You’ll feel so fly and so you. People and their opinions are shitty anyway. Not your body and you that you’re sacrificing in the name of society. So boss up already.
2. Independence
Independence is not only defined by you living alone or residing without your family, cooking your own meals, paying your bills or getting work done for yourself. Of course, these factors shape you into an independent individual. But what matters more are the little details. Do you love yourself? Have you accepted yourself and the world? This is where emotional intelligence has a role.
If you’re one of those who can’t get a bag of chips from the next block without assistance or need someone else to make you feel fulfilled or happy, you seriously need to fix yourself.
This grows on you, dependency. You don’t want to be clingy or need the reassurance of others before any decision you make that concerns you—sad life.
You should be able to sleep all by yourself at night, make your own decisions and have standards for yourself. You should be self-sufficient.
3. Work for it
“God helps those who help themselves”
If you want something in your life, work towards it. It’s this simple. Everything is literally in our heads. Once we convince our mind to do something, that’s it. All we need is passion, determination, and courage. It’s like a secret formula to achieve what we want, which everybody knows, but few believe it.
Educate yourself, ain’t nobody else gon’ does this for you. And by education, I don’t mean being the topper of your institution or being the most appreciated person at your workplace. Put yourself out there, gain exposure, experience new and unexpected experiences, learn and grow through them. Experience, cause that’s what life is about.
Talking about belief brings me to the notion of believing in yourself; nothing else works if you don’t. You need to. No option.
There was a time when I didn’t believe in myself, and I didn’t fully understand its significance in my life until I started believing in me. You actually do things that matter and do more than you can imagine.
Take risks. Take risks like they are free glasses of ice teas on the hottest day of summer. I never thought I’d be writing a blog or planning to do things that I’m planning to now (which you’ll know soon if you keep tuned in, so keep tuned in). Embrace the fun in taking risks instead of putting your mind in paying attention to its consequences, it ain’t worth it. Taking risks is what is worth it.
4. Grow up
Grow up even before you’re supposed to. You’ll find people in your life that wished they never grew up or be like, why do wanna people grow up and all that crap. Let’s be real. We all grow up one day. It’s the inevitability of nature. This world is too rotten for you to take time in embracing the innocence of childhood. It won’t matter in time anyway.
It would help if you accepted the harsh realities of life. You could’ve been born with abnormalities, without a family or not been born at all to experience the pleasures of life that you generally do. Whatever you’re going through or go through that you complain about, won’t even matter in time, is literally nothing if you try and look at it from a broader perspective.
Basically shit happens, to everybody. Suck it up; everyone does eventually. But do so before wasting time.
5. Move ON
From your past and the people from the past. The past is something important to learn from, but it’s very important to forget and not to make it matter anymore. Embrace the present and work on the future instead of wasting time on something that can never be altered in any way. Invest in chances, not rigidity.
I was a kind of person, and I wouldn’t even speak to today, this shouldn’t make me dislike myself. I’m glad for whoever I was because it gave birth to the person I am now. And no one can take this away from me. No one can stop me from loving myself.
Learn to move on from people and understand why. Personally, I’ve had issues moving on, from people that were major parts of my life and weren’t there after a certain point. Being an emotional person, it’s hard to let go of such attachments. What you forget is that people come in your life for a reason and leave for many.
What you’re supposed to do here is live in the moment and enjoy each moment even with people that don’t hold importance in your life.
Don’t be so harsh on yourself about who enters your life and who doesn’t. Let everyone in, embrace individuality and new people and keep letting them go if they choose to. The ones that are supposed to stay will stay. So just let go.
6. Respect
Earn it. You don’t want to be someone that nobody cares about. You want your friends and family to respect you. And it should not be out of position; it should be for the position you earn through credibility.
Respect yourself and those who deserve it.
If you hear an elder with a potty mouth, don’t listen to him out of respect for his age. Be the voice to make that voice of ignorant thoughts go down. Respect the ones who deserve it, not the ones whom you’re just ‘supposed to’ respect. This world is full of people holding higher positions who don’t deserve it, don’t be a coward in acknowledging that.
Respect people around you, don’t take crap from anyone unnecessarily. Nobody has the right to make you feel disrespected or any less than you are. Learn to fight back and remind them of their irrelevance.
Most importantly, respect yourself. Take care of yourself before anybody else.
7. Time – be wise about it
Time is a wheel that never breaks or stops. Learn to value your time. Invest time in worthiness only. Prioritize and replenish accordingly. Remember it’ll never come back. Never.
Learn to say no. People out there struggling to say no have it hard. You’d might wanna make life easier for yourself. So learn to say no for the better.
Most of our time is spent in overthinking, and it saddens me. I understand the depth of the bog you get yourself into, but once you realize and convince yourself that it’s all in mind, it is only in mind. Spending hours thinking about situations you can’t rewind or alter, hesitating in taking risks, get over it, my friend.
Spending hours on this blog before publishing it, being scared of the feedback. Please. I’m doing this for myself as I always do things only for myself. I got over it. You should too. It’s very important to be selfish.
Nail the art of managing distractions. Yes, you can, anybody can. All you need to do is explore yourself and exercise control. Distract yourself in times of anger, sadness, frustration, basically those times when you wouldn’t describe yourself as the best. These are the moments to let all the distractions drift inside you like a storm.
But when the moments are crucial, close all your windows and doors to the storm of distractions. Be in charge of your emotions.
Invest your time wisely, very, very wisely.
8. Let’s play a game called pretend
This is the key to the locks of hardships of life. Pretending.
If you’re going through anything in life, anything, pretend like you’re okay, pretend like it didn’t happen, pretend like you don’t care. You’ll trick yourself into believing the same. And it happens, in time you won’t care any longer, and you’ll be okay. Eventually, it won’t even matter it happened.
Pretend like you’re not going through issues in life, pretend that everything will be alright. In time, it will.
Pretend like you trust the people around you, but don’t. This has personally helped me immeasurably so far. Don’t trust people. Just don’t.
9. Energy
Be positive, bring positive and keep positive in your life. Negativity can never be of any aid. Spread your positive energy. You’ve no idea what wonders it can do. Learn to be compassionate, considerate, non-judgemental and bring openness and flexibility in your lifestyle. You never know what the person beside you is going through. A word you say can make or break one. Never fathom one’s happiness based on social media.
Learn to channelize your energy. Take out your frustration into doing something positive and productive instead of wasting your time on people or things that won’t matter eventually.
Next time you worry about something, ask yourself, will it matter in a year from now? And save yourself. Do things that’ll make your future-self proud of the younger you.
10. Find yourself
In this fast racing world, everyone wants to become something or someone. Even kids from childhood are told to choose someone that they wish to be when they grow up. Adults still struggle to be successful and be ahead in life. This is where everybody goes wrong.
Your purpose is not to be someone or to be something; it is to find yourself truly, the inner you, what you are meant for. This is what life is to me.
It’s a journey where you observe, experience and learns to find yourself and what comes naturally to you.
My personal struggle in this journey is that I have zero accomplishments in life. Being a teenager in the 21st century without any accomplishments? No one would have a healthy image of me, not even me. It took a lot of time for me to mature and understand that it’s totally okay. Cause I realized I’m not accomplished, I’m a complete and a creator. This is who I am, and I embrace it. This is the conclusion of my journey until now.
Who are you?
Although most people reading through this are like, pff, basic stuff, everybody knows this, blah. But what we miss out is that there are people out there who need a reminder. To remind them of their potential and purpose.