A huge bulk of my personal journey into adulthood has relied on
the realization that many things we take for granted as involuntary states ofbeing are alterable with the use of some vigilance and willingness to change.
Vigilance, because like many bad habits or mental/psychological
diseases that work on the subconscious level, a negative mindset or
auto-complacency is not usually a state of mind we acquire on purpose. Because
of this, they swoop from under the radar to bite all of us in the booty.
a good trick
to employ in catching these creepy nega crawlies is to let your feelings be
your guide! Let feeling bad for no immediate reason be your personal alarm to
knowing that you're spinning some bad, old mental record in your brainplayer.
pause it, take it out, replace it with a new, positively helpful record. it
will likely crawl back to push the new record off the player to play itself
when you're not looking, but then your feelings will alert you eventually and
you'll throw it out again. repeat cycle until record is too scratched and
beat-up that it can't even crawl back or play its noise anymore. ;)
Willingness to change, because nothing's going to happen if you're
happy just being where you are even with what you're seeing. In which case, to
each his own! I just personally am not content with some things, so I try to
change. I figured I just didn't want to feel like shit and do nothing about it.
Luckily, just doing something feels better than doing nothing, I've found. So
there's that!
And of course the final ingredient: my affinity for devising methods
to trick myself into doing things, no matter how hard it is to stay on the
horse... of things... (I.. might have just invented an idiom there, nobody
really says that do they?)
I've gotten much better at being happier on purpose, and next on
the list (what list? there's no list! i just go as i feel) is being passionate
on purpose.
I guess this still delves into the realm of happiness. If I would
attempt to describe what happiness is to me, it's being amused,
excited and content. The practice I've had now allows me to kind of summon feelings of
happiness when I want to easier. That is, finding beauty in things, feeling
content with moments instead of overanalysing...
I guess the difference is that passion has the power to give me long-term happiness. What I've practiced, and have been better with is the kind of happiness that is instant. Passion allows me to create, and creating things leaves me more content for longer.
I plan to do this by seeking out inspiring things daily, purposely looking for things that make me want to go on.
“People often say that motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing - that's why we recommend it daily.”
-Zig Ziglar
I've been trying to consume media that particularly serves this purpose. I find that following artists on tumblr is a good way to do this. I guess it also helps that I'm somehow just in the mood for it. But I'm somehow doubting that even moods are all that arbitrary.. I mean, I've been on this journey for years... Maybe the new record has started playing itself on its own.
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