4 Practical Steps (You Can Do in 12 Minutes) to Start Making Your 2015 Dreams a Reality
The four steps I'm going to show you now, while ridiculously simple, are actually the basis of something incredible: taking pure thought and bringing it into reality. Let's get started.
1. First, set the timer on your smartphone for three minutes and write down all the things you'd love to be accomplishing right now -- but aren't. Remember, I didn't say "think" about those things, I said write them down. Write without pausing, write without judgment. Write without stopping to consider what's real, what's practical, what's doable, what's acceptable. Do this without even pausing to think if your dreams are moral or legal. (There will be time for those considerations later) Just write. And If you've been successful in writing without any intrusions from your conscious mind you will have a fairly long list within the three minutes. The time limit is important. It keeps you from overthinking -- when overthinking is inappropriate. Set your timers. Go!
2. Next, take another three minutes to select the three items from your list that look the most interesting to you. As an example, let's say they were:
• Learn to fly a plane
• Take a trip to the Galápagos Islands
• Go to a concert of classical music
3. Now give yourself three minutes to consider just one tangible step you can take to move each of your three selections into reality. For example:
• For learning to fly a plane -- you could Google the nearest flight school for times and prices.
• For your trip to the Galápagos -- you could go online and look up Galápagos tour options.
• For your symphony experience -- you could look up concert times at a performance hall in your area.
4. Finally, give yourself three more minutes to pick one of the three choices from your list and actually implement the small action you've considered above. That's it.
Child's play I know, but think about how far you've already come in just 12 minutes. You've moved from some nebulous notion about wanting to take action on an as yet unspecified dream to actually undertaking its first practical steps.
I leave you with this: The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex, overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one. -- Mark Twain
from Healthy Living Blog on The Huffington Post http://ift.tt/14diiEG
Dare to Be 100: Spock/Bortz Symmetry
Maybe 10 years ago the phone rang, "Dr. Bortz, my name is Mary McCarthy and I am a friend of Dr. Peter Wood. I have recently moved here and so am anxious to find a good doctor. Peter, knowing that you have practiced here in Palo Alto for a long while, suggested your name as a likely referral source.
All doctors receive such asks, minor nuisances.
But Peter Wood was a very close friend and colleague. He is famous for his discovery that exercise leads to elevated levels of the good cholesterol. His license plate was "HIGH HDL." So with little fuss I volunteered the names of three primary care docs from my clinic.
A week later the phone rang again, "Dr. Bortz, I called those names that you provided and they each said that they would accept me as a patient if you would call personally in my behalf." Such a reaction, while understandable, was nettlesome. I'm sure that some aggravation must have reflected in my voice.
"Okay, Mrs. McCarthy, tell me a little about yourself."
"Well, I am a doctor's widow. My husband was a pediatrician in New York."
"What was his name?"
"Spock."
"BENJAMIN SPOCK?'
"Why, yes. Benjamin Spock was my husband."
"Mrs. Spock, why didn't you tell me that right off? Any doctor would be very proud to care for his widow. Your husband was huge in our family's life. He was a third parent to our four kids. We loved his stuff." (His book, Baby and Child Care sold 50 million copies, second only to the Bible in overall sales.)
"Dr. Bortz, that is very sweet and generous of you. But, I want to tell you that your writing helped him to grow old." (He died in 1998 at age 95.)
Such a miniature anecdote was immediately precious to me. To think that I helped Dr. Spock to grow old was an affirmation of the Golden Rule. In myriad, usually unseen, ways we all are interdependent. Dr. Spock and Dr. Bortz bonded.
from Healthy Living Blog on The Huffington Post http://ift.tt/14dihAH
All doctors receive such asks, minor nuisances.
But Peter Wood was a very close friend and colleague. He is famous for his discovery that exercise leads to elevated levels of the good cholesterol. His license plate was "HIGH HDL." So with little fuss I volunteered the names of three primary care docs from my clinic.
A week later the phone rang again, "Dr. Bortz, I called those names that you provided and they each said that they would accept me as a patient if you would call personally in my behalf." Such a reaction, while understandable, was nettlesome. I'm sure that some aggravation must have reflected in my voice.
"Okay, Mrs. McCarthy, tell me a little about yourself."
"Well, I am a doctor's widow. My husband was a pediatrician in New York."
"What was his name?"
"Spock."
"BENJAMIN SPOCK?'
"Why, yes. Benjamin Spock was my husband."
"Mrs. Spock, why didn't you tell me that right off? Any doctor would be very proud to care for his widow. Your husband was huge in our family's life. He was a third parent to our four kids. We loved his stuff." (His book, Baby and Child Care sold 50 million copies, second only to the Bible in overall sales.)
"Dr. Bortz, that is very sweet and generous of you. But, I want to tell you that your writing helped him to grow old." (He died in 1998 at age 95.)
Such a miniature anecdote was immediately precious to me. To think that I helped Dr. Spock to grow old was an affirmation of the Golden Rule. In myriad, usually unseen, ways we all are interdependent. Dr. Spock and Dr. Bortz bonded.
from Healthy Living Blog on The Huffington Post http://ift.tt/14dihAH
Counting Steps and Staying Sane in the Suburbs
Image via Morguefile.com: http://mrg.bz/wITOmJ
You might have received a Fitbit or similar item as a holiday gift this year. And you might be thinking that you'll use your fitness tracker to monitor your exercise -- which is logical, since that's what fitness trackers were made for.
But I've learned to use my Fitbit a bit differently.
On your Fitbit app you can add your friends who also have Fitbits to monitor their steps. Mostly I've just used the "taunt" feature, which is like a Facebook "poke" but with a better name.
I only have one friend who regularly uses a Fitbit, Ariane. After I added Ariane to my Fitbit friends, I peeked at her average. Ariane averaged 12,000 steps per day.
I felt demoralized. I didn't even know how to get the baseline 10,000 steps that Fitbit suggests you start at. All I do is parent toddlers and clean my house and sit at my desk all day working -- just like Ariane. What was she doing that I wasn't?
I asked her.
"I pace," she said.
The next day, she texted me: Pace pace pace. I ignored the text. I couldn't imagine anything more ridiculous than pacing around the house to collect steps on my Fitbit.
One Saturday, she came over to my house with her 2-year-old daughter. We turned her daughter and my two young sons loose in my large, fenced-in yard. The three of them tore around like skinny-limbed hobbits-goblins. Ariane and I call this "co-parenting."
"They should make Kidbits," Ariane said. "Just to make adults feel terrible."
Late in the afternoon, Ariane and I tapped our Fitbit bracelets to check the status of our lighted dots. Fitbit gives you one dot for every 2,000 steps. Ariane had five dots already, done for the day. I only had two.
I was pissed. Ariane and I lived parallel lives, yet here she was with her smug little dot collection.
"You pace?" I said to her. "Fine. I'll pace."
I started pacing in swift, angry circles around my driveway. The kids rode around on scooters and big wheels and bikes with half-pumped tires because we broke our bike pump.
A little over a year ago, my family moved to this suburban house from a small urban area where I used to walk everywhere. Before we moved, I used to push my kid's stroller to preschool and then walk to a cafe or library to work. I walked a lot, but I walked with a purpose.
Now here I was, living in a home in a neighborhood with cul-de-sacs and no sidewalks, which studies show is likely bad for my health. Ariane was right to be worried: I'd become a car-and-homebound hausfrau. The ironic thing was, I work full time. But the not-walking was deadening not just my body, but my brain as well. And it was this brain-deadening that was worrying me.
Before I moved to the suburbs, I never realized how much I relied on my morning walk into town to settle my mind after the bustle of preschool drop-off. I'd place my toddler in the caretakers' capable hands, then stroll downtown past repurposed warehouses and buses to one of many coffee shops I called my c'office.
Then I quickly had my second kid, and we moved to the land of cul-de-sacs. By moving here I'd traded friends -- quirky neighbors and cafe regulars -- for more heated square feet and a big yard. I'd also traded my daily walks around town. Sure our former house had been small, and our commutes had been long. Right then, pacing in circles with Ariane while the kids flung themselves out of trees and off of scooters, that trade felt like a devil's bargain.
While I paced, grim-faced, Ariane trotted along next to me. She said, "Why are you so angry?"
"Because I have to pace in circles around my driveway." Realizing Ariane was right was hard for me to deal with.
Ariane's kid called for her help. She wanted to ride my 5-year-old's bike that doesn't have training wheels. I kept pacing by myself and wondered how others would see me if I were out here alone, pacing and pacing and pacing.
Increased "psychomotor agitation" -- most notably, pacing -- is a symptom of a manic episode, for example, and of a lot of other apparently unhealthy things. I know about psychiatric disability. I know a little something about what it looks like for a woman to pace in what appears to be meaningless circles around her suburban driveway.
To someone who doesn't know what I'm doing, I might as well be pacing around a room in the attic ripping yellow wallpaper off the walls. To an external observer, would there be any difference?
I paced with Ariane until I hit 9,000 steps -- a high for me then -- and called off the campaign. Annoyed and tired, I opened the lid of a giant Costco bucket of animal crackers, put it down on the driveway, and called the three kids over. I figured I'd go whole hog on the crazy mom thing.
The kids danced around the bucket like it were a maypole, cramming the crackers into their mouths.
After that Saturday, I kept up the pacing for a week. Long enough that I noticed that the pacing started working.
And it really started working. Not only was I getting 10-to-12,000 steps per day, which was so satisfying --
(If you've never worn a Fitbit bracelet then you cannot know what I'm about to tell you. There is nothing more satisfying, in Pavlovian sense, than that bracelet vibrating on your wrist to let you know you've hit your 10,000 steps. After experiencing that vibration, you can no longer imagine a better place to have something vibrate.)
-- but it was also incredibly freeing. Although I was still home-bound, I was no longer desk-bound. I'd created a world inside a world, and inside the world I'd created, I paced.
I immediately started feeling better in my head. Sitting at my desk feeling my shoulders tense up, feeling a migraine coming on, losing focus, or feeling agitated -- pick your symptom from your criteria list of choice -- I'd just get up and pace in circles around my house and I'd feel better.
Sometimes while I'm working now, I look at my wrist and realize I don't have enough dots for that time of day. So I get up and pace. When the phone rings, I pace while I talk. I'll get 2,000 steps in the course of an ordinary work call. And no one but me knows what I'm doing.
Except Ariane. She always knows.
We're talking about a book we're writing. "What are you doing?" she asks.
"Pacing," I say.
"Me too," she says.
Then we plan the next chapter, our creativity benefiting, so the research goes, by the act of walking itself.
Then it was a Thursday. The day I go see my psychiatrist. At this point I'd been pacing for nineteen days.
Usually when I arrive at my psychiatrist's clinic, I have to wait a few minutes. I tend to get to her office early, and she tends to run behind. But now that I pace I don't mind waiting. Pacing has given me a new patience -- it's an activity to do, yes. But it is also, as some doctors say, a form of "muscular meditation."
That Thursday I paced the long clinic hallway, flipping pages on my e-reader with one finger, meditating with my feet. When it came time for my appointment, my psychiatrist's nurse came out to get me. She saw me pacing by and said, with surprise, "Oh! Are you going somewhere?"
"No," I said brightly, "I'm just pacing."
She rounded her mouth into an O and backed into the office suite, then waved me into the doctor's office. I was laughing when I landed in the overstuffed chair.
"What's funny?" my doctor asked.
I told her that I'd punked her nurse a little bit. "I told her I was pacing." I pointed at my Fitbit, explaining my pacing epiphany. I said, "But when I told your nurse I was pacing, it was funny. You know, because pacing is also symptomatic."
My doctor -- who actually has a great sense of humor -- did not smile. "Yes. I know." Then she told me she thought I was having a manic episode.
I got annoyed at that. "Well if I don't pace, then I go a crazy. I've been going crazy in my new house for a year. But you're saying that if I do pace, then I am a little crazy." I leaned forward in the overstuffed chair. "So which is it?"
And then I said something about "The Yellow Wallpaper."
My psychiatrist said she'd never heard of "The Yellow Wallpaper." So I sent her the Project Gutenberg link to the story.
If you're reading this, and you're a specialist in women's mental health, you need to read "The Yellow Wallpaper." You need to know if you lock a woman in a room, or in a house on a cul-de-sac, and tell her to stop thinking or to stop moving, things get dark really fast.
A woman needs to have a way forward, even if the way forward is only a well-worn path on her floor and a blinking bracelet.
Pacing is the new exercise of the suburban housewife. Pacing is the new mother's helper. Pacing is the insanity that keeps the insanity away. And I'm okay with that.
I talked to Ariane about pacing again the other night after I texted her a screencap of my Fitbit stats. I'd hit 12,000 steps around 7 p.m., a new record for me. We talked (while pacing, of course) about the David Sedaris Fitbit story, about his 60,000 steps a day and his fear that his feet might snap off at the ankles.
I said, "What keeps us on this side of that kind of obsession?"
Ariane said, "What we're doing makes our lives better, not worse."
I believe her.
from Healthy Living Blog on The Huffington Post http://ift.tt/1vuG9Fy
Forget the Resolutions: Set Your New Year's Intentions!
Rather than create New Year's resolutions, which often come from a place of lack and frustration, try setting New Year's intentions. It's simple, easy and refreshing! Here's how...
An intention is a choice.
Take a few minutes and sit in a quiet, calm place to access clarity. Let your thoughts go, focus on your breath and imagine light all around you. Then consider what you'd like your life to be like this coming year.
Beyond material things, what kinds of experiences do you want to have?
How do you want to be?
Who do you want to be?
Allow what comes to extend beyond desires of the physical body, and into new ways of being -- mentally, emotionally, energetically...
What do you choose to experience in the new year?
As you reflect on this year's intentions, create a list of who and how you want to be.
Down the road when you are invited to participate in an event or activity pause and check in, does this reflect and support the new you?
You might even create a few lines of a mantra or a invocation to repeat to yourself. This can be memorized and repeated anytime, all the time.
For example:
I choose to live life in alignment for my best good, and by being my best I support everyone around me.
I choose to experience love and joy in all that I do.
I choose to live in abundance, always having all that I need.
I choose to be surrounded by health and wellness.
Thank You.
As we let 2014 pass behind us, take a moment to have gratitude for all that you have experienced in the past year. Smile. Then have gratitude for all that is coming.
See this next year as an opportunity to show up as an even more empowered version of yourself.
Remember, as one individual takes steps, the collective takes steps. The greatest thing you can do is be a source of awareness and change within yourself, and as you do, others are given permission to do the same.
As you grow your world will rise to meet you.
So what are you intending?
from Healthy Living Blog on The Huffington Post http://ift.tt/1BiDmEf
An intention is a choice.
Take a few minutes and sit in a quiet, calm place to access clarity. Let your thoughts go, focus on your breath and imagine light all around you. Then consider what you'd like your life to be like this coming year.
Beyond material things, what kinds of experiences do you want to have?
How do you want to be?
Who do you want to be?
Allow what comes to extend beyond desires of the physical body, and into new ways of being -- mentally, emotionally, energetically...
What do you choose to experience in the new year?
As you reflect on this year's intentions, create a list of who and how you want to be.
Down the road when you are invited to participate in an event or activity pause and check in, does this reflect and support the new you?
You might even create a few lines of a mantra or a invocation to repeat to yourself. This can be memorized and repeated anytime, all the time.
For example:
I choose to live life in alignment for my best good, and by being my best I support everyone around me.
I choose to experience love and joy in all that I do.
I choose to live in abundance, always having all that I need.
I choose to be surrounded by health and wellness.
Thank You.
As we let 2014 pass behind us, take a moment to have gratitude for all that you have experienced in the past year. Smile. Then have gratitude for all that is coming.
See this next year as an opportunity to show up as an even more empowered version of yourself.
Remember, as one individual takes steps, the collective takes steps. The greatest thing you can do is be a source of awareness and change within yourself, and as you do, others are given permission to do the same.
As you grow your world will rise to meet you.
So what are you intending?
from Healthy Living Blog on The Huffington Post http://ift.tt/1BiDmEf
F You, 2015
As 2014 draws to a close and the fresh slate of 2015 presents itself, I can't help but make a list of resolutions. Whatever your thoughts are on the age-old tradition, isn't it kind of nice to make a list and check things off? While 2014 held some amazing things (hello, marriage!), I know that 2015 will not disappoint.
We're done looking back, onward to 2015!
I always find myself feeling refreshed and revitalized by setting and accomplishing goals, so let's get right down to it!
The Five Fs of 2015
1. Fit
The short answer of this is to keep up with my fitness regimen, after all, I do have a lofty fitness goal slated for April. The longer answer would be to find time to "fit" things into my schedule that in 2014 I might have answered with "But, I'm SO busy..." The reality is that we are all busy. Fit in the things that matter.
2. Food
Good food, to be more specific. Make more of it and eat more of it. I have big plans for crafting healthy and nutritious meals at least three times per week that taste great and keep me full. I have a bad habit of snacking all day long and usually in a "What is the closest edible thing I can get my hands on" type of way. I want to plan on better eating and healthier snacking without overwhelming myself to a point of giving up.
3. Fur
An animal lover through and through, I want to help more dogs in need in 2015. At the end of 2014, I had the amazing opportunity to step into a needy dog's life and it changed my own life in ways I never expected. For the first time in a very long while, I felt accomplished and my heart was full. Sometimes giving all you can give is the most fulfilling feeling of all -- and I want more of that!
4. Focus
Finding focus can sometimes be a struggle for me. If you haven't noticed, I have a lot of things I want to do going on all at once. In 2015, I vow to take each individual task and work hard to complete it before jumping into the next thing. Do I vow to take on less? Absolutely not.
5. Fun(damentals)
I want to have fun in 2015! For so much of 2014 I was feeling stressed out and that was the opposite of fun. More importantly, I want to get back to the fundamentals -- writing, reading and connecting. For as much time as I spend working within the confines of my computer and cell phone, I want to get back to handwritten note cards, reading hardcovers books from the library and making genuine connections with people by having conversations without the use of any electronic devices.
As you ring in the new year, I'd love to know what goals you're setting for yourself? Connect with me on Twitter or Instagram and let's talk resolutions!
from Healthy Living Blog on The Huffington Post http://ift.tt/1EKYNU4
I always find myself feeling refreshed and revitalized by setting and accomplishing goals, so let's get right down to it!
The Five Fs of 2015
1. Fit
The short answer of this is to keep up with my fitness regimen, after all, I do have a lofty fitness goal slated for April. The longer answer would be to find time to "fit" things into my schedule that in 2014 I might have answered with "But, I'm SO busy..." The reality is that we are all busy. Fit in the things that matter.
2. Food
Good food, to be more specific. Make more of it and eat more of it. I have big plans for crafting healthy and nutritious meals at least three times per week that taste great and keep me full. I have a bad habit of snacking all day long and usually in a "What is the closest edible thing I can get my hands on" type of way. I want to plan on better eating and healthier snacking without overwhelming myself to a point of giving up.
3. Fur
An animal lover through and through, I want to help more dogs in need in 2015. At the end of 2014, I had the amazing opportunity to step into a needy dog's life and it changed my own life in ways I never expected. For the first time in a very long while, I felt accomplished and my heart was full. Sometimes giving all you can give is the most fulfilling feeling of all -- and I want more of that!
4. Focus
Finding focus can sometimes be a struggle for me. If you haven't noticed, I have a lot of things I want to do going on all at once. In 2015, I vow to take each individual task and work hard to complete it before jumping into the next thing. Do I vow to take on less? Absolutely not.
5. Fun(damentals)
I want to have fun in 2015! For so much of 2014 I was feeling stressed out and that was the opposite of fun. More importantly, I want to get back to the fundamentals -- writing, reading and connecting. For as much time as I spend working within the confines of my computer and cell phone, I want to get back to handwritten note cards, reading hardcovers books from the library and making genuine connections with people by having conversations without the use of any electronic devices.
As you ring in the new year, I'd love to know what goals you're setting for yourself? Connect with me on Twitter or Instagram and let's talk resolutions!
from Healthy Living Blog on The Huffington Post http://ift.tt/1EKYNU4
Hollywood Happy
I've always been an emotional person. I can range from 1 to 50 and back again in the span of only minutes. Yes, I've gotten better at self-regulating my thoughts/feelings/emotions as I've gotten older, but I'm often still whizzing up and down at warp speed. And a lot of people still know what I'm thinking and feeling (I'd make a crappy poker player). That's fine. Thankfully I've gotten better about playing things close to the chest, but such swift and widespread variances in emotion still catch me by surprise.
This morning, like a lot of mornings, I found myself awake well before my alarm. Like, more than an hour before my alarm. Which is fine. Like I said, this isn't atypical. I'm used to it. I've fought insomnia a lot of my life. What does shock me is when I wake up crying. While always an emotional person, waking up crying is out of character. These circumstances typically fall after days where nothing goes right and nothing feels right. As I've been known to say to friends over any given amount of time, "I'm feeling all the feels." I'm fine with that, but only when it doesn't relate to me.
I don't know why I'm so averse to feeling big emotions for myself. This is something that most people celebrate. And I like to think that maybe feeling the feelings is a plus in the win column of life, but on the other hand I always feel under attack. Under attack from my own mind.
I've had several friends who've said things along the lines of, "happy is subjective." And I get that and agree. Completely. I'm not looking for some Hollywood-ized version of happy. After all, once you attain Hollywood happy you are then honor-bound to maintain it and, frankly, that sounds a hell of a lot more exhausting than being sad or in pain all the time because once you're happy you can't be not happy. And who really wants to spend that kind of time and energy being unhappily happy?
I am fine with being a little moody. I am fine with being a little sad. I'm fine with being a little happy. What I'd like is, for those days when I'm more than just a little sad, to feel not so sad. To not feel so maniacally happy when I'm happy. To not feel like the world is crashing down around me when something goes awry. And yes, sometimes my world may be crashing down around me. It's times like these that panic, mania and sadness may be warranted. That's life. But to feel so... bereft. So adrift. I want to not have to worry. I want to not have to feel. But I do want to feel. I have so much to feel that's good.
My friends are right. Happy is subjective, but I'm having a tough time figuring out what my happy is. I know there are things I enjoy, but I don't know that when I'm enjoying them I'm necessarily "happy." Spending time with friends? Sure, I enjoy that. They're good for me. On so many levels. But am I truly "happy" when I'm with them?
Over-caffeinated? Sure. Over chocolate-d (yes, I made that word up)? Probably. Smiling and laughing? Why not. But there's this false understanding in today's world that all those things are unequivocally and wholly happy. But they aren't necessarily. Are they?
I feel like I'm only half living life. There are the things that I enjoy, but ultimately I'm so upset on the inside that it puts a pall over the whole affair. And -- mostly -- why can't I stop thinking about the bad things when I'm doing good things? Why, this week, when I'm chatting with friends, why can't I be not sad? Why can't I be good when I'm talking with/texting with/whatevering with the people that seemingly get me most? This shit is infuriating as well as saddening. And I guess I would rather that than sad. But it all just fucking sucks.
---
Have a story about depression that you'd like to share? Email strongertogether@huffingtonpost.com , or give us a call at (860) 348-3376, and you can record your story in your own words. Please be sure to include your name and phone number.
Need help? In the U.S., call 1-800-273-8255 for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.
from Healthy Living Blog on The Huffington Post http://ift.tt/1xh8nc5
This morning, like a lot of mornings, I found myself awake well before my alarm. Like, more than an hour before my alarm. Which is fine. Like I said, this isn't atypical. I'm used to it. I've fought insomnia a lot of my life. What does shock me is when I wake up crying. While always an emotional person, waking up crying is out of character. These circumstances typically fall after days where nothing goes right and nothing feels right. As I've been known to say to friends over any given amount of time, "I'm feeling all the feels." I'm fine with that, but only when it doesn't relate to me.
I don't know why I'm so averse to feeling big emotions for myself. This is something that most people celebrate. And I like to think that maybe feeling the feelings is a plus in the win column of life, but on the other hand I always feel under attack. Under attack from my own mind.
I've had several friends who've said things along the lines of, "happy is subjective." And I get that and agree. Completely. I'm not looking for some Hollywood-ized version of happy. After all, once you attain Hollywood happy you are then honor-bound to maintain it and, frankly, that sounds a hell of a lot more exhausting than being sad or in pain all the time because once you're happy you can't be not happy. And who really wants to spend that kind of time and energy being unhappily happy?
I am fine with being a little moody. I am fine with being a little sad. I'm fine with being a little happy. What I'd like is, for those days when I'm more than just a little sad, to feel not so sad. To not feel so maniacally happy when I'm happy. To not feel like the world is crashing down around me when something goes awry. And yes, sometimes my world may be crashing down around me. It's times like these that panic, mania and sadness may be warranted. That's life. But to feel so... bereft. So adrift. I want to not have to worry. I want to not have to feel. But I do want to feel. I have so much to feel that's good.
My friends are right. Happy is subjective, but I'm having a tough time figuring out what my happy is. I know there are things I enjoy, but I don't know that when I'm enjoying them I'm necessarily "happy." Spending time with friends? Sure, I enjoy that. They're good for me. On so many levels. But am I truly "happy" when I'm with them?
Over-caffeinated? Sure. Over chocolate-d (yes, I made that word up)? Probably. Smiling and laughing? Why not. But there's this false understanding in today's world that all those things are unequivocally and wholly happy. But they aren't necessarily. Are they?
I feel like I'm only half living life. There are the things that I enjoy, but ultimately I'm so upset on the inside that it puts a pall over the whole affair. And -- mostly -- why can't I stop thinking about the bad things when I'm doing good things? Why, this week, when I'm chatting with friends, why can't I be not sad? Why can't I be good when I'm talking with/texting with/whatevering with the people that seemingly get me most? This shit is infuriating as well as saddening. And I guess I would rather that than sad. But it all just fucking sucks.
---
Have a story about depression that you'd like to share? Email strongertogether@huffingtonpost.com , or give us a call at (860) 348-3376, and you can record your story in your own words. Please be sure to include your name and phone number.
Need help? In the U.S., call 1-800-273-8255 for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.
from Healthy Living Blog on The Huffington Post http://ift.tt/1xh8nc5
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)