Give some of your money and some of your time to nonprofit groups. I recommend choosing a local organization like a shelter or museum so you can see the direct benefit of your participation, rather than a celebrity-supported cause – they already get plenty of attention.
Category Archives: Happiness
#268 You will want some things that you will not get.
You don’t get everything you want in life. That’s all there is to say about that.
#260 Sometimes you have to cry it out.
A good crying jag can be cathartic. It’s a girl thing. Just don’t do it at work.
#257 Nothing can ruin your life like drugs.
I want to be honest with you, because there is a lot of fear mongering clouding the choices you are going to face. I’ll admit it’s a fact that some people are able to use drugs without fundamentally destroying their lives; however, you must assume that you are not one of them. You can’t know how you will react to various drugs unless you try them, but the catch is that if you’re part of the majority who can’t control their usage, trying drugs will send you down a spiral from which it will be all but impossible to recover. Every drug user alters his or her life’s potential; drugs rob you of ambition and disconnect you from your identity. This is one of the very few lessons that I hope you do not have to learn through experience. The thought of your tiny perfection being usurped by chemical addiction is too much for me to bear.
#253 Pay no attention to the line of impossibility.
Subconscious belief that there is a line you cannot cross -a line that separates the realistic from the impossible- is what keeps talented people from achieving success. If you want to write the great American novel, star in a Tom Stoppard play, or be point guard for the Sparks, just research the usual steps needed to do those things, then embark upon the journey. Whether you succeed or not will be based on your talent, not your drive; that’s respectable.
#238 Where there’s smoke there’s fire.
When there are facts that you don’t want to face, it’s tempting to rationalize them away and avoid the truth. This type of self-deception only mires you deeper in the muck. Trust your instincts: Things are usually exactly what they seem to be.
#237 Consider what constitutes a good life.
Your assumptions about this will change as you age. That’s normal. A picket fence lifestyle that once seemed torturously confining might one day seem comfortably secure; a personality that once struck you as overly emotional may grow sympathetic. What you think you want to have or be at any given moment isn’t really important; what matters is that you are present in your own life, considering it and shaping it with the force of your will.