First of all, I want to say that I am sorry about whatever it is that makes life seem completely pointless, or whatever is that makes you feel depressed and lethargic about going on living.

Then I’d like to ask you to look at the bigger picture. Chances are, it’s not the end of the world. Young children live in fear every day of being abducted and forced to kill people who they may have once been friends with. Others are victims of human trafficking. This doesn’t mean you aren’t allowed to be sad or upset about what is going on in your life. Take some time to wallow, and grieve about your problem – especially when you have a more serious situation. Then grow some balls (figuratively) and realize the world doesn’t revolve around you.

If you have access to read this article – and given the fact that you can read it, I guarantee that there are thousands of people in a much worse situation than you. More likely, there are millions.

What am I asking you to take away from this? I don’t want you to feel guilty that you are better off. The world is an unfair place and you have gotten a lucky roll of the dice. Be grateful for that.

I’m not even saying you should try to take the world head on, resting the weight on your shoulders. All I really want is for you to open your eyes and realize that there are bigger things than you. No matter how bad or stressful your day was, there is someone out there who had a much worse day and they are still managing to keep their head and hopes high.

Surely you can quit being an ass to the person serving you your coffee at a slower speed than your high standard for how fast coffee should be served. You should appreciate the fact that you have access to an abundance of drinkable water, let alone the luxury of coffee. Yes, that’s right, that coffee is a luxury, and you’re acting like it’s an inconvenience because the hostess is making you late for work – the job which you probably don’t appreciate as much as you should.

Get over yourself – the world owes you nothing. Be the best person you can be. Make something of yourself. If you’re feeling especially gracious, maybe you should even get involved in making the world a better place.

Photo cred: Steven Fernandez@flickr

Now, I believe in making healthy and happy habits work for your lifestyle. Making the move from unhealthy habits to healthy habits is a big one, especially if you eat fast food all the time. So take it in small steps! Seriously, eat an apple after breakfast every day for starters. I can almost guarantee that you will feel better in a week or so.

There are lots of weight loss programs and millions of diets to choose from. I think that unless you are training to be a serious athlete, getting to a healthy weight can be a gradual and relatively easy process – granted, it will take some will power and it won’t always be easy to choose the healthier paths – but concentrating on being healthier rather than counting calories has definitely worked for me.

Learn the basics about how food affects your mood. Choose one simple thing to change about your diet. Add vegetables to one meal a day, or like I suggested before, have an apple with breakfast. If you are overweight, eat a quarter less of every meal. If you are underweight, examine your diet and try to add a little extra something nutritious to each meal and make sure to eat until you are full. Take the change in small steps, and those will add up faster than you would think.

The goal here is to let your body find it’s own natural, healthy state. If all you do is make one small change to your diet every 2 weeks for the next year, you will find that you will look and feel significantly better. Give a test run and see if it doesn’t work for you.

What are your expriences with eating healthy? What are things that you could change? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

Photo cred: chispita 666@flickr

If you approach life with the mentality that you will fail, that you aren’t good enough, and that nothing can or will ever be better, you don’t even try to break out of that rut. Therefore, you create a self-fulfilling prophecy automatically, because if you don’t try to make things better the chances are slim to none that they will improve on their own. Even if they did, you probably wouldn’t accept it, because you would feel you didn’t “deserve” it. You might not even notice, because you’re so busy throwing a pity party.

On the other hand, if you approach life with a positive mentality, convinced that you are meant to succeed, you are more likely to succeed. In fact, you won’t feel as depressed even when you don’t. Why is this? Because you develop a sense of self-esteem and purpose. You take advantages of opportunity. You become a happier, more fulfilled person. No matter what your situation, you will be better off than if you chose only to shrug and accept the circumstances. You are living life, instead of life being a timer counting down to the end while you stare at the clock, like a student waiting for a boring class to be over.

There are a lot of things we can’t change. We can’t control other people. We can’t always control our environment. However there are a lot of things that we can change. We can control how we deal with other people. We can creatively handle the situations given us. We can choose to place ourselves in good situations as much as possible. We can find solutions to problems, instead of focusing on complaining about the things out of our control.

Opportunity is everywhere. It is your choice to take advantage of it. You can only fail by quitting. For every success you make, you will probably have 10 or more perceived failures. It’s part of the learning process! Take knowledge away from every experience and you will be the wiser for it. How is it a failure when you learned something invaluable?

I encourage you to think of one thing in your life that you want to improve, or change in some way. Whether it’s personal, political, or whatever it is, brainstorm a creative way to make a change in that area. Then do it.

Photo cred: lilit@flickr

Think outside the box here – if you have a bit of cash, you could go for something thrilling like skydiving or (slightly less adrenaline filled) going on a hot air balloon. Maybe you’re short on money, so you could visit a part of the city you haven’t been to yet – take your camera and snap off some cool pictures.

Every once in a while it’s just good to step out of your comfort zone and expand your horizon. Go for it.

Here’s a list of ideas to get you going:

• Try skydiving
• Go on a hot air balloon ride
• Try a new restaurant
• Visit a park you haven’t been to
• Visit a local attraction you haven’t seen
• Hold a photo shoot with some friends
• Rent an old movie you never got around to seeing
• Visit the mountains and learn to ski or snowboard
• Go on a one-night camping trip
• Visit a museum
• Call someone who you haven’t seen in a while
• Go on a mini road trip (leave Friday night/Saturday morning, get back Sunday evening)
• Volunteer at a homeless shelter
• Volunteer anywhere!
• Try to sell something on Craigslist
• Go horse back riding
• Go on a hike

If that doesn’t get your juices going, I don’t know what will!

What do you do on the weekends to spice things up? Make sure to leave your ideas in the comments!

Photo cred: abi skipp@flickr

I’m not saying that these people are horrible, or that they are going to hell. In fact, I know a lot of nice, funny people who fit the description. Living to change isn’t a habit or a specific action. It’s an attitude.

The saying I came up with to try and live by is this: “Imagine the way you want to be remembered. Live like you’re going to die tonight.”

The thinking behind that saying is this – life will never satisfy you if you’re just trying to satisfy yourself. Greed, lust, power and all those things are never going to fill the void. Living for a goal just might do the trick though. Live the way that you want to be remembered when you die.

I don’t know about you, but I want people to miss me. I want people to be able to say that I made a difference to them.

If you treat each and every person you meet with this in mind, you’ll find it changes your whole demeanor. You’ll be a little nicer to your friends. You will be less likely to walk over people for a personal gain. Overall, you’ll probably be a better person.

You will have off-days. Sometimes you will mess up. You won’t always be heading on the straight and narrow. No one is perfect – but don’t use that as an excuse to stay the way you are.