By Author
Mo Seetubtim
There are many rules to live by, but it is up to you to choose one that most aligns with your values. About a year ago, I wrote 10 Rules To Live By For Those Who Lead a Life of Wisdom. This year I’d like to focus on positivity and happiness, so I have come up with the absolute 10 rules to live by for those who want to live a life filled with positivity.
1. Be comfortable in your own skin
The first step to becoming happy is to feel comfortable in your own skin. We were all born with flaws. No one is perfect. Accept yourself for the unique individual you are – whether it be your background, your skin, your nose, your eyes, your hair, your freckles, your breasts, or the size of your body parts. Accept yourself for who you are and LOVE YOURSELF.
Not being comfortable in your own skin is the number one happiness killer. It becomes your biggest concern and stays at the forefront of your mind everyday. It kills your self-esteem, your self-confidence, and the happiness that comes from within. The relationship you have with yourself is the most important relationship of all. If you are not able to make peace with yourself, it will always weigh heavily on your mind.
If you find it hard to love yourself because other people discriminate or make judgements about you, distance yourself from people who are shallow and narrow-minded. You are better than that. Prove to them and to yourself that you are capable and talented in so many other ways. Leave behind the people with bad attitudes and surround yourself with people who value positivity instead.
2. Appreciate what you have and never compare yourself with others
If you keep looking around and wishing you have what you don’t, you will never be truly happy. The grass always seems to be greener on the other side, but that does not mean it’s actually greener. If you keep wishing, hoping, or expecting something else and don’t feel happy with what you already have, you will always feel miserable or that something is missing in your life. Worse, if you keep comparing yourself to others or wishing that your life was like theirs – your face and body were like theirs, your family was like theirs, your partner was like theirs – you will feel jealousy burning within you. When done in a healthy way, comparing yourself to others can be motivating. It might be helpful to look at another person’s success in order to create benchmarks for yourself. But it is not healthy to compare yourself to others with jealousy burning within.
If you can live simply and appreciate what you have, acknowledge that everyone is different, and stop comparing yourself to others, you will experience joy and happiness in everyday life.
3. See the positive in every situation
You will always run into unfortunate situations in life that are outside of your control. You can choose to feel sad, annoyed, angry, or stressed about the situation OR you can choose to turn it around and focus on the positive. You can choose to be stuck in a bad situation OR let go, move on, and start anew. Learn from a failure or a bad experience and never repeat the same mistake. Every setback and bad situation in life teaches you something. Growth doesn’t happen when you are comfortable. Consider it an opportunity to train your mind to be stronger, more resilient, and more equipped to be able to deal with the challenges that life throws at you.
4. Let go of your need to control
Control makes us feel secure. But at the same time, with control, we also lose freedom. Confusing, isn’t it? When you try to control your all aspects of your life, situations, or other people, you do so because you want to feel more secure. However, taking control to feel secure might cause you to lose control of yourself, and very likely of those you try to control. This is because you become dependent on the feeling of having control. It can drive you crazy when things don’t go as planned. Trying to control everything will not only drive other people away, which will make you panic even more, but it also hinders you from achieving happiness from within.
5. Drop the resentment within
When we hold onto anger, it is often because we believe it will make the person we’re mad at upset or realize that they have done something wrong. But when we do this, we are actually becoming caught in the pain that is burning within ourselves. When we are mad at someone, that anger impacts us more than it affects the other person. When we hate someone, the fire is within our own mind.
No matter what someone does to you – hurt you, look down on you, underestimate you, backstab you, abuse you, or cheat on you – when you hold the hatred, you hold the hurt. Only when you learn to let go, you let your soul free from the pain. No matter what they have done, the best thing you can do is to let go.
If you’ve never done this before, it can be challenging at first. But slowly, one day at a time, you can learn to be patient, let it go, and forgive those who’ve done you wrong. Each day, you will become stronger and feel more powerful.
If you’re struggling to let go, start with meditation. Meditation can be difficult, because it requires you to control your thoughts and clear your mind while meditating. This is the key! Being able to focus and control our thoughts allows us to keep our minds at peace. This exercise strengthens the muscles of our minds, and this is the secret power of meditation.
The fire is only within you.
The person you hate doesn’t feel your hatred. Let it go. Let it go.
6. Live in the moment
I believe that one of the reasons little kids and couples on dates seem so happy is because they are living in the moment. They focus on what is happening in front of them and pay attention to the person they are spending time with. When you live in the moment and do your best, you just feel happy. Why wouldn’t you? You don’t worry about the future, nor do you feel sad about the past.
Take every waking hour as it comes. Complete the tasks you are supposed to. Stop overanalyzing or trying to predict the outcome. Stop trying to plan things too far in advance. The only constant in life is change. Just live in the moment and do your best.
7. Avoid overanalyzing
Many of us are guilty of overanalyzing everything in our lives – relationships, careers, or finances. Overanalyzing is the habit of dwelling on a thought about something, thinking about it over and over, trying to dig deeper and deeper, because somehow you believe it could end up providing a way out. When we feel doubtful, overanalyzing somehow gives us comfort. But when we overanalyze, we often do not actually get an answer. Instead, we are left with a new set of worries.
In order to avoid overanalyzing, we need to be more outspoken with people who cause us to worry or doubt, take things as they come, and listen closely to our intuition.
8. Stop worrying about the future
Many of us worry. We worry about our future – about our career, health, living, finances, and about the people we love. We worry because we are scared. But worrying doesn’t make anything better unless we start taking actions towards our goals. If you’re worried about your health when you get older, then you should start eating healthy and exercising regularly. If you’re worried about your finances, then you should start saving up for unforeseen circumstances. If you’re worried about your kids, then encourage them to take actions to help you ease your worries. Remember that worrying about your loved ones doesn’t actually make them better. It only affects your health and your blood pressure. Your loved ones will need to take actions themselves. All you can do is to encourage them and help them move towards the right direction.
9. Drop your ego and be true
Our ego is the security guard that protects our self-esteem from being attacked. However, sometimes we become a victim of our own ego. This is when the ego takes control and we become too arrogant. We distort the reality about us. We live in an illusion. Sometimes we do this because it makes us feel good about ourselves, or we may believe it will create new or grander opportunities.
Whatever it may be, letting your ego become your primary shield actually causes harm to you on the inside. This is because you cannot be your true self. When you live with your ego as your shield, you are living with lies. You are just faking it and may be attracting other people who are also faking it. Eventually, you will become tired of the show and you may feel like no one really understands you. This is when you will realize that you true happiness comes from staying true to yourself and others.
10. Have an open mind
Having a narrow mindset can actually cause harm to you. Human beings don’t like feeling disapproval from other people. It makes us feel rejected and unaccepted when we feel as though we are wrong.
If you don’t have an open mind, you run the risk of standing too firmly behind your beliefs. You oppose others who disagree with you or have other ideas. You may feel extremely agitated and uncomfortable when people present differing ideas or viewpoints. When you live with an open mind, you do not mind hearing about different beliefs. In fact, you embrace differences and want to understand other ideas. You become adaptable and flexible in your approach. You don’t have to fight with yourself to accept others. You feel at ease with differences and feel positive about change.
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