falling in love with living

Falling in love with life was honestly how I became a happier version of me. It’s also when I started caring more about my influence on others. There’s a couple different things I tried so I could get to the point of loving life… and I’m going to share them with you.

understand what makes you happy:

It might be kind of simple to realize the broad things that give you joy, like friends or family or anything you’re passionate about… but go deeper. What about your friends make you happy? Why do you feel loved by your family? Go deeper to find the littlest things that make you smile.

Maybe you’ll realize that you are happiest when you are serving the ones you love. Or maybe you’ll realize that you should spend more time with your neices/nephews because when you’re with them you cannot help but smile. Maybe you’ll realize that you should go pick cherries from your grandmas cherry tree, because it reminds you of when you were a kid.

Or maybe it’s realizing in the moment what makes you feel joy. When you see an old couple holding hands in a resturant, and you can’t help but to feel a little grin appear on your face.

For me I realized there was so many of those moments, so I started making a list on my phone. Everytime I found myself feeling any amount of joy, I wrote it in my notes.

Later I transfered these things (as many of them as I could fit) onto a journal page:

It was so uplifting to be able to see this page whenever I felt down, to realize how happy I could be if I just allowed myself to see joy instead of spend lots of time on my sadness and pain.

I advise you to do the same if you feel stuck or not reaching your full potential of happiness. If you want to fall in love with life, if you want to be happier, find those little things. Embrass them. Stretch the feeling of joy from these little things for as long as you can.

romantisizing your life:

Have you ever been watching a coming of age movie and just wished so badly that your life was even half as amazing as the movie. Why isn’t it?

make. your. life. a. movie. I cannot stress this enough.

Dance on top of a parking garage… preferably in the rain;)

Get up so so early for the sunrise.

Go on roadtrips.

Make new friends.

Dress up fancy and go to dinner.

Sneak out to go star gazing.

Spend time with your family.

Write a song.

Kiss people.

Have photoshoots and fashion shows.

Go to a cafe to read a book.

Meet up with childhood friends.

Pretend you’re a tourist in your own town.

Go on canyon drives with music blasting.

Spend too much money on that concert ticket.

Listen to your favorite song on repeat for hours.

Gain a new hobby.

Chase the sunset.

Live life.

content with being alone

Something I have struggled with in the past is being okay with being alone, but I think it’s a really important part of living life to the fullest.

I’m not sure how many of you will be able to relate with this, but for the longest time I felt like being alone was such a waste of time. I found myself only feeling happy when I was around others, but as soon as I was alone I would fall into a really dark place. Any weekend night that I wasn’t out doing something felt so sad.

But why?

This was an often occurance until I asked myself that question. Why did I feel the need to wait for others before I could start living?

So, I started with simple things like trying to read more, trying to stay off my phone as much as possible, or researching things I found interesting. Then I started shopping alone (which felt really out of my comfort zone). Then I started going to cafes alone when I was reading or writing. Then I started doing hikes and going to see the sunset or sunrises alone.

Just a couple days ago I found myself waking up at 4:30 am so I could go watch the sunrise on the lake.

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I realized after I spent more time with myself, that I know way more about myself now than I did before. I fell in love with how deep my mind was, and the ambition that grew inside of me.

Spending more time with yourself doesn’t mean you need to push other people away. For me, this just meant spending the extra time I had with myself instead of my phone.

celebrate living life:

One day me and my friends found $10 prom dresses at Savers and decided that we would go to a fancy dinner wearing them.

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We got all dressed up and when we got to the restraunt the workers asked what special occasion we were celebrating. We giggled and looked at eachother. I shrugged a little and replied, “life.”

The worker gave us the biggest smile and expressed how cool that is.

Everyone in the restraunt stared. A little girl asked if we were princesses.

Our waitress INSISTED we buy the fanciest drink, and we even overheard her bragging about us to other customers at a different table.

If wearing a prom dress to Olive Garden doesn’t spark your fancy, that’s okay because celebrating life could be as simple as turning your phone off for a couple hours and living in the moment, or keeping it on and making videos of the moments where you feel like you’re truely living.

Something that a lot of people fail to realize, or maybe are scared to accept, is that tommorrow is not promised. Not for me or you. We don’t know when our journey will end, so celebrate today. Celebrate that you woke up this morning, and celebrate

Celebrating life is kind of the mixture of understanding what makes you happy and romantisizing your life, and knowing how to spend your time. You find what make you happy, you do what makes you happy, you do it when it makes you happy, and you celebrate your happiness and the gift we have of living life.

So get out there! I believe in you, I love you. If you feel no other purpose in your life, then I’m telling you now that living this cool life you’re given can be your purpose (it’s definitely mine haha).