Life – has everything to take

Life – has also so much to give, so live!

Four days in on my little project #100happydays and it’s going ok so far. It would have been really sad if I wouldn’t be able to do at least four days as a happy lass. But life has its ways… My cold, that just won’t leave me alone after a week and some, could be a reason to drag me down, for example. But it’s a cold… Correction!! It’s the man flu, so I’m actually being brave and fighting hard to keep up with the smiling and the happiness bit (exaggerating).

That is actually the secret to being happy. Fake it until you make it. As I’m doing now. Put a smile on, trick your mind and “don’t stop doin’ what you’re doin’ baby”, as Madonna once said. Just keep doing it. They say you have to love yourself before you can love someone else. I would say that it’s true. In a way. But I want to put it in a slightly different way. I think you need to love yourself and get to know yourself first to be able to enjoy, and to enjoy the love for someone else, with someone else and their love for you. Maybe that is something you can read into the saying if you’re a bit poetic, but you can actually love someone before you’ve learned to love yourself, so just wanted to put it out there.

And to be able to love yourself, to me, it starts with happiness. If you’re happy, you can accept more. You can be more realistic and understanding about things happening around you, and in your life. To be able to shake things off as I’ve said before.

This post is not for everyone maybe, but with this post (in a way) I’m giving myself some credit for the hard times I’ve managed through over the past years. I love to laugh and I have never been willing to let that go.

But what can you do if you find yourself falling down those steps time after time? We’re all different, but for me it helps to sometimes use the “F” word to life, feel like shit for a while and, not too long after, slap myself (I normally do it mentally, but physically probably helps too) and rise up again. Always being prepared to fall a few steps while climbing up. That way it won’t hit as hard if I do. Always getting stronger and always learning more about me. Even if it’s up to you, and you only, to find your own happiness, it’s never wrong to ask friends to help out. Sending a funny photo or meme, or whatever could help you laugh when feeling down. I close my door and turn away from my friends and family when I’m feeling down. Maybe not the best, but that’s how I’ve turned out to deal with things.

This post might sound as if I’m feeling down, but I’m not. And this post is not Supposed to be an unhappy or a heavy one either. It’s just thoughts on a cloudy Malmö day.

Here’s a small sum up of a few things I’ve been through, and overcome, just to make you understand why it sometimes is a fight to get back to being happy (a fight, but not a fight I’m prepared to lose!):

• Diabetes type 1 since 1994, had to learn to live with a deadly disease
• Diabetes almost killed me at age seventeen, “it depends on how strong her body is if she’ll survive or not” said the doctors
• From age 27 to 32, never giving me a “break”:
  • Pregnant. An ectopic pregnancy.
  • Found a lump in my breast, surgery.
  • Pregnant. Missed abortion.
  • Another lump, no surgery needed.
  • My auntie past away, and my grandfather two months later
  • Pregnant. A normal miscarriage (with everything that had happened, I was ((strangely enough)) thankful that my body took care of it on its own).
  • Signed off sick from work, stress related.
  • And then my angel son, “Pepsi”, born in week 23.
• Add to all this, fighting my roller coaster blood sugar and trying to balance it (your sugar is crazy when pregnant and also related to your mood, so quite tough). And other things.

Life didn’t turn out as it should have for me, or how I planned it to be. But this is what my life story is so far, plus a lot of good, happy and funny things of course. And I don’t let my head hang low or feel sorry for myself, because here’s the thing… And this could be because I’ve worked in the service industry since I was sixteen. Smile! It always helps. You and others. Try to find a happy place in all the misery. Try to find something positive in all the bad, that you can take with you to change your mindset.

(This is turning out to be a long one, this post…)

Play the game, play the role. Put the mask on, but make sure to be able to take it off as well. I’m not talking about the false life some people live online on all sorts of social media. I’m talking about you, and your inner you. Play that game and trick your inner self. Tell yourself you’ve had enough of this sad sadness. Be done with it. No more analysis about “why”. No more! No more. (And it’s here, when the anger comes, you do the slapping bit.) Most people play a role either way, we all do actually. So why not play the happy role instead of the feeling-sorry-for-your-self role? Or taking on everyone else’s pain and make it into yours (one thing I’m very good at).

We Follow these pre written manuscripts of “how to” in life. How we are supposed to interact with others so we don’t stand out. How we are supposed to be in relationships. How men and woman, according the (old fashion if you like) norm, are supposed to be and act. How we are supposed to dress according to our age group. How to feel and think about different subjects and in different situations. And so on… We follow these manuscripts without even knowing it. We play the part and we give the show that is expected of us. When we do stand out, people raise an eyebrow because we don’t follow the norm, the pre written rules or manuscripts.

Shame, or guilt, is big emotions that follow us around. “Don’t do this, don’t do that”, “If I act like this, they will react like that”, “If I say this, they will think that”. We want to do what’s right to fit in. We don’t want to stand out, really (generalisation). Or as long as no one knows or see that we do something that’s not accepted in a social society, it’s ok. Who hasn’t thrown litter on the street, looking over the shoulders to make sure no one saw us, and to then walk past a litter bin ten seconds later and feel guilty? Or this one, a classic. Who hasn’t been sat in a public toilet, got a snippet of the toilet paper and thrown it on the floor? Or thrown food waste with the normal garbage? Guilt, guilt, guilt is what we feel when we do something we’re not supposed to. But we do it anyway. (Just talking about the every day things here, not like crimes or bullying.)

And what is it with people getting offended about everything nowadays? And getting offended on behalf of others too, not only what affects themselves. (laughing a bit on the inside.) What offends them today, has changed tomorrow. What is socially accepted today, and what is not tomorrow? Surely there must be other, more acute, issues to address than who’s feeling offended and who’s not? (which a lot of people actually focus on, the real issues.) I’m not saying you shouldn’t be passionate about things, of course you should if it’s in your nature. But… Who writes the rules that we are supposed to follow?

We play the leading role in our own movie – called life. Some manuscripts are better than others though. And if you’re like me, don’t make the movie. Make a TV-series instead! (Mine is a comedy, if you couldn’t guess that.) Turn every “wrong” turn into a new episode. Follow the rocky road, but make it yours!

Anyway… This challenge if I can be happy for 100 days in a row, makes me think twice in the morning. “Whoops, that’s not where my thoughts are suppose to go” and I steer my thoughts elsewhere. I actually got a friend who wanted to do the challenge with me. And to get a good start, we have this pending photo that we’ve now sent every morning, or as a surprise during the day. It’s a great photo, but I’m afraid I can’t share it. First time I shared it with her, I had to have her on the phone before I pressed “send”. I needed to hear her reaction, which I knew was gonna be the best! Oh my, did we laugh. I even heard her say “What is that?!!” Maybe not that funny when you haven’t seen the photo…

She told me, being an esthetic person (as she is) comes with big high’s and low’s so the challenge will be good for her. I thought about it, and it goes for me too. I have the same mentality. I wish I had gone on the esthetic route when I was younger, but it didn’t really fit in with the picture I had of myself. It’s never too late though…

4 out of 4, and counting!