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By Root 682 0

Hug a flower. Look at a puppy. Doesn’t matter. Just create a space in your soul for hope. Remember earlier? The reality you experience is almost wholly shaped by your perception of it. YOU HAVE THE POWER TO CHOOSE WHAT YOU NOTICE. You know how you have that one friend who only dates douche bags? How could she not see what a piece of shit that guy is??? She’s choosing to notice different things. I don’t recommend doing this with a douche bag, but you should certainly do it with life. I’m not saying you have to believe that everything is awesome all of the time, but at least start to open the drapes in your brain and let some light in. Once you do you’ll get addicted to it and you’ll start to see the good in things (a good skill to have). That isn’t New Agey crap, that’s brain science, people! If I said to you, “Hey! Wingtips!” you would start to notice wingtip shoes everywhere and wonder if they were always there or if they coincidentally just started popping up. (I would then ask you why you lived in a 1930s gangster movie where wingtips are so plentiful.)

I’d go even further to assert that if the media started reporting that the economy was turning around, people would start to unconsciously make it happen. Tensions would relax and consumer confidence would begin to increase because they would start to look for reasons to do so. I’m not advocating living in denial, but I am saying that there must be SOME good stuff happening. Why can’t we throw some focus on that? It would CERTAINLY help put us back on the right path. Things being as they are, however, that may not happen anytime soon, so the onus is on you.

If you try this with some consistency, I guarantee it will ultimately affect you in ways you cannot imagine. It’ll be like pulling back the curtains and letting in some warmth to the dark recesses of your soul. But be patient! You will not change overnight! A jetliner can’t just flip a bitch—it has to turn into an arc and slowly make its way around to go the other direction. The same is true for your perception. Shape your reality. Don’t be a pawn for the darkness. Find the good news and what motivates you and inspires you.

Always remember that you are not a helpless victim of your emotions. Long ago you may have given up control of your brain and set it on autopilot either because you didn’t know you had another option or because it just felt like too much work. And it is work! But for me, this work was well worth it for the prospect of not waking up sad every day.

CHARACTERCIZE

Write down five outlets that can be your go-to places for good news every day.

BREAD CRUMB YOUR LIFE WITH MUSIC

Every year on my birthday I start a new playlist titled after my current age so I can keep track of my favorite songs of the year as a sort of musical diary because I am a teenage girl. Making a greatest event list each year is also useful (more about that later), but sometimes looking at words isn’t necessarily enough to transport yourself back to key life moments. In my estimation, mp3 players are the closest things to time machines we have. A good song woven into the fabric of space-time is a bread crumb that maps the trail of your life. If there’s something that you listened to every day five years ago, and it happened to punctuate a particularly good time in your life where you felt great and made what you considered to be excellent choices, listening to it again will access the emotional files from your mind’s root directory and pull that mind-set into the forefront of your brain. Here’s one of mine:

For instance, track number 3, “Mike Mills,” accompanied me through Europe one year. I have very strong associations with it being on a train from Venice to Switzerland, one of the most breathtaking experiences of my life. Now, I don’t want you to think that I think you’re an idiot. OF COURSE you know how music works. YES, you already know it brings up old feelings. My point is that by structuring it in your life as a musical diary or log, you can control your feelings and change them on a dime if you need