I’ve always felt pretty satisfied with my life (with the exception of a few breakups and that time I ate an entire bucket of movie popcorn), but sometimes I feel like I’m not quite living my life to the fullest. I procrastinate thinking about the future, and keep doing meaningless things (Facebook, I’m looking at you) instead of more exciting, challenging things to build my future and be my best self. So I’ve decided to challenge myself to be happy and live life to the fullest—but really, and not just in the cheesy graduation speech kind of way.
However, when I Googled how to be happy, I got over a billion results. Since trying to do a billion new things at once would require a complete life overhaul, I’ve decided to do one or two things to make me happier every week. This week’s resolutions:
1. Take action: I am probably the biggest procrastinator in the world. Not just with homework, but with doing the dishes, getting a job, shaving my legs, you name it. And when I finally just buckle down and actually clean my room or remove those glistening follicles from my legs, I feel SO MUCH BETTER afterwards. Therefore, I’m going to not put anything off and do things when I need to do them, so I don’t walk around with stress clouds of to-do lists around my head.
2. Think positively: One of the negatives of being a competitive person is seeing competition everywhere. Left the house looking cute? So did the rest of campus apparently, and that girl’s shoes are cuter. Got a B on a quiz you thought you failed? Slacker Guy next to you didn’t study and got the same grade. But no longer am I going to let these bother me! Instead, all those other cute outfits on
campus are going to be my motivation for the next (even better, Sex and the City-worthy) outfit. And if something doesn’t go the way I want, I’m still learning from it and seeing the glass half full, dammit.
This week, I’m going to try and focus on doing these two little things to make improvements in my life. I’ll let you know which ones work and if any fall flat (one Google suggestion stated that I should make my bed every morning— I fail to see any correlation between my bed and my happiness, unless it’s rather R rated). It takes a single step to begin a journey, so here I go!
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Kelsey Bradshaw is a sophomore at the University of Oregon majoring in Journalism and Facebook (wait, that’s not a real major?!). Originally a track star from Medford, Oregon, she now enjoys going for runs with her friends and working out at Eugene Crossfit. She also enjoys visiting National Parks, playing in the snow, and hanging out at the beach…double points if they’re all at the same time.Â