Make Life Easier

27 Things That Will Make Your Life Easier, Period:

By Erin Williams 

1. Respond to the damn email.

2. Call your mom. Chat for five minutes, pretend that public transportation is coming/you’re walking in to work/the battery is low, then get off the phone. All she wants is to know you’re not dead — and to know that your relationship, no matter how shaky it may be, is still intact.

3. Make your bed — it makes the entire room look cleaner.

4. Write out a list by hand. Google may have invented every list-making tool on the planet, but writing it down commits it to memory — and, contrary to popular belief, not every place has internet.

5. When you get a free minute, clean out the thing nearest you, whether it’s a drawer, your gym bag, or your fridge. Just open the door, look at what is moldy, and throw it out.

6. When you get a free moment, do something creative, even if it’s watching ‘Dirty Dancing’ for the twentieth time. Make it a game and study how many times Patrick Swayze’s character smolders for the camera.

7. Apply for the damn job. There’s no sense in complaining about your present situation if you are not making strides to change it. Send out the resume, make the necessary contacts in the field you want to pursue, and go from there. It may not yield results as fast as you think, but the fact that you know you are doing something makes all the difference in the world.

8. Don’t feel the need to fill gaps of silence with blathering comments. That makes you sound like an idiot.

9. Visit one random blog (or five) a day that makes you happy and gives you the motivation to get through the day. If you like food, go check out photos on Tastespotting. If you like to transport yourself into other people’s heads, visit Pinterest. If you like doing fun activities, visit Soul Pancake. There’s something for everyone.

10. Realize when it’s not working out and move on — apply that to whatever situation you wish.

My Sunday Morning Read

backyard view

tiffany blue tea kettle

a light breakfast + kinfolk

I can't help but love waking up to a quiet Sunday morning while savoring the solitude of the early hours that most (unfortunately) sleep through. After opening the curtains to expose the morning sky, I patiently wait for the water on the stove to boil. Shuffling through my ipod for some good morning tunes I stop at Camera Obscura today. Once the water is ready, I pour myself a steaming cup of black ginger peach tea with a bit of sugar and splash of milk from the small silver creamer I found at Tuesday Mornings yesterday. After settling into my seat, I begin to flip through this little gem of a magazine I recently came across entitled Kinfolk: A Guide For Small Gatherings.

The simple aesthetic of the thoughtfully composted editorial gives the magazine an intimate and personable feel. I'd highly recommend it to those who enjoy savoring the small details that many people thoughtlessly overlook when welcoming friends and family into their home. 

Learn to Accept Others

I was reading through positively present today- a blog filled with positive thoughts, good advice and kind words. As I've gotten older, I've begun to realize that nothing good comes from judging others.  Here are a few things that I thought people need to be mindful of:

6 Ways To Accept Others As They Are:

 

In the grand scheme of things, you have to wonder: who are we to judge what's right or wrong, or the decisions of others? I think it'd be safe to say that we have all made careless decisions but instead of wishing we hadn't, try to think of the good that has come from it. Find contentment in past poor decisions and accept others as well. 

We all have the right to make up their own mind and, regardless of our personal beliefs, we must learn to at least respect each other. This sort of mindset can be very beneficial in a countless number of ways.

Rules Of A Lady

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a few more links worth checking out:

-a gold leaf ring

-this set eyelashes

-a must read

-this print

Rules Of A Gentleman

me, dad, my little sister catie, 

older sister monica, and little brother chris.

me, chris, dad, & monica

dad & monica

dad, me, monica

I thought I'd share these rules of a gentleman in honor of my dad's birthday. Had he not used any of these simple acts of kindness and etiquette, I'm sure he wouldn't have gotten as far in life as he has.

Find more at Etiquette For A Gentleman, or re-visit this old post of mine: Rules of a Lady.

On Dealing With A Death

Firstly, I apologize for not posting as much lately. On top of school keeping me busy these past few weeks, there was a recent death in the family. Even though it wasn't in my actual immediate family, I still considered Ozzy very much a part of my family since I have known her and her family for ten+ years, when I had met my best friend Athena. 

I'm happy I was lucky enough to grow up as a family member in their household, and have been shown much love and support in a number of ways. I'm glad I am able to reciprocate the love they've shown me throughout this difficult time. Simply being there for them, as they need family at this time more than ever.

Something that I've done for many of my close friends is prepare a sort of care package to show that I'm thinking of them, or a thoughtfully written homemade card. I've always felt that it's these small acts of kindness that are most meaningful and special. For this particular situation, I included the following in Athena's care basket: 

Breakups and Fresh Starts

I'm sure we all know by now that breakups are an inevitable part of life. We've all been through them, and most likely more than one. From going through short-lived and long-term relationship breakups, I have learned that not matter how bad it is, life goes on. Whether things start to fade and you begin to grow apart or something unforgivable happens, life does go on.

I've always held the belief that "everything happens for a reason". I also strive to learn something new from each relationship in hopes to better myself in some way. Learning from heartache is best if we reflect and grow from our relationship mishaps. And below are a few things I've learned throughout the years.

Typewriter Notes

Below are a handful of thoughtful, nostalgic, and/or melancholic typewriter notes.

A Modern Take on the To-Do List

I've always enjoyed creating lists for everything, so you can imagine how thrilled I was to find such a sleek version of a to-do list! Designed by swissmiss, Teux Deux is a virtual to-do list that is simple and easy to use. Conveniently enough, Teux Deux syncs with your iPhone, and the initial download fee is only a mere $2.99. See more about it via YouTube. Below are a few example of what my current list looks like..

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1. Fill out what you have to do on the website or on your iphone.

The active day will appear red.

2. Place your mouse over any item on the list and the red x will appear.

To delete as you finish a task, simply click the x. It's that easy!

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Liking Is For Cowards

Liking Is For Cowards. Go For What Hurts.
By: Jonathan Franzen

The simple fact of the matter is that trying to be perfectly likable is incompatible with loving relationships. Sooner or later, for example, you're going to find yourself in a hideous, screaming fight, and you'll hear coming out of your mouth things that you yourself don't like at all, things that shatter your self-image as a fair, kind, cool, attractive, in-control funny, likable person. Something realer than likability has come out in you, and suddenly you're having an actual life. 

Suddenly there's a real choice to be made, not a fake consumer choice between a BlackBerry and an iPhone, but a question: Do I love this person? And, for the other person, does this person love me? 

There is no such thing as a person whose real self you like every particle of. This is why a world of liking is ultimately a lie. But there is such a thing as a person whose real self you love every particle of. And this is why love is such an existential threat to the techno-consumerist order: it exposes the lie. 

This is not to say that love is only about fighting. Love is about bottomless empathy, born out of the heart’s revelation that another person is every bit as real as you are. And this is why love, as I understand it, is always specific. Trying to love all of humanity may be a worthy endeavor, but, in a funny way, it keeps the focus on the self, on the self’s own moral or spiritual well-being. Whereas, to love a specific person, and to identify with his or her struggles and joys as if they were your own, you have to surrender some of your self.

The big risk here, of course, is rejection. We can all handle being disliked now and then, because there’s such an infinitely big pool of potential likers. But to expose your whole self, not just the likable surface, and to have it rejected, can be catastrophically painful. The prospect of pain generally, the pain of loss, of breakup, of death, is what makes it so tempting to avoid love and stay safely in the world of liking.

And yet pain hurts but it doesn’t kill.  

Rules Of A Lady

(source)

For When You're Blue

link source: one | two | three | four

I've always been a big advocate of the quote, "Life's to short to be anything but happy," I even painted it on a ceramic mug once, but we all know that it's simply impossible to be happy 24/7. Being happy, or at least having a positive outlook is something I constantly strive for, even if there are a number of reasons and excuses to be less than thrilled with life situations. Above are a few lists I just thought were cute. 

A Lonely Whale's Sad Song

(By: Jesus Diaz)

Once upon a time, there was a whale called June. Or maybe her name is Margaret. Or Kate. We don't really know. A few nitrogen-hearted scientists call her 52 Hertz just because she sings at a 51.75Hz frequency, but I will call her Alice.

Alice isn't like any other baleen whale. Unlike all whales, Alice doesn't have friends. She doesn't have a family. She doesn't belong to any tribe, pack or gang. She doesn't have a lover. She never had one.

In the immense solitude of the ocean, Alice is completely alone.

The only thing Alice does is sing. Like other whales, she has been singing for a very long time. The first time we heard her song was in 1989, when the hydrophone network of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recorded her voice for the first time. The researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution have been tracking her using these hydrophones for the last two decades.

Her songs—in this recording accelerated by a factor of five—come in groups of two to six calls, lasting for five to six seconds each. But her voice is unlike any other baleen whale. It is unique—while the rest of her kind communicate between 12 and 25Hz, Alice sings at 51.75Hz.

You see, my dear humans, that's precisely Alice's problem. No other whales can hear her. Every one of her desperate calls to communicate remains unanswered. Each cry ignored. And with every lonely song, Alice becomes sadder and more frustrated, her notes going deeper in despair as the years go by.

Nobody knows why this is happening. Nobody knows why Alice is going through the wrong paths instead of following the usual baleen whale's migratory channels. Some think that she might be a weird hybrid, one of a kind. Maybe she—or he, as we don't really know the whale's sex—is the last member of her species. Perhaps there was a mutation. Who knows. Who cares—the explanation doesn't matter.

Whatever the reason is, the sad fact is that there’s no happy ending to this tale. Alice keeps roaming the big blue, eating krill, seeing other creatures around her but unable to communicate with any of them. And one day, the NOAA hydrophones will record Alice’s unique voice one last time. And again, that farewell cry will get no reply. But it will not matter this time because, at last, Alice would be sad no more.

From One Stranger To Another

I can't be sure why, but the above note makes me both happy and sad. I do think they're very nice and thoughtfully written words, but I'm also aware that not everybody has that same sort of mindset. It makes me wonder how, or why people turn out the way they do. It seems that there are some people who care deeply about certain things that other's may not notice at all.

It makes me sad because one person may have these same types of thoughts and feelings towards another person, and the thought of not having those feelings reciprocated just gets me. I suppose it's difficult for me to understand why some people hold grudges, or keep up meaningless charades for no good reason. We're all on this earth for such a short time so we might as well be happy while we're stuck here. At least as happy as we can be.

How To: Make Daily Life Simpler

8 Small Habits That Make My Daily Life Simpler, Easier, & More Effective

(via: positivityblog)

1. Keep everything in its place. If everything has its own place then it’s a whole lot easier to keep your home reasonably ordered and decluttered from day to day. This also helps you with your inner stillness as the outer environment affects how you feel on the inside. I also find it useful to always keep things in their place on me when I’m out and about. The wallet is always in the same pocket and my cell phone is always in the same place. If you have forgotten something and have this habit you’ll quickly notice if something is not as usual and you can go back to fetch what you lost.

2. Go food shopping once a week. You’ll save time, perhaps money and I find that I do less impulse buying of unhealthy things too compared to if I go shopping when I am getting hungry.

3. Cook more food than you’ll eat. I usually make two or three servings of what I am about to eat. This cuts down on time that you spend on cooking and you’ll have to do less washing up in general. Plus, it’s good to have portions of food to bring to work to save some money. Or to have a meal that you can quickly reheat when you come home from school or work and you are starving.

4. Declutter for a few minutes in the morning. Keeping everything in its place works for the most part. But there is still usually a bit of clutter. You can spend a few minutes in the morning (or after your work day is done) to clean up your workspace, remove old coffee cups and clean up papers and books and put them in their proper place.

5. Write everything down. Otherwise you’ll forget about your goals, great ideas or perhaps something funny or fascinating you heard. By writing things down you don’t have to occupy your mind with having to remember everything. This lowers stress levels and gives you a clearer mind to use.

6. Pack your bag the night before. This very simple habit can alleviate quite a bit of stress in the morning. If you pack your bag before you go to bed then you don’t have to run around in your house half panicked tomorrow while looking for your books or some important papers.

7. Reconnect each day with what you should be doing. On my wall there is a small white board. On the white board there are things written like “keep things extremely simple” and “stick to the schedule.” These two reminders and a few more are always there. Whenever I lose my way during my day I can always just look at the wall to center myself and reconnect with what I should be doing and how I should go about it. I highly recommend doing this to stay on course.

8. Be 10 or 15 minutes early. This is a very simple tip that transforms those traveling times during your day into relaxing breaks instead of passages of time and space that only up your levels of stress and other negative feelings.