In terms of good stuff, nothing in life rivals the thrill and sensation of being in love.
It is something that is one-of-a-kind in terms of the number it does on your body, mind, heart and soul—and all positive I might add.
Some have told me that being in love made their faces break out, but if you are really in love, a little hormonal-induced acne for the thrills and out-of-body experiences that love can bring, is more than worth it.
I do concede for those on the outside of love looking in, it can appear to be at times completely irrational.
Some of us have never been in love and that is unfortunate to put it mildly and pretty tragic, to put it more severely.
Life is difficult enough as it is and for those of us not in love, it can be even more unpleasant and hard to deal with.
Being in love is often equated with overall happiness.
I would have to concur with this school of thought that at its bare minimum, being in love is indeed inspiring.
When in love, you are emotionally in a good place in terms of your general outlook on life. You have someone sharing in your life more personally than ever before. You are exhilarated by this intimacy and usually experience an outpouring of good deeds, productivity and performance in other areas, including perhaps, your professional life.
In short, you are experiencing gains in ALL areas of your life, through being in love.
That is great, you say. But what if you are not in love?
How can we make our lives easier?
What can we do to make life more worth living when we go home to the same empty space and place we left nine hours earlier (I digress, but Urban Meyer’s family made him promise to work no longer than nine hours each day as a precondition to his taking the Ohio State football head coaching vacancy—seems like a good enough daily job hours commitment all of us can subscribe to!)?
The answer can be found in these seven words:
Give yourself something to look forward to.
We need to give ourselves something to look forward to whether we are in love or not.
What can that be you ask?
Well, I am pretty sure that you alone have the answer to this question.
What do you like to do?
Are there any things you are able to do, or can allow yourself to indulge in on a regular basis, that give you joy and help make you smile?
It could be something daily.
It could be something weekly.
It could be monthly or quarterly.
The point is you must reward yourself more frequently for living as well and as good a life, as you can.
That means paying yourself first before you pay your bills.
Part of paying yourself is planning something that is enjoyable to you.
It may be as simple as ordering take out from your favorite restaurant and settling in with a good book or movie.
It could be as exotic as planning a trip to a tropical destination or taking a cruise.
It could be something as pure as walking or running and being thankful you are able to do so.
We each have things we can be thankful for. We need to understand that things can get worse (and often do at times) for all of us; no one is exempt from life’s challenges.
Many times we have no control over these forces that can stimulate a sudden turn for the worse in our personal fortunes.
If we reward ourselves regularly with something we look forward to, however, we are engaging in the best form of self-help there is.
I do not believe we can find the key to happiness in a self-help book. Besides, like George Carlin used to say, if you are consulting guidelines from a book someone else has written, it’s not self-help.
I was paraphrasing ol’ George there, but I think you know what (George and) I mean.
Sometimes on certain days I think I should change the name of this blog to hittingthesorespot by Bob Skelley.
But since after reading this you will be likely (hopefully) renewing the beneficial act of regularly giving yourself something to look forward to and thus increasing your happiness exponentially, I will keep it hittingthesweetspot by Bob Skelley.
I will happily look forward to continuing to write for the best audience a blogger could possibly have, too.