Do something for yourself. Do many things for yourself. Because you want to. Make it personal and make it count. You aren’t doing this for validation, you don’t need to pretend or get people to approve of your desires and activities. Let’s battle against the temptation to post everything online.
The aesthetics of surroundings can influence our moods in a huge way, so start working on improving your surroundings. Make them look as snug, intimate, pretty, and pleasing as you can. You want to be able to feel at home, and bask in the comfort when you’re working. Let yourself be seduced by the aesthetics of your surroundings, no matter where you are.
Get to know yourself. Talk to yourself. Express yourself. Be authentic, self-expression doesn’t need to be anything it isn’t. It needs to be raw, unfeigned, and real. Pen down your chaotic the way they arrive, messily, in a journal. Scribble and doodle messily. Make those characters and voices inside your head come alive.
Talk to people, and let them in. Believe in humanity, and smile a little brighter. Say thankyous more often and sorry a little less. Thank people for waiting for you, don’t say sorry for not making it on time. Initiate conversations. Give away gifts of kindness and compassion for free for it’s an investment. A very profitable one.
Learn something new. There something very healing and humbling about the process of learning. You don’t know enough; you can never know enough. There are a plethora of things waiting to be known by you. To be owned by you. And to be interpreted by you. It can be astronomy, the philosophical debate about justice and morality. Making jam. Learning ukulele. Portuguese. Norse mythology. Infinity and paradox. Immerse yourself in art. Surround yourself with artistic creations and ideas. Relish in the creative energy. It can be extremely liberating and enlightening. Seek deeper, original meanings in poetry and paintings, and cinematography and ceramics.
Appreciate nature. Does the sun shine more brightly today. How is the sunlight streaming through your glass window different from the sunlight filtering through the canopy of trees. Try to recognize the sounds of different kinds of rain. The colors of sunrise and sunsets during different seasons. How the flowers smell slightly different from yesterday. Discover the curious charm that is in empty streets that once used to bustle with activity.
Read, read and read. For how else will you live a thousand lives, a thousand times, in a thousand different ways. Try on unfamiliar glasses and sympathize with the villain. Suspend your point of view, arrest permissible, appropriate points of view, and explore the realm of possibilities. Read classics. New releases. Unpopular books. Even the so-called rip-offs. Read bad books too so you can appreciate the good ones.
Start enjoying your solitude. Content and safe and comfortable in your own head, in your own thoughts. Scourge intrusive thoughts. Purge distorted thoughts. Always carry a sketchbook to doodle or write. Some thoughts are well worth preserving. Birdwatch. People watch. And definitely dog watch because those cute dogs that strain at their owners’ leashes to say hi to you every time do deserve the attention.
Take something you do every day and make it new. Sprinkle changes over brow-beaten routine. Do your hair differently. Or maybe you can cut your hair … at home. Add a new perfume. Get a new and fuller diet. Repaint your walls, change their colors with the seasons.
Be present. That’s it. Be wholly present in the present. Realize and experience what you’re doing even when you’re doing simple, quotidian things like making the bed and making coffee. Notice little things that you missed because your mind is usually preoccupied. Feel each morsel of food as you chew and swallow it. Attend to the commute scenery that you dismissed as unimportant.
Do things you usually don’t bother to do. Fix yourself a nice meal from scratch. Go for a jog. Organize your closet. Write sticky notes on the mirror for yourself.
Do nothing for 2 hours, and try to enjoy it. Laze with a blank mind. Productivity is good as long as it is interspersed with periods of inactivity for rejuvenation. Stare at the ceiling and observe your mind as it wanders away. The hops, starts, and sudden stops of those wheels as they churn out new thoughts every second.
Apply self-compassion. Parallelly, cultivate the ability to laugh at yourself.
Do things badly. Draw a terrible picture that makes you look like a bloated French fry, definitely not Instagram worthy but one that will draw a reluctant smile. Crotchet a sock badly. Let go of the need for validation and perfection. Bake deformed delicious cake handcrafted with care. Wear your heart on your sleeve. Stop being ashamed of your emotions. Write things no one “gets”. Weave silk when you’re sad. Name the constellations all wrong. Or make up your own names for them.
Make playlists for every theme, every occasion. Coffee hour tunes. Wheels on the road. Conquer the world. Spring flings. Summertime sadness. Sleepy ZZ’s. Notes to self. Breathe. White noise.