I Didn't Write a New Years Post.

This year I had a big post planned out for the first of January: it was about the new year, new beginnings, letting go of the old and looking to the future for the new. Here we are in the second month of 2015 and there is no such post. I wrote this post. I looked at it. I edited and rewrote it and added pictures and changed my tone, deleted the pictures and changed my title- and then I eventually deleted it.

Why?

If I am absolutely honest with myself I deleted it because I was terrified this year would be terrible. I was scared that I was setting up my expectations too high and that I'd just look back on that post at the end of 2015 and I would be disappointed.

Over the last couple years I got into this very very surreal and weird head space. Failure at anything was the end of the world, change terrified me, people's opinions because everything and even when I was happy I was stressed about something else.

This school year I set myself up with the mindset that I wasn't going to do that ever again, that I was going to enjoy this year no matter what- that I was actually going to live my life a little rather than thinking in the past and future, agonising over everything but the present. I am so much happier.

Yesterday evening was probably the highest point of my happiness in a long while and my head is still reeling from that feeling in the best possible way. However you feel about valentines day, whether you love it or hate it I am about to spill a little about mine so if you hate it skim this part, and if you don't then keep reading... It was warm and quiet and so lovely, I had a perfect afternoon in with my boyfriend- food, dumb videos, great company and the most beautiful flowers. I felt unbelievably spoilt and lucky. I got home to my family and we had dinner and laughed and talked about random stuff, we watched the office back to back and I talked to my best friend to discuss the worlds latest gossip. I was awake about 2am still thinking about how funny it is how life turns out and thinking that coincidence cannot possible exist because there's no way you could love people this much by chance. It's very cheesy and cliché but it's days like this when I am at my very happiest and it's because of the people around me and my choice to switch off and enjoy it.

It was actually my perfect day- I didn't worry or stress about anything, I was just enjoying the moments in my life. It's really easy to forget to do that in this day and age where everything is instant, every stage in your life is just preparation for the next one and things all move in fast forward. I like to take one whole day off worrying at least once a month to keep my head in order and let my body have time to recuperate from this crazy western lifestyle we all embrace as normality.

It's little things. I realised last year that there were a few things that held my attention in the moment and kept me grounded when my head was spinning from the 101 things I had to do. One was when I let people in, let them be affectionate and was affectionate back- this is so so important if you want to move yourself out of a weird head space. It's your choice whether you push people away or let them in- letting people in is so freeing and just makes everything else seem lighter on your shoulders. Things like coffee with my best ones and really cuddly dates, my beautiful little cousins keeping me occupied with their funny little sayings and make believe games- these are all moments that held my full attention and where I started feeling like myself again. Cultivating that feeling and holding onto it, trying to find it in other things will make you feel 100% better.

I know that life is never ever going to be perfect, but last night it felt pretty damn close. You are never going to have everything, you are never going to be able to be happy forever and ever-it's just not how life works, But life is a series of moments, some are better than others, but if you ignore the beautiful moments and how they make you feel, and just focus on the bad ones- then are you really learning anything? Are you really living? Or are you just trying to move through life to get to the next moment and the next?

I didn't write a new years post because I was terrified of letting myself be set up to enjoy my life. I didn't write one because I thought my hopes and expectations were too high- that was stupid because my expectations of this year have been exceeded several times already and it's only February. You attract what you put out into the world, if you put out bad energy it's going to come back to you and if you put out good energy then that's what you are going to get. Wonderful people are drawn to other wonderful people, entrepreneurs are drawn to the innovative and focussed people in this world. We are always putting something back into the world around us, effecting the people around us and it's so important to put something good back.

I think I grew up more in the last year than in the last 5 years put together and a lot of that was overwhelming and scary- I failed a lot and let myself lay down and let it make me feel worse. I am not going to do that any more and I am going to have high expectations of life because I know the way that things are going now, that I won' be disappointed by 2015, because it's already made me feel amazing.

This Big Journey- ie: The Pursuit of Happiness.

Everyone is a part of this big journey, this big pursuit of happiness that we call life.

The truth is, everyone wants something. Everyone wants to achieve some sense of fulfilment, purpose- happiness. People are looking for it in the travelling the world, reality TV, in expensive bags and dusty brown paperbacks. They look for it in dates, in women, their kids, their music, their bong, their friends, their boyfriends, girlfriends, homes, beds, jobs- everyone is looking somewhere for this ideal life, this fulfilment, and they're pursuing this happiness. We are all on a noble pursuit to find what makes us happy in order to make it through hard times- no one knows where to look, or how to achieve it, all we know is we want it.

The pitfalls of this pursuit?
If everyone is on the same journey there's this big contest. Darwin's whole idea about the 'survival of the fittest' applies so greatly it scares me sometimes. In life the people who aren't strong enough tend to fall down and get left behind by a world that refuses completely to stop turning. The strong survive and go on and continue to try and make sense of it. Harsh isn't it? There's competition and fighting and in a modern age the fights are different, they're emotional, psychological and tend to be a lot more about messing with people's heads than a primal instinct to repel other individuals. The "weak" and the "strong" have moved away from being defined as the individuals at peak physical fitness and those with the worst, but over to what seems to me like a battle of wills.

Here's where I think this idea of social Darwinism- in relation to a world where I see us as theoretically living to find happiness, this battle of the "strong" and the weak" is will related right? So even if you see yourself as weak, or you know you're weak, there's a certain element of species development. Human's adapt right? So what's to say someone of "weak" will has fallen down for the 99th time out of 100? Life is hard and people are mean and it all looks very bleak, and this "weak"person is laying face down somewhere (probably the floor of their room, maybe the school library) and they are thinking about giving up. They are thinking of removing themselves from this big race, this big pursuit of happiness. They're thinking it's too hard, it's too rough and I give up.

Maybe they lay there in acceptance of their fate, and cry or just lay silently. But maybe they only do that for 5 minutes, maybe 10. Maybe they sit up and brush themselves down. Maybe they sit there and realise this: you might fail, but if you try at something and it works out, you gain something great. If you don't try at all nothing will change.
I think that's a theory instilled in all of us as human beings. We have this amazing capacity to keep going, to keep fighting even when it gets really hard, when every ache in our body and pain in our chest tells us we can't do it, we defy every odd piled against us and pull through.

People are always looking for change, for bigger for better, for brighter. It's hard to understand the idea that happiness isn't an end goal. You can't reach happiness, you can't touch it and you can't contain it or keep it or store it for those days when it gets hard. Happiness can't be an end goal.
So what are we all pursuing? Why do we all have this idea in our heads that if we get that grade we'll be happy, that cookie will make us happy, that promotion, that boy, that girl, that dress- if we go here we'll be happy, if we move away we'll be happy, if we stay right where we are we are sure to be happy. Why? Why do we think like that?

Although I've never watched the film 'The Pursuit of Happyness' I was scrolling through the internet at an obscene hour of the morning and I found this quote:

"It was right then that I started thinking about Thomas Jefferson on the Declaration of Independence and the part about our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And I remember thinking how did he know to put the pursuit part in there? That maybe happiness is something that we can only pursue and maybe we can actually never have it. No matter what. How did he know that?"

And this is what I was thinking about. Happiness is not the end goal, it's not the destination. It's the journey. While you're making your way and everyone's on this pursuit and you're caught up in this big race, stop yourself for a second and think about it- really think about it.
The things that make us happy, the possessions, the people the places- they're special. We find happiness not in our end goals but the rough time we have trying to get there.

We find it in the people we meet, on page 147 of a really good book, in old movies- we find it in the love we have for our parents, kids, sisters, brothers, friends. We find it in eating toast on the floor ar 3am, we find it climbing under a duvet with someone we love. We find it as we move through life, in our passions, in our music, in driving around at 11pm, old photos of when we were kids, We find it in the times we laugh so hard we think we might lose a couple of fairly essential organs, negotiating cobble stones in £15 high heels.

We're all on this great pursuit, getting caught up in the race to find this unfindable thing- when you realise it's all around us. Happiness is not something you can achieve because you have it. Happiness is not something you can chase because the simple act of chasing it means you are ignoring every opportunity to feel it, to have it. Thomas Jefferson had a pretty incredible insight when he decided what he felt the pursuit of happiness was.

Honestly. I don't know why I'm writing this tonight.
It was just one of those moments of clarity situations where I felt kind of overwhelmed with the idea that we write our own stories, we form our own pursuit of happiness.
It's been weird lately, things are a little rushed and a little out of place and I needed some time to slow down and think- and when I did I guess this happened.

If you want to ask anything or just say anything at all I'd love to hear from you
Goodnight everyone x

Friendships.

So lately friendships have been a really topsy turvy part of my life, and I figured this is as good away as any to vent. *Deep breath* so here goes:

Just like any other relationship in life, sometimes even friendships need work.
Sometimes you meet someone who becomes a good friend of yours so quickly, you hang out with them because it's easy, because there are mutual likes, dislikes over movies and music and people and fashion, a lot of similarities- it's simple.But after a long while, you're going to start pissing each other off. It's a fact of life, over time people annoy each other and friends fall out.

Getting annoyed at your friends sometimes is a natural thing. In life people who you're around that much will irritate you, that's just a fact. But being irritated and hurt and fighting with someone on a regular basis is not a healthy or normal relationship. Constant drama and negative feelings are NOT just a normal friendship. You can't hold grudges or bitch about each other, and communication- like in relationships- are key. Fighting happens, you work through you fix problems- but fighting all the time? Fighting is not communicating, that's all I'm saying.

Sometimes friendships run their course... sometimes you need to walk away.
Toxic relationships can happen not just between lovers but also between friends. Some friends get you down to the point you actually start to feel depressed, or involve you in things you shouldn't be involved in, or hurt you or your life in some way, and just generally have a negative impact on you.
It's hard and it takes a lot to do so- but sometimes you need to walk away. You can be supportive until a point, but when someone is affecting your mental and emotional well-being, you need to think about how to distance yourself. You either need to talk to that person and try to move forward and fix the situation in some way- but sometimes thing's are really to broken and sometimes you need to walk away.

Friendships are funny little things- and sometimes walking away from them makes you a bad person. That's just how it is- not being there for people makes you a crappy friend, because sometimes in times of trouble people need you. But sometimes there comes a point where you have to keep your emotional well-being in the balance of things.