My New Year’s Resolution: Just Be Happy

All anyone wants is to be happy. It’s my New Year’s Resolution to be happier this year.

“The purpose of our lives is to be happy.”— Dalai Lama

New Year’s Resolutions shouldn’t be about changing who we are — that simply isn’t sustainable and we probably shouldn’t go about changing who we are every single year. Instead, we should resolve to be ourselves and to be truly happy. After all, happiness is the purpose of life.

My resolution is simple: do whatever it takes to be happy. Not just to act happy or to appear happy, but to truly and utterly be happy.

Here are a few of the ways that I intend on being happier in 2014 than I was in 2013.

Be present.

Wherever I am and whatever I am doing, I want to be completely present and happy to be there. This means less time spent on my phone, less time daydreaming, and less time barely paying attention to those around me.

When it comes to school, this means going to every class, completing assignments on time, doing the readings, getting to know my classmates, asking questions in class, and approaching the professor if I am struggling.

Outside of school, this means more focusing and less multitasking. Being present means being fully aware of my surroundings, my thoughts, and my emotions. This has always been hard for me. I tend to escape the present by keeping my mind and my life busy. This year, I want to learn to take things more slowly and be fully present in each and every moment.

Be proactive about my friendships.

I have a lot of friends and yet there are many moments when I feel alone. In order to be happy, I am going to start to be more proactive about spending time being social. Just like many things, there’s no point having friends if you don’t spend time with them.

This year, I resolve to remind myself that I have friends who care about me and want me to be happy. If I ever feel down or just want someone to talk to, I will reach out to my friends.

I also want to spend time with a more diverse group of people. I have been incredibly busy and, as a result, have mainly spent time with whomever was most convenient. Even though I love all my friends, it can be depressing to think that my social circle has shrunk because I have been too busy to keep up with certain friends.

This year, I will be sure to broaden the group of people I share most of my free time with. Whether this means stepping outside of my comfort zone, leaving campus, or Skyping long-distance friendships, I will do what it takes.

Ask for help.

This goes with being more proactive about friendships. I also want to be more thankful of my amazing group of mentors and advisors. I have so many people willing to help me and yet I rarely ask for help.

Asking for help is underrated and acting like I can handle everything in life without a little help is vastly overrated. Life is hard, it would be foolish to not ask those who have been there before me for a little guidance.

Asking for help is key to being happy. It’s an important reminder that I’m not alone; a reminder that whatever I’m struggling with, someone has been there before me. More likely than not, that someone is a mentor or a friend of mine. By speaking up, people can help me achieve my dreams and potential. No use going at this life thing alone.

“Dream audaciously and out loud. Don’t dream in silence. No one can help you realize your dreams if you dream in silence.” — Shervin Pishevar

Listen to more upbeat music.

Music has an enormously powerful impact on our mood. It took me awhile to realize that the “Calm” playlist that I listen to so often is filled with songs that have depressing lyrics.

There’s a reason that all the upbeat, “mainstream” music is so popular: it makes people feel good. There’s a middle-ground. Not all the calm music has to be so depressing, and not all the upbeat music has to be so terribly “pop-y.”

By listening to happier music when I wake up in the morning, when I do my work, and when I go to bed at night, I hope to be able to say that I’m overall happier.

Do more things I care about and less things I don’t.

I often complain about not having enough time in the day as if there’s nothing I can do about it. This isn’t the case. I have a lot of control over what I spend my time doing. I recently wrote a post about saying “no.” It’s important that I learn to say no to things that I don’t want to spend time doing in order to make more room for the things I want to do with my life.

I wish I read more books; this means watching less TV. I wish I cooked more; this means spending less time and money out to eat at restaurants. I wish I took more pictures; this means spending less time on Facebook. I wish I exercised earlier; this means waking up earlier and going to the gym. There are no excuses, if I really want to do something, making time for it shouldn’t be that hard.

Cut back on substances.

Less coffee. Less alcohol. I shouldn’t need to be under the influence of something in order to be happy.

I used to hate coffee but started drinking it last summer. Since then, I’ve become addicted to caffeine. I’ve begun the New Year by quitting coffee cold-turkey. It’s been hard—I feel groggy, lethargic, and unmotivated—but I see a positive outcome in the not so distant future. Coffee makes me anxious, messes with my natural sleep schedule, and makes my body depend on caffeine in order to feel awake.

If possible, I’d like to find some way to quit coffee completely. I need to train myself into thinking it tastes like dirt, the way I felt for the first 18 years of my life.

A few studies have shown that alcohol can actually make you live longer. I’m not sure if I buy this or not, but I do know, empirically, that a little bit of alcohol every once and awhile is a great way to slow down, enjoy the moment, and unwind. That said, I’d like to start drinking less. There were a few points last year where I felt like I depended on alcohol in order to be happy. This is absolutely terrible. I want to be sure that I don’t rely on anything, especially alcohol, in order to be happy.

Get a more regular sleep schedule.

Sleep is vitally important; for our health and for our happiness. This past semester I often got too much sleep and yet didn’t feel rested. Or I barely got any sleep but didn’t spend my waking hours very effectively because I was always too tired.

In 2014, I want to go to bed by midnight every night and wake up at eight every morning. A more regular sleeping schedule will allow me to be more productive and get more done while also being healthier. This will make me happy.

Smile.

Sometimes you just need to smile. For no reason whatsoever. Smiling has been proven to release endorphins and make people happier. Most importantly, smiling puts you in the right state of mind to conquer whatever the day has to offer without letting it negatively affect your mood.

For me, this means smiling even when I have to write that essay that I’ve been dreading, or whenever I have to wake up earlier than I’d like to go to the gym. Often, a simple smile will change my mood and allow me to embrace that which I thought I didn’t want to do with good spirits.