Wednesday Wisdom: Comparison

I will never be you and you will never be me. You will never be that seemingly "perfect" woman that you see in your local cafe all the time and neither will I.

When you compare your life with somebody else's it will only serve to make you unhappy. I believe that we are becoming more and more prone to judging ourselves based on what we think somebody else is due to society becoming more and more connected. Everyday most people in developed countries are either logging into their Facebook or scrolling through twitter or watching television shows or reading magazine's on a daily basis.

This can be a very self detrimental process when you are comparing your whole life to what you see on somebody's else's surface. You know all the details of your situation and often see only the positive surface information of others. As I have heard people say many times when referring to Facebook "Don't compare your life to somebody else's highlight reel".

Moreover, don't spend time worrying and lamenting over something you can't change. By all means try to better your self but never, EVER, base your happiness on how far you feel you are from someone else you have decided is better than you. You will never be them so stop trying. I am also 100% sure somebody has looked at you and said something along the lines of "I wish I had….. like her".

I don't mean this post to sound aggressive or like I am telling you to give up on trying to be better. All i'm saying is don't waste time worrying about something you can't change, and spend your time working on things that you can. Strive to be better. Work harder. Love harder. Be good to others. But, most of all - be fair on yourself. You never know what that person you think has the "perfect" life is dealing with. Do not wish you had their life.

This is your life so please, for goodness sake, be YOU.

As always, sending my little fairy lights of love out into the universe.

Claire xx

Wednesday Wisdom: Happiness

One of my worst habits is thinking things like "next week i'll exercise more", "next year I'll work harder towards my goals", "tomorrow I will apply for courses", and worst of all "after I have done all of these next weeks, tomorrows and next years, I will be happy". I saw this quote and it resonated with me A LOT. I am very guilty of seeing happiness as some fantastical destination that I will reach one day. Happiness is making a decision every morning to get up, count your blessings, make a conscious decision to do all the small things that bring light to your life and look for the things that make you smile.

I am not saying that every single day we should be bags of joy and bouncing off the walls, but we certainly shouldn't think of happiness as a place we will reach once we have all our ducks in a row. I have come to the realisation that I don't think that anyone has ever had, in the history of the earth, everything in their life be exactly how they want it to be. i.e. Perfect job, perfect partner, perfect children, perfect house, perfect friends, perfect lifestyle. And for the people that do have their "vision" of perfect in all these accounts could still find themselves feeling unfulfilled, wanting for more and still not happy.

This brings me back to the very title of this post - Wednesday Wisdom. I now have a goal to put up a little piece of wisdom every Wednesday, whether it be something to remind me each week to think on the good things, or something that will make me want to make little changes. Attitude is everything. Attitude determines whether we crawl up in a ball and cry at a bump in the road, or take it in our stride and work through it with determination and don't let it bring us to our knees.

Don't wait to be happy, I assure you, it will never come if you do. Make the conscious decision right now to make happiness your mantra and bring that attitude to each to and every day.

Now I would just like to end this post with revealing some of the things I am thankful for and things that make me smile. It may sound cheesy, and if anything, this is solely for my benefit to help me on my happy journey. It's a big plus if it helps you - I encourage you to write your own lists, even if it is not shared.

• I'm thankful for my parents, who support me no matter what path I choose

• I'm thankful for my gorgeous partner who also supports me through everything

• I love that I can enter my own world in my head and daydream for hours

• I find the beach incredibly peaceful and it truly ignites my imagination - I need to make the effort to go there more

• Cups of tea make me smile, every time

• I am able to be content with my own company

• I am not ever wanting for food and am blessed with the resources to cook myself nourishing and delicious meals. 

Sending my love and light out into to all your little universes

xx

All the Small Things

As a young girl I never wore makeup, I didn’t shave my legs, and it didn’t matter if I made any money or not selling play dough figurines at the front gate. My heart was full and warm when I spent an afternoon drinking tea and reading an entire book front to back, baking a cake for my family, spending hours kicking a soccer ball around every weekend (even though I wasn’t very good at it), having a warm bubble bath and day dreaming for an hour, listening and dancing my heart out to questionable 90’s music, writing stories that no one would ever read, and eating as many cookies as I wanted - thank you very much!

I do not know if it the curse of getting older, or just an unfortunate mindset of the modern world, but do you ever find yourself just going through the motions each day? I know I am guilty of having the mindset that “next year I am going to go on holiday / I’ll find a better job soon and then things will be good”. I find myself neglecting to do the things that make me happy. It is so easy to get home from work and just want to make anything simple, watch some TV then go to bed. I feel like I am letting myself be alive but only really living two days a week. Some weeks it feels more like 0 - it’s easy to spend those days sleeping because I am tired or cleaning because I have been too lazy to during the week.

I want to hold on to all those things that I made a priority as a child. Do you ever feel yourself being too lazy to do anything that actually makes you happy?? I call for making the small things a priority. I know that everything that I enjoyed as a child I still enjoy now. I like to call them my Creature Comforts.

I’m not just talking about the material things or luxuries that help to provide for one’s bodily comfort.  For me, creature comforts are the things that make us each individually happy. For one person this could be spending time making a nourishing meal or walking their dog in the local park. For another, reading their favourite book for the tenth time, writing their own story, or taking a long bath.

Most definitions of creature comforts are things that are not necessities as they are not things needed to “live”. I want to argue that they are. We must value the time we have and spend it doing the things that fulfill us, not merely sustain us. What is the point in life if you are not really living?

I aim to make my creature comforts a priority from now on. I hope to share some of them with you and hopefully either give you some ideas or just put a little bit of extra colour in your life! Please feel free to share your creature comforts with me. What makes you happy?