The perfect advice... Sometimes all it takes is a child to remind us how retarded we can be sometimes. Night night.

Rule #1

Always have something to look forward to.


This is the rule that started it all. I started this rule in February of my last year of university. I noticed that there were so many exciting and fun things ahead of me that I wanted to write them down just to look at how much I was about to have. I started a virtual sticky note on my laptop desktop so that every time I saw it (which, as a University student was always), I would get excited and motivated to finish whatever it was that I had to do before I could enjoy the thing that was next on the list. The list of things to look forward to started with events like: Cuba (Reading week), Home friends visiting, etc. Then the dreadful period of exams came my way and I found myself, like everyone else, in a school rut with little to no exciting events for the time that we were bound to our books.

I didn't like that there wasn't something to look forward to on my things to look forward to list. What was I to look forward to when all I had coming up was endless paper writing, sleepless nights, early mornings, too many coffees, too many words I couldn't quite find and too many sources I couldn't quite understand? So I wrote, "March 6th" - the end of the week of hell when the majority of things were due. That was something to look forward to in its own! It then acted as a reminder that all of the bullshit that I had to deal with will soon be over and that every day I am getting closer and closer to that tiny light at the end of the exam tunnel. The list also allowed me to look forward at the good ahead of me instead of dwelling on the past or letting the bad or less-than-exciting things bog me down.

It acted as a motivator to just get all my shit done too. At one point, the only thing I was looking forward to was "Tuesday reward", which was... get this... when Tuesday came and I was all done my assignments on that date, I was allowed to have my favourite: an oatmeal raisin cookie... That it... an oatmeal raisin cookie was the light in my life for a little bit when I was in school.. But it worked, I tell you. I finished those papers and I ate that damn cookie on a Tuesday and then I went back to work. But boy did it feel good.

I carried the list well into the summer and I still am adding to it. It is nice to look back and see what made me excited 6 months ago and to see what I live for now, which are things like "Macbook" and "basement move-in" and "boyfriend comes home".. The last one to which I am still waiting on, 5 weeks later... (one more week!)

I see the things to look forward to list just a simple way to count your blessings, encourage you to look forward and to act as a method of motivation when you feel like you're in a slump or a place of complete dullness. Things will get better, and something will make you smile soon. Find it before it happens and give yourself something to look forward to.

Life's Little Rules

I miss writing. I really do.

I've been out of school for only 3 months now, but I think that because I know I won't be starting writing in a month for school again, I am realizing that I need to do it for myself and not for my teachers or grades. I just have to do it...

So I am going to write a blog about the things I have learned in the past year. Or rather, I should say the things I have found important enough to take note that I have learned.

I started making this list by accident even. One day I made my facebook status Rule #1 [...], with no intention of ever having a rule #2 or rule #3... But #2 and #3 just came eventually, and then so did the rest... and more keep on coming as the days go on. As of now, I do not have a #9 or #10, but I can guarantee you that they will appear with the writing of this bog.

I must mention as well that these rules are not goals or eventual achievements. I do not go looking for these rules, but they come to me when I find that something that I do just fits. These are small things that I have already discovered that work... that make life better and that make me happier.

These are things I have done on my own and noted that these are the right things to do. The small rules I have made for myself that remind me that these things make me better.

These are the words or little sayings that I might repeat to myself when I am faced with some kind of situation to ensure that I make the right decision.

These are those little guidelines that we all make in order to keep us on track.

This is what I mean by life's little rules. We all have our own guidelines that we set for ourselves.

Here are mine...