Insouciant

Everywhere you turn, every app you use is selling you instant happiness, tips on how to get happy and fast; because in the western world nothing is good unless it's fast. They show you before and after pictures of people who have found happiness, they show you the happiest man, according to scientists, the happiest places to be, how lots and lots of money still won't make you happy, all while publishing the article on a website that is 50% content and 50% advertising. Now I am not here to condemn these because with a title like 5 things to do to become happier, I would be a fool not to fall for the clickbait. However I do have a few qualms with some of the advice that they like to freely dish out.  

 I think happiness is something you have to work for it's not something you are entitled to, it should be a never quest that doesn't just end once you find happiness, you have to keep the happy juices flowing. A lot of people can't just do five things to achieve life long happiness, it just not feasible for a lot of people, because it sounds silly and a bit too simplistic; maybe that's where the secret lays.  But surely not for long luxurious jovial lives.

For at the moment, instant on the spot happiness I think articles or life hacks like this are awesome, However a lot of them don't talk about the importance of a clean closet with you in or out said closet. Because honey all the skeletons you have shoved in there will one day, want it or not or simply fall out, if you simply can't clean them up you need to disguise them, that might make anything and everything worse though but anything is better than just letting them residue in the proverbial closet in your head. Skeletons will kill your vibe not bitches.

With a lot of these articles, there comes a hidden pressure to succeed, because the things that you are advised to do are so simple even an untrained chimp can do them, and learn how to be successfully happy; well still it's only going to last so long. and for the most part they can be quite good for the x amount of hours you are at work; this doesn't apply if your work place resembles a gingerbread house and your name is Hansel and you know a cunt named Gretel and you shit rainbows. And for that reason (the longevity not the shitting of rainbows) is why happiness has to be treated like a Never Ending Quest. And like all good quests its never easy to get to the finish line, there are a number of sometimes reoccurring obstacles that will without doubt stand in your way.
Forgiveness is one of the things that I feel like they never really delve into and for me I think that forgiveness could easily be at the core of happiness, I don't mean the fake smile forgiveness that we give to others, but the genuine self forgiveness. We need to be able to truly forgive ourselves before we start to forgive others. Sometimes we set ourselves tasks and when we don't do the set tasks at a standard that satisfies us we tend to beat ourselves up about it. Metaphorically I hope. If you can't go to bed pissed off with your partner, why is it so acceptable to go bed pissed off at yourself?. BUT DON'T be a Mug mate forgiveness shouldn't always cause amnesia bro. 

Going after what you want. If there is anything 2015 taught me its that, life is too short to not go after what you want. Sometimes we don't go after things we want because well for so many reasons listing them could become a book, but honestly the perfect time will never come. Ever. Throw (well planned) caution to the wind and just do it. I am not saying walk out of your job knowing very well you haven't secured a new one, pre plan it, save search and succeed. 

Small things sometimes have a bigger impact than the bigger things, for some people the key to happiness is picking up a hobby, something they can indulge in regularly or when they can be asked, for some it is indulging in hedonist activities of their choice and for some its just sparking up. This small thing is something you can do to help you balance out the fact that you are not shitting rainbows at your work place, where you spend more time than should probably be allowed or legal but legality doesn't always pay bills. 

Finding a peace of mind, I think it's so easy to get caught up in a thousand things, all at once but keeping a peace of mind frees a piece of your mind. And that in turn leaves more brain capacity to be happy or seek out happiness. 

So back to the point about these articles, especially the ones that really try to tell you that money does not play a factor in happiness, first that's some bullshit because the fact that you simply posted this a revenue producing, advert selling website means you are using the article as click bait and what does click bait generate? Revenue and what does that mean, money in someone's pocket does it not?

Without money you simply can't go after what you want, because you are busy chasing after what you need; a paying job. We all know a graduate that works a minimum wage job that they loathe, not because this is what they had in mind while applying for UCAS, but simply because sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. They can't sit at home unemployed as they await the big graduate job, that would be silly. 

Without money you won't or rather can't get the 'small' things. Can your budget stretch to buy you the bits and bobs you need for your hobby, does you 40 hour job and 5 hour over time you do allow you spare time in which to have a hobby?. After all you are saving for *something* and every penny that isn't spent on bills is going into that pot. 

Importantly without money you won't get a peace of mind, because that is the last thing on your mind. A piece of your mind is worrying about finding the graduate job because your current job isn't your final form and you know it, another piece is on the fact that so much of your pay check is going on bills, and so on and so forth I hope you get the idea with where I am going with this. 

See how easily you can become unhappy? All the money counters alone can easily make you go from 69 year old Tibetan man to Katie Hopkins, that bitch never smiles. And honestly I want to say that all these counters will always be there, you will always have money issues, you will always have some sort of obstacle. But you always have to have a greater reason to be happy, you have to do whatever you can. You have to learn how to maximise with what you have currently, that's easier said than done but apparently something worth having won't be easy or some idealistic shit like that.

-Mal 

'5k to couch'

p.s But then at the same time, happiness is very conformist, especially when you seek the happiness that people have, seek your own kind of happiness. And happiness stifles creative, however creativity simply breeds happiness. Finally I think its important to embrace all the times you aren't happy, these are the times you will experience vast personal growth. But if your lack of happiness comes at a cost of feeling empty and low and unable to enjoy anything, please see your doctor depression is real and real help can be and is at hand once you seek it. 

A Deceptive Outward Apperance

When we think of deceptions we think only psychopaths are capable of being deceptive; we believe for someone to be successfully deceptive they must be either psychopaths or pathological liars; just people who don't belong to 'normal' society. For people to knowingly deceive a group of people they must be untrustworthy; we must keep away from these social deviants, this is the general census surrounding facades and deceptions.

While for many deception does come naturally for others it has become almost a necessary part of survival, they deceive for a multitude of reasons. But for the most part it's to dress up the truth, make it presentable, palatable, prettier by altering it's appearance even if it slightly. This type of deception is not to benefit personally from the deception, this deception is to design to make others comfortable first by removing the nitty gritty parts of reality and just sugar coating them. 

I personally dislike the way that social media works by pitting people against each other, through the great art of showing off. This need to appear better than your peers has bred a type of people hell bent on ensuring their lives are dressed up so nicely so sparkly and just wonderful. It wasn't until I got Instagram that my blissful ignorance was shattered. I began to understand and sympathise with the reasons why social media breeds people talented in building facades. If you have a huge online following you are first and foremost going to be approached by a number of businesses selling everything from clothes to teeth whitening products,  you inevitably you will say yes and you will start to share more of your life so that people are hooked, and you will continue to sell. Now if you are in this situation you have a duty to your followers; misery doesn't sell, you begin to actively construct your image online, sometimes it might not match what is reality. There has been a number of a social media users who have straight out come out and admitted to doing so, there is a sense of normalcy when it comes to people with huge online following doing this.  

However everything changes ever so slightly when you don't have a huge online following, and yet you feel the need to create a facade with certain or all aspects of your life. The problem with this type of deception is the fact that eventually it starts to crumble and the people around you start to the number of inconsistencies within your life. Your online life and your real life just stop resembling the same person, the online pressures sometimes can be self imposed. Once people start realising that there is no need to pretend online their conscious will thank them for it, the people we are fronting for online just don't care that intimately about you for us to start fabricating aspects of our lives.

-Mal
'5k to couch'

p.s If you spend so much time fabricating your life you lose so much time that could be spent enjoying your present.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

'Have you seen his new girlfriend?, he downgraded'
'Some of these girls think they are pretty, but my toes look better than them'

During an argument or discussion it is so easy to talk about or reference the way someone looks, sometimes comments are passed giggles and sly looks are exchanged. You go on to boast on how these men are willing to drop stacks on you, willingly; as long as you wear what they picked up for you when in public together. And in that passing moment seemingly no one is hurt.

What you don't know is that the girl whose looks you have just turned into a joke has insecurities, at this point you don't care because they have nothing to do with you, she has found out that you speak like this about the way she looks, she can't change nothing about her genetics and neither can you. However you have noticed that unlike you she doesn't have the bad bitch look, her looks won't allure the likes of Kanye, Rick Ross won't compare her to a bag of money; but sadly neither will you. No offence but lets be realistic, what are the chances.

Her beauty is silent it doesn't boast, it calms the storms, it brightens up each room she walks in. She doesn't result to using genetics against you, thats an unfair fight and she knows it, instead she uses your personality traits or lack of to force the knife as blunt as your personality to draw herself further away from your toxicity.

The moral of this is that even though beauty is in the eye of the beholder, the beheld shouldn't perceive their beauty based on that, beauty is more than just how the outside looks.  When it comes to such matters I think the advice online is all well and good but realistically, the outside world will judge you based on your looks, first impressions aren't based on your personality; love at first sight is definitely not based on your personality because again call me a skeptic but people who are conventionally beautiful are believed to go further than regular Jane's.

That got a bit negative a bit to quick.
Although all the above is true, you have to remember that eventually outer beauty fades, the smooth skin turns into a crate filled red planet, that small waist turns into average waist, time makes making out beauty as a driving force redundant; once time and gravity start to work their magic only genes will save you from that. But if you have talent and a personality, brains the world becomes your oyster. the girls that giggled and laughed at you are looking at you envious.

You are only as beautiful as you feel and that begins to transpire on the outside.

-Mal
'5k to couch'

p.s Keep your head high the beholder only holds on for a certain amount of time, the beheld; you, holds on for your whole life. 

Soldier

Is it by force you dey form superpower?


I am not one to recommend or even listen to afrobeats for leisure BUT BUT BUT, Something about this song has me listening to on repeat.

-Mal
'5k to couch'

p.s They should make me compile the music list for 2017 I am on my Musical A Game. Sort of not really but that's not the point. 

an Ode To 2015

Ending 2015 I was on my kitchen counter watching the sky and the lights illuminating, everything about that scene made me feel almost content in the moment. Like many others 2015 had been a trying time, I had gone to my personal hell and came back still fighting but barely alive.

I don’t want this to be a post on how much I hated 2015, instead I want this to be an acknowledgement of everything that I feel aided in making me a strong person. Often we are quick to point out what went wrong and we completely start to ignore what went well and like most people know bad news travels a lot faster and further than good news would ever try to attempt.

This year has showed me the importance of the right kinds of friend, I have learned that not everyone in a relationship has the same expectations; and by relationship I don’t mean exclusively romantic relationships. I am so grateful for every encounter I had in 2015 with people I may no longer be able to call friends, but everything taught me so much, so so so much, everything I thought I knew about friendships was turned upside down then inside out. My dad taught me that the greatest judgement of character is by what the person is not saying. Sometimes we are quick to call peers our friends based on what they say, and once a situation to prove themselves comes no one is quick to rise to the challenge.

Personal growth is a phrase I love throwing about especially when applying for jobs, but in 2015 I felt the growth within my person. The whole of 2015 was an emotionally draining rollercoaster, the highs where short lived and thrilling, and the lows came hard and fast right after. My insomnia was at its worst, all while battling third year and a racist work place and housemate issues and best believe that my plate was full but I became increasingly brilliant at hiding that plate and helping other people carry theirs. Then just before summer it all got too much I started passing out frequently and my body started getting heavy to lift and carry. I quit my job on A5 notepad paper and posted it off in an A3 envelop I didn’t have the energy to even try and do it better. This was at the time the worst time in my life, I had really bad anxiety, I would bounce from not sleeping at all to not having energy to wake up. I don’t know what clicked in me but I was determined to not live like that, I couldn’t go to the doctor for my own reasons and I fought every fibre in my body to make sure I didn’t wait till January to try and change my life for the better for myself. Everyday became an opportunity to start afresh and to forgive myself, something I did not allow myself  prior to this. and by November I had clear plans in my head, I had laid the foundations of change and I was determined to not break them. 

I am gonna end this on here but in all my hearts I believe that bad things happen so we can recognise and appreciate when the good things do start to happen. I am not saying because I had such a shit year I am entitled to a good year, old me probably would have thought that; although I wouldn’t have admitted to it. I realise that sometimes you have to turn the situations around yourself and that’s by doing things some people may not understand, if you are religious that could mean speaking to a pastor or someone in the church, that could mean going to the doctors and telling him you feel blue, blue enough to go see him, that could mean exercise; it like be anything and ending 2015 has made me realise instead of saying 2016 will be my year I am now finally prepared mentally, physically, spiritually to make 2016 my year. I know it will have its bumps but with the amount of times I have managed to get up in 2015 whatever 2016 will throw my way will be a walk in the park.

-Mal

'5k to couch'

P.s Originally I was gonna take a picture, that spoke these words but then I realised that although a picture can 1000 words, it might not be able to fully capture the beauty I saw and felt at that moment.