10 tips to happiness:
1. Spend time by yourself in solitude (preferably outside). Get away from the noise, even if for only 10 minutes per day.
2. Always be learning. Just because you’re out of school doesn’t mean you should stop learning. In fact, now you can learn about subjects of your choosing! Pick something that interests you and dig in.
3. Give (volunteer time, money, material items/goods, or advice). We are meant to be part of a community or tribe. Don’t only live for yourself. That’s lonely. Live to help others – family, friends, and strangers.
4. Do something hard everyday. Try challenging yourself and overcoming obstacles. Go work out, build something with your hands, read a novel that makes you think, plant a garden…the bigger the hurdle, the bigger your reward when you overcome it.
5. Live/act in alignment with your morals…do what is right, even when it’s tough and even when nobody else is looking. Do not boast about this. You are doing what you’re supposed to do. Don’t do it for the reward of other people’s approval. This also involves “tough love.” Doing or saying what needs to be done or said for the betterment of that individual, even if it means telling them what they don’t want to hear.
6. Treat others with kindness, regardless of their status or what they can “give” to you. Think of “The Golden Rule.”
7. Do not attribute malice to what could be ignorance. Especially in today’s world, where it seems we assume anyone with a different opinion than ours is evil, maybe they just don’t know what they don’t know. Maybe they don’t have the life experience you have. They may be blind to certain situations because they haven’t seen it first hand. And guess what? The same can be said about you. You’re not an all-knowing, perfect, empathetic individual. And hopefully as you go through life you figure some new things out and change your opinions from time to time. It’s not flip-flopping. It’s growing.
8. Avoid comparing yourself to others. Comparison is the thief of joy. Be happy with what you have.
9. Care about/for something. If you have interests/hobbies, you will have something to look forward to. If you have to take care of something (like a pet, child, or parent) or if you have a cause you believe in, then you will find purpose in life.
10. Smile…it will make you feel better and it will make others feel better. Smiling is contagious. Try to spread it.