When you live in paradise, if you're not happy, the problem is not your surroundings... it is you.
These are my learnings that I wish I had and understood when I wasn't in paradise.
In my life, I've never been the happiest person. I've never been the most grateful. There were moments of happiness, of gratitude that were few and far between a lot of over thinking.
I want to be.
I've grown through a nuclear family, poverty living, unstable living conditions, dependency issues, a toxic marriage, a literal war, and self-esteem issues.
I finally got to the point where I felt things are awesome in my life. I-
Live in Portugal
I live on my own in an apartment with an air conditioner
I'm jacked
I work remotely
I do my passions daily
I eat well
I'm decently far from broke
My living expenses are low.
The sky and myself feels like the limit at this point.
The thing is, this is all new.
I was struggling to get to a point where I felt stable in a happy place where I felt like I could grow.
At this point, I'm in exactly this place. Everything in my city is walkable, plenty of food, markets, things to do, places to see, women, gyms, etc. I love this place. It's a paradise.
And yet, I couldn't really appreciate this until recently. And to this day I still struggle with appreciating these things and being happy, but I'm working on getting better.
Before, I was a very anxious person. I was overthinking constantly, always worried about something going wrong and the next level of pain that life was going to throw at me. I still have been this person, even recently, and I'm trying to be less so. I feel that I'm succeeding slightly, so this is
I had an amazing loving relationship with a beautiful brazilian girl that I couldn't stay in because I still kept feeling bad. It wasn't bad because of her, it was bad because of my head and feeling like I was still living life wrong. Mentally I wasn't happy with myself somehow. I was still having super high anxiety or problems over small things. Less than before, but lack of gratitude made me feel like shit.
The problem was me. Not only lack of gratitude, but not realizing some things about myself. And I don't / didn't want to live like this. So, what am I doing to fix this?
The Goal
If before I was happy a lot less, maybe like, 20 - 50% of the time, I wish to be this way closer to 70 - 100% of the time. The only goal is more good and happy moments than bad. I mean happy, fulfilled, peaceful, satisfied.
How to be happy
There are some base understandings to it, and I try to write for any situation to remember this sort of thing.
In problem solving, strong logic is king. Emotions are important, yet no one gives a shit about your emotions unless they're your significant other. You have to drive your human suit in a way that keeps you and your soul emotionally healthy and happy.
1. The universe owes you nothing.
TL;DR: The universe owes you nothing, so be grateful for any good thing you have. From gratitude stems joy.
Every good thing in your life is a matter of circumstance. To some degree we are all self-made. To another degree, every possible good thing you have is because you're lucky.
You were the strongest sperm in your dads nutsack.
Your parents didn't abort you
Your device you're reading this on was built by someone probably much smarter than you
You could not have x good thing in your life
You could've grown up in a much worse shithole, or if you didn't grow up in a shithole, you could've
You could have not had the education that lead you to the decisions that even got you this far.
Someone has it much worse than you and would love to trade places.
From this basis and knowing that things could be much worse, it allows you to open up to find gratitude.
Things could always be much worse. That is a fact and an awareness at any point in time. People have a better and easier time than you and more resources. That's ok, and not useful.
I made a chart on this one time. Not the prettiest lmao:
2. Gratitude brings resourcefulness
Reflect on positive shit. ~ Mentor jack
Gratitude, focusing and appreciating when you have allows you to be resourceful. When you look at what you do have, you're both taking inventory of what you do have and are looking at resources to get to where you want to be.
It's a win-win, and this is what will allow you to enjoy the journey AND the destination, not just when you get to the destination. See what you have, love it, embrace your situation because one day you'll hopefully look back on it and wish you appreciated it more. FUCKING USE IT! Use and love what you have to get to where you want to go and improve your life, become a better person, and improve your situation!
3. Breathe into your stomach
In general, you should probably breathe more. Specifically breathing into your stomach (more so, your diaphragm). This is called diaphragmatic breathing. It helps keep you calm. Many people suck at breathing. This is a way that will help you in sports and in life to allow you to be more calm. You want to be calm and feel good and have good and happy thoughts.
You can live 3 minutes (on average) without oxygen before you die.
Air is a key resource. Calmness is power and helps you to keep a steady mind. Being anxious sucks. Breathing helps.
When I implemented this, which was a challenge, I started calming down a lot and feeling great. Note: This requires practice and focus when you start, but it does help.
Here's a video on the topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mg2ar-7_HfA
4. Let's talk about anxiety and fear
My mentor gave me an analogy (or, metaphor?) with an example for anxiety.
When should you feel anxious when getting punched in the face?
He put his hand in a fist and raised his arm. He told me "Let me know when you should be anxious".
He started slowly moving his fist towards my face.
Him: "Now?"
Me: "No."
Fist moving closer.
Him: "Now?"
Me: "No."
Fist moving closer.
Him: "Now?" Me: "No."
Fist hitting my face.
Him: "Now?" Me: "No."
The lesson was that at no point when getting punched in the face does it make sense for you to be anxious. Throughout the whole process jumping into your mind and being anxious wasn't useful. It would only take you out of the moment when you need to be there and actually handle the situation. In a non-slow exactly, dodge, get hit, or disable the attacker who is attacking you.
Overthinking is not useful.
Thinking is, but not overthinking.
Here's another quote from my mentor:
There is no logical reason for anxiety. It's all make believe. Fear of the future is anxiety. You control your future. Find relief in knowing you are the captain of your ship. ~ Mentor Jack
You can stop reading this section and let that sink in 🚿🚪.
Thinking is useful. Not enjoying or appreciating what you have after you've effectively thought is not.
You'll know you're overthinking when you've reflected enough and have pretty much been having the same thoughts over and over again. At that point, guess what you need to do? BREATHE! haha.
Remember: We are responsible for our own lives. We are not our minds or our thoughts. We make choices. We choose to act on thoughts or not.
A note on intrusive thoughts
Now, I'm someone who has struggled in the passed with intrusive thoughts. And they are a bitch.
Some examples:
At a weak time of mental health, I had intrusive thoughts of throwing myself out of a window. I had a clear vision of moving towards a window in this apartment and falling out. I wouldn't call myself someone who wanted to die. But I did have these strong visual thoughts that caused me to think I was suicidal.
If you want to get really real, I'm a straight man. I've had intrusive gay thoughts and feelings before that fucked me up for like a day because I had to question my own sexuality a few times when my mental health was shit. After I calmed down and realized I kept naturally looking at girls and found the idea of dudes banging to be gross, I calmed down again lmao.
When I was in high school I had thoughts about having sex with my female teachers and class mates, and / or how at any point in time me or someone else could probably kill another person with a pencil, stapler, etc.
These thoughts are loud and obnoxious, and, they are thoughts. You might need space to freak out sometimes and that's ok. Take that time to take care of yourself, but these do go away as you have more strength, health, and confidence in yourself. So keep reading to handle those things.
5. Do things that make you love yourself.
Choose yourself and take care of you.
I'm not saying to be selfish. I'm saying to be self-respecting and self-regarding. One is at the expense of other people.
All of your wishes you should probably make come true. You can only see what you want from your current point in the mountain. There is no great reason to not take some sort of step towards your dreams and goals at any point in time. Want to learn piano but want to focus on work first? It won't happen later. But you might need money to get there.
Didn't like how you acted in a situation? Do better next time. Don't know how? Learn it. Seek advice.
What I would advise personally is:
Take care of your body and health.
In general, tell AND seek the truth and be honest with people.
Be around people who inspire you and that you admire.
Treat yourself well. Do things you want so long as they keep making you feel good. We are human. Ice cream is not a health food, but if you enjoy it and don't eat it mindlessly it can be a great thing. Though I doubt it will last long if you eat too much anyway because of inflammation from the sugar haha.
Parts of yourself you don't like? Wish you were better? Fucking get better. Get a six pack. Practice piano. Talk to ChatGPT and see what to do about it.
Take that trip to Japan.
Solve your problems.
Distance yourself from toxic people.
Be a kind person.
Ignore the shitty online dating advice.
Stay off of social media for some time if you suck at it and you don't feel great about yourself right now.
Feed your fucking soul. Life isn't all about money. It is definitely at least a little bit about money, and you need to find a fulfilling way of earning it. But it's not all. You only get one shot at life. Take care of your shit.
Have hard conversations with people that you don't like something that they're doing.
Be kind in general, and communicate clearly when people are crossing boundaries.
Get strong and learn how to defend yourself. This is a huge confidence booster. Looking fantastic does help with self-esteem, but DO NOT TAKE FUCKING ROIDS. Eat carnivore and go to the gym 🍖. If you're a woman, you don't have to get jacked, but you can do exercises to improve your appearance without getting bulky.
The point here is to Choose yourself and take care of you. Don't do things that you wouldn't respect in another person.
Last note here:
Find good overall people
I got lucky randomly meeting my mentor Jack. He's one of the happiest people I've ever met and without his advice, well, I wouldn't have some of the greatest results that I have today, nor have as much progress on being a happy and confident person as I have now.
Having a person or people who you know directly and admire.
They say never meet your heroes because once you meet them you might find them to be a piece of shit. I had no clue about my mentor and then discovered that he's an epic person with one of the most functional relationships, mindset, and families ever.
I don't follow all of his advice (I pay a lady to do my laundry to save me 2 hours of interruption lmao), but I do try it and what works for me I keep.
I don't think it makes a lot of sense to learn from people with a good result if they're not a great person in the process.
6. Be fucking patient
I was the least patient person I knew for a while. I wanted fast results. The reality is, it can happen where you get fast results, but you need to get better at the process part before you get there. You have to embrace reality sometimes and realize that some things take longer than we expect. But if you take one thing away from this article, let it be this quote:
We do these things not because they are easy, but because we thought they were going to be easy. ~ The Programmer's Credo
We only found out they weren't easy after we decided that the result was worth doing. You might find a result isn't worth it. It's ok to change your mind on some things, but for the things that are really worth it let them be hard!
Let them take time. Give yourself time. You'll get better at the skill strategy, etc.
The important thing here is consistency.
Rome was not built in a day. ~ Mentor Jack
Conclusion
I ran out of steam and more things to write. I hope something in this article helps somebody. It's just what's been working for me 🙂
This article is not perfect. Neither am I. But it is mine, and I felt good writing it, so it seems that it was perfect for me 🙂 I hope someone finds the vulnerability in this post refreshing and the content generally useful.
Also, plug time 🔌
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