A promising start..

Every year comes to an end and there comes a new one. Usually, I am not someone that really makes a big deal out of it because it's just marked time. Funnily enough, every year for the past two years everyone in the house falls asleep before the clock strikes 12 on new year's day.

I think that globally, we could all agree 2016 was not a good year. On a personal level, everyone's also glad to be getting rid of it. However, I will for once beg to differ; although it is the same every year with people wishing the year to be over so they could start with a clean slate, new resolutions and all that, this year that wasn't me. I had a lot to be thankful for, a lot to look back on and in the end realised it was a really good year -birthday mark and calendar mark-.

I don't think it can be measured by how many countries you've visited, lovers you've scored or bucket list items you've checked. The biggest lesson I've learnedrd this year was that happiness comes above all. If you're happy, then life will be pretty good for you, no matter how shitty of a situation you will be going through today, tomorrow or the next week, being determined to stay happy -as silly as it sounds- really makes a difference!

I'm not someone who's capable of staying optimistic on the clock, although I try, my pessimistic tendencies always seem to take over. I am not one of those people who smile all the time simply because, *cue laughter* it's a lot of work when its not meant. But I realised that striving to stay truly happy and joyful really does make a difference in who you are as a person and in your relationships with people around you.

That takes us to the biggest question of all; how? How can someone stay happy or maintain a happy look at life throughout everything and anything? Although I am no expert, the answer is they don't. When I say happy I don't mean literal face cracking smile happiness - although that never hurts-. What I mean is, knowing exactly what makes you happy and pursuing it. Know exactly which people you want around and make sure to keep those. And which you don't and cut them out. Let people who you care about know you do more often, and preferably start with yourself, care more about your own feelings than everyone around you.

Finding happiness in your life also means acceptance, accepting anything life throws at you and trying to look at it from a positive point of view as much as possible, makes it a lot easier to accept whateve life throws at you. Gratitude's also another extremely important factor. Being grateful for whatever you have instead of always wanting to do more, have more, feel more and see more makes a big difference in how you view things. Aspire to do more, have more and feel more but don't become unthankful for what you already have just because you can't have more.

Since I am starting to sound like a broken record I am going to stop preaching because really, what more can be said about happiness? We all know it, we've all had a taste of it, we just don't always know how to fully achieve it. My one advice would be to know yourself better and cherish it, cut out the bad habits and bad ties and create new, better ones.

Technically, my year's not over yet so we'll see what I have to say about that in August.

Until next time..

P.S. the world is a very bad place right now. Maybe not YOUR world, but other people's worlds are falling apart, so try and do whatever you can to make it a little better.