A few good rules I live by.

Isn't it crazy how you always end up where you're meant to be? How even the most stressful situations teach you an important lesson? Lessons that you couldn't have even imagined you were going to learn.  Have you ever thought or felt like you were being pushed away from something good, and later realize that you were actually being redirected to something 100 times better. I have felt like that more times in my life than I would like to admit. I have to stop and remind myself that I can't control everything, and that more often than not I just need to relax and have faith that things will work out. But it's so hard to just sit back isn't it? Sometimes I feel like i'm lost in this world and I want nothing more than to find my true self. Well if you have ever felt like that to, maybe this will help. 

A few years ago I was told by a good friend of mine who is a psychologist that realizing you are lost is the first step to living the life you want. The second step is leaving the life you don't want. Now making a big life change is very scary, but in my point of view regret is even scarier. If our heart is free, why shouldn't we have the courage to follow it? In my life it has been the scary, stressful choices that have ended up being the most worthwhile. I have endured a lot of pain, but without pain there wouldn't have been change. It's because of that change that I now like to live by a few good rules. I want to share these rules of living with you in hopes that maybe they will help you too. 

1. Before befriending others, you have to be your own friend. Before correcting others you have to correct yourself. Before making others happy, you have to make yourself happy. I don't see it as being selfish I see it as personal development.

2. The only thing I think that we can absolutely control is how we react to things that are out of our control. The more flexible we are to adapting to the situations in life, the more powerful our highs will be, and the more quickly we will be able to bounce back from lows in our life. 

3. We have to realize that some people will lie to us. Remember an honest enemy is better than a friend who lies. Pay less attention to what people say, and more attention to what they do. Their actions will show you the truth, which will help you measure the true quality of your relationship. 

4. If we concentrate on what we don't have then we will never have enough. But if we are thankful for what we do have then we will end up having more. I believe that happiness lives not in possessions or in riches. Happiness lives inside our souls. I think that abundance is not about how much we have, It's how you feel about what we have. That's why when we take things for granted our happiness gets taken away. 

5. Just because you're not where you want to be today doesn't mean that you wont be there someday. We can turn it all around just by making a simple choice to stand back up, to try again, to love again, to live again or to dream again. We can't judge ourselves by our failures or our past because that is not where we are anymore. 

And last but certainly not least: 6. During times when it seems like everything that could possibly go wrong is going wrong. And you feel like you will be stuck in this rut forever, but you won't. Of course the sun stops shinning sometimes and we may even get a thunderstorm or two, but eventually the sun will come out again. More times it's just a matter of us staying positive in order to be able to see the sunshine break through the clouds again.