choose to be happy

It's half past five in the morning and I'm back in my office.

I was here yesterday too for Valentine's Day - the process of shredding 10 boxes of unnecessary archived-documents was very fulfilling... just 4 more to go.

I've just noticed that Lent began on February 10th. I'm not Catholic, but thought it'd be a good exercise for me to give up something for this season. This year, I've chosen social media. No more Instagram, no more Facebook... I think I just might reclaim my life back, sleep better, and find a lot more time to do much more important and impactful things.

Choosing to be happy is not a new concept to me. The whole thing about having an internal locus of control... I know it. Just as most things in life result from the choices we make; being, or getting to a state of being happy is a choice. It just starts by saying "I want to be happy" and choosing to get there, no matter what. And it's not like I don't know how to get there - because I do. And even that's my perceived "ideal" state to be happy - it's not like I can't be happy now where I am as well.

But just for the heck of it, and for the sake of a little of a mind-dump, here are my ideals to get there:

Steps to my happy-happy state

1. Sleep by 10pm and get a solid 8 hours of sleep a night
2. Don't eat after 5pm - I sleep a lot better and feel a lot better in the morning when I do this
3. Exercise everyday for at least half an hour
4. Run at least 5 km a week (for a start)
5. Eat right - no more crappy stuff. The crappy stuff is bad for my physical health, and the guilt just gives me anxiety - which sucks.
6. Read - the Bible, and whatever heck else I've been wanting to read
7. Go to church - I've been really antisocial for a couple of years now
8. Pray. I need to accept that I really can't do everything by my own strength
9. Be disciplined with work and non-work hours
10. Make time for activities that I enjoy - language, fencing, organizing, animals, volunteering... Do I really enjoy volunteering? 
11. Konmari life and Get minimal. Throw out all the stuff that doesn't bring me joy. Get on top of life's administrative needs, finances, and the like.

That should do it.
Maybe I'll get there in 6 months, maybe a year, maybe much sooner than I think.
Whatever it is, I need to make a decision that I'm going to be happy, healthy, and successful.

I've missed 5 days, but here's to the rest of the 35 days of Lent left... and here's to deciding to get happy. I might not be able to drop everything and do it all at once, but one step forward is still progress.

Lethargy

What a season it has been. Over the past three weeks I've experienced one of the busiest Chinese New Year seasons yet.

I didn't touch my bed for a whole week because I was too tired by the end of the day to climb up to my bedroom on the second floor (and just ended up sleeping on the couch). I experienced my first 40-hour work day. I juggled so many things at once. I fell asleep on my desk for the first time. So many of my meals were replaced by festive cookies and tarts...

Gosh, what a season it has been.
And I'm only now starting to recover from it all.

The best part of it all?
I finally found some time in between to clean out and organize a whole ton of my paperwork in my office...and it felt so good.

I suppose life has been whizzing by so fast and I've been struggling to catch up.

Perhaps it's age, and possibly because of the hypothyroid, but I've been exhausted most of my days....if not everyday. It's not quite such a good feeling - that constant tiredness throughout the day, starting from the moment I awake.

Since a year ago, I'd been trying to move toward minimalism - driven by a need to just get rid of as much stuff as possible so I can try to minimize the outflow of energy somehow. Right now it's what I think about a lot - just getting rid of as much stuff as possible.

So much has been on my mind about work and it takes much energy to keep moving forward. New challenges, new people, new state of body to carry me through... It's Valentine's day tomorrow and with it has brought many thoughts too. I don't even know what I'm writing now; the lethargy is disrupting my train of thoughts.

I'm going to stop now. All I'm going to do now is just focus on clearing out my photos or emails in my laptop... at least even in my slightly drained state I should be able to stay productive and make simple decisions as such.