Coming back to Rochester with this cold and depressing weather, and everything coming at me at once is definite stressing me out. I haven't been this stressed and frustrated for a while. I guess South Africa and Vietnam spoiled me hard core.

Yep, I have been slacking on updating my blog, haven't even finished writing my end of the year blog entry. That is something I absolutely have to finish before Lunar New Year, and hopefully will be able to. So, featuring an awesome article that I came across from Galadarling blog today, makes me feel a little bit better.

Things You Need In Order To Stay Happy

Jan. 11, 2012

By Ryan O'Connell

You need to make plans to see someone on a Tuesday because having a guaranteed fun activity in the middle of the week will keep you sane and give you something to look forward to. And let’s face it, we all need something to look forward to during the work week. I’m all for having a dinner party with a few of my friends and getting three glasses of wine drunk at 9pm and being in bed by 11. By punctuating your busy week with something exciting, it will go by so much faster. It also always feels good to do something a little forbidden on a Tuesday (Oops, I went out when I should’ve stayed in. Oops, I got stoned. Oops, there’s work tomorrow!) Putting so many rules on yourself will ensure that one day you’ll snap and become a full-fledged alcoholic psycho in your thirties. (Just ask my mom! JK, love you mom!)

You need music you can fall in love with. Any spare moment I have, I’ll be up in the music blogs looking for that new song that’ll be like crack for my earbuds. I don’t know about you guys but when I find a new song to obsess over, I’m like pretty set for the next three days. I don’t need a flirty text message, a delicious meal, or an amazing night out. I’m pretty much set with my New Favorite Song.

You need someone in your life who excites you, makes you nervous, and forces you to question what you think you already know. These usually come in the form of a crush or a relationship. A relationship is obviously ideal but a crush can tide you over like a nice appetizer. We spend so much of our time feeling jaded and set in our ideas, and that’s clearly not a fun way to exist. We pretend it is but deep down it feels a little miserable because we don’t want to know all the answers. We want someone who’s challenging, who we can’t figure out, and can tell us that we’re full of crap. We need someone to get us off the internet and remind us that real life is much more fun. And it’s okay to be unsure and nervous because that just means we’re alive again.

We need stressful days in order to be happy. We need days when we get zero sleep and are working tirelessly on a deadline. Because if we didn’t, the lazy days wouldn’t feel good. After my accident, I took a semester off to live in LA and go to rehab three times a week. At first I thought, “This will be good. I can focus on my recovery and I’ll read a lot of books and write.” Um, yeah right. I was bored to tears. The days I wasn’t spending at the doctors or in physical therapy, I would be doing nothing. It’s no fun doing nothing. I don’t know how rich people can fill their days with pointless appointments and call it a fulfilling life. We need to always be working towards something in order to feel useful and have a sense of purpose. And then those days off when you just veg feel so good. We often say that we’d like a very long vacation but most of us would probably get very bored after a week.

We need to treat ourselves to stupid stuff. We spend a great deal of our time saying “NO” to things just so one day we can be like “Screw it. I’m doing me today.” If you did “you” every day, you’d either be broke or ridden with STDS.

We need family. Whether it be in the traditional sense of the word or the kind of family we create on our own when we get older, we need to feel like we belong somewhere. Otherwise, we would permanently feel like a raw exposed nerve that could just disappear at any given moment. If they died, who would claim the body?

And last, but certainly not least, we need to like ourselves in order to be happy. BOMBSHELL! Go read Eat, Pray, Love now for more new information! (Ew, don’t read that book ever.) Here’s the thing that’s funny about self-love. People say that in order to have someone love you, you gotta love yourself and I think that’s BS. I know many people who are in relationships and full of self-loathing. In fact, it seems like the more damaged someone is, the more likely they are going to be in a relationship. It might not be a healthy one but they’ll be tethered to someone for sure. So listen, don’t go love yourself and think it’s going to complete the puzzle. Don’t think people are going to gravitate to you because when you love yourself, you delete 70% of your dating options because you’re looking for someone who’s equally as happy and well-adjusted, which is a rare thing to find. So love yourself just for the sake of doing it, for being able to look in the mirror without wincing and to take yourself out to the movies and lunch and think you’re great company. Do it in order to stay happy.

Oh, and you need to have a healthy amount of sex. Always.