The 21st century is a hectic one, and each year people just seem to get busier and busier. Instead of living, they are trying to keep up with everything around them. Technology has had an immense impact on our lives and has made many things easier. However, in making things easier and faster, we now have more time to cram other stuff in. The free time that we should have had is now swamped with more work.

One of the most significant aspects of our lives that has taken a knock is our relationships. Social media has opened up the lives of friends and strangers alike. However, the negative studies on social media are mounting. More counts of depression and anti-social behavior are being logged, and people seem to be getting further removed from one another.

However, this is an exciting age to live in, and if you can navigate the minefields, you could have a blast. Never before has there been an age with so many things to do. The access that we have to the world is unparalleled. You won’t be trying to survive life. You will be living it.

30. Take a stroll

Back in the day, people used to walk everywhere. If they didn’t walk, they were on horseback. Regardless of where you wanted to go, travel took physical effort. Now we are spoiled with cars, planes, escalators and elevators. What’s more is that most of our jobs require us to sit down for hours on end. It’s no wonder why there are so many obese people.

Because we don’t move around as much anymore, our body becomes lazy and doesn’t excrete the endorphins it used to. Before long, you hate your job and you become depressed. In some cases, it’s not your job that is at fault, but the fact that you don’t get exercise that makes you feel crappy.

Taking a regular stroll will help your body excrete the feel-good endorphins and get your blood pumping again. Your heart will love you for it, and your mood will improve.

29. The sound of silence

You might not have noticed it before, but when you think about it, there aren’t many minutes in the day where you can experience peace. If it isn’t the kids nagging you for something, it’s the traffic and the roads.

At the office, there is a constant buzz of computers and people talking. Just when you think you can get some peace, your spouse turns on the TV to watch a show.

Everything your ears take in, your mind has to process, whether conscious or subconscious. Spending time in silence will help your brain recuperate.

A 2013 study published in the journal Brain Structure and Function found that spending two hours in silence could regenerate cells in the hippocampus. This will help improve your memory and your ability to learn.

28. Pray in the morning

For many people, religion is a major part of their lives. They depend on God to help them and guide them. However, the rat race consumes most of us, and we end up neglecting the one thing that is supposed to give us peace, our faith.

Dr. Viktor Frankl concluded in his book Man’s Search for Meaning that the people who survived Auschwitz were the ones who had hope. The others perished.

We don’t live in a concentration camp, but life can become a lot to handle sometimes. For those who find solace in their faith, make time to pray in the mornings and ask for wisdom and guidance for the day.

You will feel inspired and ready to face the challenges of the day. Your thoughts will start to align with your prayer life, and you will begin to experience a more profound sense of peace throughout your day.

27. Keep it natural

The world we live in is designed for comfort and ease. If something isn’t easy, we tend to skip it and move on to something that takes less effort. The same can be said about the food we eat.

There are so many times where we opt for a quick instant meal rather than prepare one from scratch. We end up gobbling down something that was made in a lab and made to taste like food.

Your body craves natural food, not synthetic garbage. Research has shown the preservatives that are used in processed food can cause cancer, headaches, allergies and other side effects. Your body was made for natural food. Your digestive system knows how to get the most out of natural food.

Besides, all the nutrients your body needs are in the food that grows naturally. As soon as it’s tampered with, it loses nutritional value.

26. Super foods…and drinks

There healthy foods, and then there are super foods. These are natural products that have more benefits than you can count. When you incorporate these foods into your daily diet, you will begin to feel a notable difference from the get-go. After a while, you will also realize that you haven’t been ill in a while.

The one drink that most people neglect is water. Next to oxygen, it is the most essential substance that you need to live. However, walk into any supermarket or store, and you will see isles of sugary drinks. For most people, water isn’t tasty, and that is because they are so used to flavored drinks.

Water cleanses the body and helps your digestive system transport everything. Your skin will love you for having an extra glass now and then. Foods like almonds, avocado, blueberries and broccoli are also packed with goodness that will give your body a boost.

25. Smile and the world will smile with you

Our world is growing more and more selfish, and no one has time for anyone but themselves. The more we try to build our little empires, the more we isolate ourselves from the people around us. In the end, some of us amass the wealth and power that we sought out in the beginning, but find that we are still lonely.

Sure, it’s nice to be able to buy anything you want or go anywhere on a whim, but doing it alone sucks. Money can’t talk to you; it has no emotion and will make no effort to try and understand you.

Do yourself a favor and spend some more time with the people around you, and not just your friends and family. You will be surprised at how good you feel when you can make someone else smile. As the saying goes, it is much better to give than to receive.

24. Focus on the good

The offense is always taken, it is never given. We waste so much time and energy on gossip and slander and we dwell on issues of the past like they will make a difference in the present.

We get stuck on negative thoughts and things we cannot control, like politics or the weather. Spending time on these things do nothing but weigh you down and steal your time.

Nothing good has ever come from gossip. Reconsider the state of your own life before you analyze the lives of others. You might find there are issues you need to sort out.

Instead, spend your time on positive things in the present. There are things you can complain about, and then there are things you can do something about. Hone in your energy on the latter. At least you will see some change.

23. The breakfast of champions

They don’t say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day for nothing. Skipping out on it could impact how your body performs the rest of the day.

When you wake up in the morning, your boy needs something to get it going. Chugging a cup of coffee will give you a momentary boost, but it won’t sustain your energy levels.

Breakfast gets your metabolism up and running, and if you eat a healthy breakfast, your energy levels can be sustained with a snack here or there throughout the day.

Not only does breakfast give you that morning boost, but the foods themselves also hold amazing nutritional value, including calcium, Vitamin C, protein and iron. When your metabolism is fired up in the mornings, you will also begin to notice you are losing weight. That is because your body switches from storing fat to burning it.

22. Life isn’t fair; get over it

This might be a bit of a bitter pill to swallow, but life is not always fair. However, it is still a good life, if you choose it. You can dwell on the thing that happens to you that you feel unfair, or you can move on. It is easier said than done, but it isn’t worth your time to think about all the bad stuff when you can get up and go on.

There is always a lesson to be learned from unfair treatment, but the most valuable thing you can learn is not to duplicate the unfairness. No one will benefit when you do the same thing to others that you felt was done to you.

As soon as you forgive someone for wronging you, you are free to go on with your life and build from there. Holding a grudge makes you old and bitter and can wreck your life if you allow it.

21. Stop the hating

Life is too short not to forgive someone. It doesn’t matter what was done to you; when you forgive someone, you begin to heal. They say that time heals all wounds, but forgiveness puts that process on a fast track. It’s a paradox, but forgiving someone else is not for them, it is the place where you can start to heal.

When you forgive your wrongdoers, you free yourself to live in the present. It allows you to move on without anger or resentment.

The opposite is also true: When you hold on to a grudge, you hold onto the past and making progress in the now is nearly impossible. You will continuously seek opportunities for revenge.

The problem with revenge is that it snowballs and before you know it, war breaks out and other people get hurt along the way.

20. Why so serious?

Certain people tend to be very hard on themselves, especially the overachievers among us. To be honest, it isn’t worth the effort and frustration.

If you don’t know it by now, everybody makes mistakes, and you are no different. The best thing you can do is to learn from your mistakes, not crucify yourself over them.

When you are too hard on yourself and focus on your shortcomings, you tend to miss out on what you have accomplished. That is not to say that you should not have goals in life; on the contrary, once you reach a milestone, you should begin working toward the next one. However, you have to make space for some celebration and appreciation for what you have already achieved.

The worst thing that happens is that you tend to dismiss your ideas and because you don’t feel you are good enough.

19. It’s OK to be wrong

If there is one thing people don’t like it is a know-it-all who cannot be wrong. There is nothing wrong with sticking to your guns, but you don’t have to win every argument. That only pushes people away. You might very well be victorious and win the arguments, but you end up losing the person.

When you get to a brick wall in an argument, the best thing you can do sometimes is to agree to disagree. You won’t be able to say that you won, but at least you’ll be able to build and keep your relationships healthy.

The truth is, the incessant need to be right all the time pushes people away and also inhibits growth. It kills curiosity and creativity. You become one-track minded and miss out on other possibilities. You miss out on life.

18. What’s in the past is in the past

No one can turn back the hands of time. If that were possible, people would get stuck all the time. There is nothing you can do about your past and the mistakes you have made. Therefore, there is also no reason to dwell on the past. Instead, make peace with it and start to live in the present.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and the only purpose the past should serve is to guide you on your conduct for the present and future. No one is perfect, and we all do stupid things from time to time, but these things cannot define you.

The person who gets up every day is the one who determines who you are. The past can help you to become a better version of yourself, but only if you use it, not hold on to it.

Put your focus on what is and not on what was. You will soon come to realize that living in the now is much better than the past.

17. Your life is your own

No one is going to live your life for you, and neither can you live someone else’s life. So stop being so envious of others and comparing your life to theirs. You have no idea what they have been through or what they are going through.

Social media has had a considerable impact on our envious nature. You don’t often see posts about how things are going. You only get the vanilla version with all the smiles and good times, but they can be few and far in between.

The only thing you are doing is making yourself depressed by longing for the things you don’t have. In the end, you miss out on what you already have and take it for granted. Your life is your own; live it with the people around you. Share with them the good and the bad, not just an edited version.

16. No one dictates your happiness

Being human is amazing in part because we are blessed with choice. Everything we do and don’t do is governed by choice. We often get it wrong and make bad choices, but we also often learn from those mistakes.

Your happiness is also a choice, and no one can dictate or take charge of your happiness but you. You are the only one who is in charge when it comes to your happiness. It goes hand in hand with being content. Not everyone has the same capabilities, fortune, wealth, health, looks, etc., but all of us can decide when something is enough.

When you accept who you are and the circumstances you find yourself in, you tend to become more relaxed. The pressure to keep up with the Jones gone, and you can be happy. However, you have to make a choice and stick to it. Otherwise, you will forever be searching for happiness.

15. What will it matter in five years?

Depending on how old you are, you have probably been through a couple of bad times in your life. In some cases it’s self-inflicted, and in others, you were the unsuspecting casualty. The fact is, all of us face some sort of personal disaster at some point.

In most cases, you can ask yourself what it will matter in five years, and before you know it, the seeming disaster becomes a trivial comedy of errors — something to laugh about when you look back at the scenario.

Not all problems and disasters won’t matter in five years’ time. However, when you break the situation down, and you can honestly say that what you’re currently dealing with won’t matter a thing in five years, you can get over the disaster in no time.

We are masters at blowing stuff out of proportion and giving more thought to stuff that doesn’t matter.

14. It is better to give than receive

I have had my fair share of run-ins with stingy rich people and to be honest, I pity them. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind having a bit of extra cash now and then, but what I have found was that sharing the wealth has always felt better than trying to build my solitary kingdom.

Money can never make you happy. Imagine getting on a plane, flying first class to any destination in the world your heart desires and staying in the most expensive hotel. Now imagine doing it alone.

We are social creatures and crave companionship. That is why it is better to give than to receive. That is why we should be generous.

In blessing those around us, we tend to bless ourselves as well. There is no better feeling than making someone else’s day. In doing so, they might end up making your day as well.

13. What others think of you is irrelevant

The world we live in today is incredibly vain, and people are obsessed with what other people think of them, whether good or bad. Some people thrive on what others think and end up becoming someone an entirely different person than who they really are.

The truth is that the only person’s opinion of you that matters is your own. You are the only one who has walked in your shoes and know yourself. You are the only one who can give an accurate judgment on yourself. Therefore, you should never give ear to what other people’s opinion of you are when you know the truth to be different.

Your actions will either confirm or deny judgments and silence the voices of those who have other opinions of you. When you try and fight fire with fire, you are going to get burned. In all circumstances, stay true to yourself, and the rest will see it, too.

12. Time heals everything

It often seems cliché to say time heals everything, especially if you are in the middle of an emotional battle. The last thing you want to hear is that time heals all wounds. However, the saying holds a lot of water.

For some people, the time needed to process the hurt takes longer than for others. That is because time has not been allowed to begin the healing process.

While time is the ultimate healer, you still need to allow it to work. It is like going to any doctor. You can’t expect to get better if you don’t go to the doctor. He or she might be available all the time, but you need to allow them to examine you for a prognosis.

If time is the doctor, you need to allow time to sort out your grief, anger and hurt.

11. All situations change

Most of us have heard that life is like a roller coaster. It has its ups and downs. The saying could not be any truer. However, it often happens that we get stuck in one of the ups or downs and live with the lie that it will never change.

The good news is that not all situations last forever… but that is also the downside.

Neither the bad nor the good times will always be here, which is why it is so important to live in the moment. Don’t ever wish the time away – even the bad times – for it is those moments that you learn.

In the same way, don’t take the good times for granted and assume things will never change. You can never know when things will change and you don’t want to regret not making the most of what you had.

10. Stay in touch

Nowadays, people are obsessed with advancing their careers, so they push crazy hours at the office and neglect the people around them. If there is one thing you should know is that you are not irreplaceable. Long after you have left your job, they will continue without you.

Therefore, don’t neglect your relationships with the people who care about you. Your friends and family deserve your time because they are the ones who will take care of you when you need it most.

That being said, you should always do your best when it comes to your work, but the balance is key. When you start to make excuses for not going out with your friends, you should take a look at your life and ask yourself if it’s worth it. If you are honest, you will see that your friends and family always win.

9. Envy makes you nasty

From time to time, we want something we don’t have and there is nothing wrong with that. However, when you are always unhappy with what you already have, and you envy the lives and possessions of others the entire time, you should take a step back.

You will only make yourself miserable if you envy other people. Never will you have enough, and never will you be content. When you get to this stage, you need to take inventory of what you have and realize that what you have is more than enough.

Envy destroys relationships and lives. It becomes an unhealthy obsession with wanting more and never being satisfied. This is dangerous ground because the people who care about you will start to feel neglected and unwanted, and before you know it, they might be gone.

8. Pray and be thankful

All of us have talents and skills and most of us use these talents and are grateful for them. But there are some of us who become cocky and think more of ourselves than we ought to. If something were to happen to their talents, they become bitter and wonder why it happened to them.

Instead, be thankful for the talents you have and also what you achieve with them. You never know when they can be taken away from you.

Staying humble in our achievements makes us aware of our shortcomings and enables us to do even more and better than we thought we could.

It is when you stay humble that you seek to improve and better yourself. Pride does precisely the opposite. It sells you the idea that you have arrived and hinders you from further development.

7. You are too blessed to be stressed

It cannot be said enough that life is short. That is an understatement. When you hear older people speak, not one of them will tell you that life was prolonged and took them forever to reach that age.

What they will also tell you is that stressing about what you cannot control won’t make you any younger. However, this world markets fear and will keep your thoughts occupied on the multitude of unlikely events of the future.

Insurance companies have this down to a tee. They will prey on your fear and nudge you to dwell on the future which you have no control over. In the end, you spend so much money on ifs, buts and maybes and lose out on living in the present.

Know that you are blessed and that you can only live in the current day, no matter what the media or anyone else says.

6. Exercise

They say that fit is the new skinny and many people take this to heart and exercise their lives away. I am not saying those ambitions are wrong, but with everything in life, a healthy balance is more important than overdoing it.

That being said, exercising regularly is essential for your health. You need to stay fit and active. Your heart will love you, your mood will improve and you will lose weight in the process as well. Although this is the most visible way of seeing that someone works out regularly, a person’s state of mind and focus are also increased and improved in the process.

Mix things up and alternate between running, swimming, cycling and other sports. You will never get bored in the process. Soon enough, exercise will have become part of your daily routine, and not something you do just before summer.

5. You are never too old to learn

If there is one thing all humans should do, it is keep on learning and trying new things. Life can become stale when you don’t challenge yourself and explore new ideas.

We tend to hide behind our work schedules and claim that we don’t have time, but no one said you had to pursue a new degree. The internet and online shopping have turned the world into a global village.

All you need to do is whip out your Smartphone and Google one interest or another, and you will be flooded with ideas from across the globe.

The benefit of trying new things is twofold. First, you keep your creative mind intact, and your imagination gets lit like a young kid. Second, you keep your body and mind in shape. Studies have shown that attempting new things increases grey matter in the motor parts of the brain.

4. Live for something other than yourself

We tend to get so wrapped up in our little worlds that we often forget there is a whole world out there. The saddest thing about such a secluded life is that we miss out on what life has to offer.

We all have interests and passions, and what better way is there than to search for an organization or group to share in that passion? Immediately, your world is opened to other people and adventure.

In most cases, you find you have something to offer other than your time in front of a computer in your office. You will see that you can enrich someone else’s life through your skills and experiences.

We were made to interact with other people, and when we can enrich someone else’s life, we also tend to find a sense of purpose for our own.

3. Set goals

I for one seldom set any goals for myself back in the day. It was in those times that I could not move forward. I felt stuck in my job and didn’t see how things were going to change. That was until I started to implement actionable and attainable goals for myself.

When there is no goal you are working for, you waste time on anything and everything. There is very little purpose to what you are doing, and you might even start to feel like you don’t have a purpose.

Setting goals helps you to focus your efforts constructively, and paints an invisible map of the road to success. It provides you with a tool to see if you have grown as a person and gives direction to your future.

If you want to set these goals, try and find someone to whom you can be accountable. They will help you stay on track.

2. It’s not personal

At some point in time, we all have to face rejection. It’s never a fun experience, and it can either ruin your self-esteem, or you can learn from the rejection. Whatever, you do, you should never take rejection personally. You have no idea why your proposal was rejected, or why you were shot down when you asked someone out.

The reasons for the rejection are almost irrelevant because the lesson you stand to learn is priceless. Use the rejection as motivation to improve on yourself. There is no such thing as not good enough; however, there is such a thing as not the right time.

The only thing you need to do is to get back up and go at it again, so you will grow in confidence and mature into a better you.

1. Ask

In general, people are afraid to ask questions. The nature of the problems could either be for help, or it could involve info you want. Regardless, for some odd reason, we tend to fear what the response is going to be, or our pride gets in our way. Either way, we miss out on opportunities if we don’t ask questions.

Despite many people claiming they can read the future, no one can read your mind and sniff out what your needs are. If you don’t make them known, they will remain locked in your mind, and you will have to go on without answers.

If you ask, the worst thing that can happen is that your request will be denied. But is that as bad as walking around with the burden and judgment of others for not reaching out and lending a hand?