What is all this about?

2018 was both good and bad, but I would say more bad than good unfortunately and I wanted to make a change. The bad that happened this year was partly my fault and partly not fault, life happens. As the year is winding down I realized I didn’t like the person I was and the way my life was going, but I also had the power to make some changes.

If I am brutally honest (and occasionally I will be brutally honest and sometimes I will just be honest) most of the so called “bad stuff” was my fault. This is not to say that I am a horrible person or that I was doing a lot of “bad things” but it was a lot of little things that just ultimately added up, as they say the journey of 1,000 miles begins with the first step, and additionally going in the wrong direction those little mistakes can compound themselves making them not so little anymore.

So lets lay it out there my issues as I see them are:
  • Stress - honestly I used to deal well with stress, at least I believe I did. However this year there was a lot of stress but it was a different type of stress than I had dealt with in all the years prior to 2017/2018.
  • Physical health – coincidentally at the same time as my stress changed I was diagnosed with hypertension so I need to get that in check.
  • Mental health – I believe that ultimately the fact that I was not dealing well with stress took a toll on my physical health and both took a toll on my mental health. Another contributing factor is that I went through a huge life change.

Ok so now I identified some big categories that I wanted to make changes in, the next step is to make a plan. The unknown is scary and can be paralyzing and I needed to create a map that I could follow. I knew that for my physical health one thing I need to maintain is exercise, like many people I have had a hard time keeping to a schedule, however in 2016 I was very successful at maintaining a habit so I had an example of success I just needed to get back to it.

PadawanOfHappiness was actually born in 2017 as an Instagram feed I would just take pictures of things that made me smile, made me feel loved, were inspirational to me. The point of that feed was to help me cultivate a sense of happiness, and so now I am expanding it include this venue.  The whole point of this blog is to help me on my journey to self correct and help me be the person that I want to be.

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