What to Do When You Can’t Be Awesome

I’ve been struggling lately with a distinct lack of awesomeness in my life. Not in my actual life—that’s pretty cool. But in my mindset. Maybe it’s fall, maybe it’s menopause…maybe it’s the fact that I don’t have a book coming out until FEBRUARY, but that happy, joyful energy that helps me  be useful in the world of books? That get up and go has got up and went.

(That said, I did get a book finished and submitted. If you want to read about that, it’ll be at the end of the post.)

So I’ve been trying to figure out how to deal with my pissy-pants mood in productive ways. The downside of feeling truly pissy-pants is that it’s hard to focus on anything, since pretty much everything annoys me. Zombies cheer me up, but there are only so many zombie TV shows and movies. So here, in no particular order, are the things that I’ve been doing to bide my time until I’m less (let’s just call it what is is) depressed.

1. Exercise

I’ve become somewhat addicted to Barre classes at my gym, so I’ve decided to seek out other ways to do Barre work outs. The nice thing is that the ballet movements are complicated =enough that I can’t think about anything else for the hour I’m exercising. YAY for reaching a meditative state!

2. Filling my brain with the good stuff

Learning new stuff always makes me happy, and though most of the random things I’ve decided to investigate in the past month will no in any way help my writing, at least they make me feel energized. The Vlog Brothers, Malcolm Gladwell, National Geographic, Wikipedia, hell—even the dictionary—all make me feel like there are plenty of interesting things in the world.

3. Cooking

If y’all follow me on any form of social media, you know I love to cook. Now that I think about it, I should take up a new cooking style. So far, I’ve been into Thai, Indian, and Ethiopian. What should I learn next?

4. Cleaning

Nothing makes me more grumpy than having a messy house. So the opposite also holds—i.e. that having a clean house makes me happy! Also—and this is counter-intuitive—the act of cleaning makes me happy in and of itself.

5. Staying away from Internet Outrage

I’ve noticed something lately about the Internet, namely that it can be a force for good or for evil. The good stuff is like informational videos and news stories—things that broaden your knowledge base and open your mind. The bad is the Outrage. The stupid, stupid, meaningless outrage. It’s a time and energy suck, and having an opinion one way or another on Miley Cyrus’ latest tweet does nothing to make me a better human being.

6. Getting enough sleep

This is important. Tired=unhappy.

7. Wearing make-up

Life seems better if the person I catch in the mirror doesn’t look like death warmed over.

8. Calling friends and family

See? I DO have friends!

9. Realizing that this will pass soon enough

 

If any of you are similarly suffering from winter blues, feel free to steal my ideas or add some of your own. I’m sure you’ll be back to being awesome in no time.

 

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