How To Be Ferociously Happy: and other essays

by Dushka Zapata

For a long time I believed that things happened for a reason until I witnessed my good friend’s car flip over on the highway like a matchbox. He was so young and our story was just starting and I never got to see how it would end. I learned that things happen because they happen.

open your heart until you hear it crack. Expect miracles, but keep them non-specific so they can fill you with wonder.

Be sad. Be desperately, irreparably sad and hear the sound of your insides shattering over you making the same mistake. Forgive. Forgive again. Forgive yourself.

I am not saying life has no meaning. I am saying the only meaning of life is to live it.

The age where you think you will have everything figured out never comes.

Hurray to feeling lost at every age.

We don’t live in a terrible world. We live in a beautiful world where awful things happen.

Part of what makes a winner is the wisdom to know when to quit.

My point is: our mistakes are our mark, our adventure, our flavor. They are the only way we ever learn anything; the only tool we have to design our life. Unless. Unless what we do is irreversible.

Don’t listen to whoever said “never go to bed angry”. Seriously, go to bed. It will all look better in the morning.

Is my memory of what another does hurting me? Then it needs to be adjusted. I am not supposed to be causing pain to myself.

The noise comes from people who feel they know what is best for you. Mostly they are very well intentioned, but here is the thing. They are not you.

Everything that happens happens for the best because you make it so.

If something doesn’t elate you, don’t stick with it. Life is short.

Let go of what doesn’t serve you.

if you do one thing at a time, you can take a break from everything else.

Show your fear, every time he shows up, who is boss.

If you can create what you fear, you can create what you want.

Listen closely to people when they talk about others. They are telling you about themselves.

If you make lists of what you want, you miss what’s right in front of you.

My favorite parts of life: falling in love so hard, being irrationally optimistic, feeling completely captivated, inspiration — are completely unbalancing. Balance is overrated.

Every ounce of energy you spend talking about someone else is energy you are not spending on your own growth.

I’m sad and that’s OK. I consider sad to be essential. It respects the truth within me, and as such, it is beautiful.

The times when I have felt I am missing out have been the times when I have not been happy with myself or what I’m doing.

Don’t waste a perfectly good heart by keeping it safe.