Hello beautiful souls,

I hope you all are as charming as always and cherishing your life to bits 🙂 I am here with a new article that I’ve been wondering to write on for the past two days. This is about how you can surround yourself with positive vibes all the time without being bored, lazy and depressed. So without any further delay, let’s dive into the blog <3

1. Keep your space clean:

Be it your room, personal study, working space, or research cubicle, make sure you keep your space neat, clean, and organized.

A study led by associate professor Nicole R. Keith, Ph.D., research scientist and professor at Indiana University, found that people with clean houses are healthier than people with messy houses. Keith and her colleagues tracked the physical health of 998 African Americans between the ages of 49 and 65, a demographic known to be at an increased risk for heart disease. Participants who kept their homes clean were healthier and more active than those who didn’t. In fact, house cleanliness was even more of a predictor for physical health than neighborhood walkability.

A 2010 study published in the scientific journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin used linguistic analysis software to measure the way 60 individuals discussed their homes. Women who described their living spaces as “cluttered” or full of “unfinished projects” were more likely to be depressed and fatigued than women who described their homes as “restful” and “restorative.” The researchers also found that women with cluttered homes expressed higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol.

In 2011, researchers at Princeton University found that clutter can actually make it more difficult to focus on a particular task. Specifically, they found that the visual cortex can be overwhelmed by task-irrelevant objects, making it harder to allocate attention and complete tasks efficiently.

A survey conducted by the National Sleep Foundation found that people who make their beds every morning are 19 percent more likely to report regularly getting a good night’s sleep. People who were surveyed also reported benefits from having clean sheets — specifically, 75 percent of people said they get a better night’s rest when their sheets are freshly cleaned because they feel more comfortable. (Psychology Today, 2016)

 2. Organize Yourself:

Organizing yourself is the easiest thing in this world to do right now. In this modern era of technology where people are becoming quite organized and sensible day by day, it is very easy to get planners, and organizers from different websites and online stores. Planners give you a next-level sense of responsibility and future planning.

From to-dos to the grocery list, from tasks to homework, from house chores to paying bills, from class schedules to birthday reminders, everything can be penned-down in a single notebook that you can proudly call as your planner. I decorated a beautiful planner in last winter vacations and am using it successfully since then. I also implemented several creative ideas like my yearly transformation to track down my fashion sense and photography skills enhancement. I will stick a fresh picture ate the end of every month below the respective month name. Also, I created a birthday tracker of my friends and family that helped me in reminding the birthdays of my friends which I always forget otherwise, thus earning much disappointment.

3. Time for a Change:

I don’t know about others, but a lot of Asians seems to have this particular habit of keeping the old things for years while purchasing new things simultaneously. It is totally understandable that some things are very dear to us and we cherish them forever, but we shall keep this in mind that:

A change is always beautiful!

Have an old rose-flower pot on your study for two years? Time to replace it with new crystal crockery with fresh lilies instead. Have a vintage wallpaper in your room for too long? Why not try a summer color this time? Have a cute cactus by your bedside? Let’s bring a sunflower pot in its place this season. Been sipping on this bright red mug all winters? The whole supermarket is filled with beautiful new mugs in pastel colors that you are absolutely going to love. Replacing old things with new ones always help to rejuvenate your mind and keeping your soul alive. Whereas, decluttering the old stuff is important to avoid mess and useless cluttering. It is true that old is gold, but a fresh change always motivates us to do something beautiful and unique. A change always helps us in making miracles happen. 

4. Green heals the soul:

Color psychology suggests that different colors can evoke psychological reactions. For example, color is often thought to have an impact on moods and emotions. Sometimes these reactions are related to the intensity of a color, while in other cases they are the product of experience and cultural influences.

How does the color green make you feel? For many people, it has strong associations with nature and immediately brings to mind the lush green of grass, trees, and forests. Perhaps because green is so heavily associated with nature, it is often described as a refreshing and tranquil color.

“Green, which is Nature’s colour, is restful, soothing, cheerful, and health-giving.”          – Paul Brunton

According to color psychology, green is a color of balance and harmony which is very important to keep your mind and thoughts intact while living. The green color is reported to give you a sense of fresh start and a punch of positive thoughts and ideas every morning. To inculcate green in your environment, you can go from minimal to grandeur. From keeping a cactus on your bedside to raising a palm tree in your garden, from hanging a spider plant in your window to growing a dragon tree in your living room, you can surround yourself with the greens, and ultimately attracting the positive aura.

Green is a color that can evoke powerful emotions. It is a dominant color in nature that makes you think of growth. Think of nature and see the incredible variety of shades of green expressing renewal and life. Green evokes a feeling of abundance and is associated with refreshment and peace, rest and security.  Green helps people feel rested and secure. People are invited to wait in the “green room” before going on camera to relax. Many doctors even use green in their offices to put patients at ease. Green encourages a balance in your brain that leads to decisiveness. However, green may also be perceived negatively when associated with materialism, envy, and possessiveness (Christi Wharton, 2019). 

5. Do not argue about un-knowledgeable things:

It is the most common behavior of us humans that we have to participate in almost everything even if we are unacquainted by the context and background knowledge. I have learned this thing from my personal experience actually!

A lot of the times, if some controversy breaks out, we all become the scholars and start judging or defending a certain party without knowing the whole story, and without analyzing both sides. This behavior is spreading 99% of the negativity in this world today. What actually happens is that when we start a social media fight without complete knowledge, and somebody else (who is acknowledged and learned) confronts us, we, unable to defend our claim start being intolerant by bad-mouthing, hating and criticizing the character of the other person. Such a situation creates a very destructive atmosphere where we learn nothing but extremism, intolerance and destructive criticism. Also, as a piece of advice, stay away from politics if you want your mind to work without any bounds and bias. Live as an individual and give your stance likewise without being under any impact and influence.

6. Witness Maximum Positivity:

What if you decorate your bedroom’s wall with all the bloodshed and warfare images from the time of Hitler? How would you feel whenever you’d look at those pictures throughout the day and the night? On the other hand, if you put up vibrant frames displaying positive quotations, rainbow and sunshine depiction, plants and unicorn portrayals, you would feel completely different than the earlier scenario.

Being a student, I own four notebooks, a bag, planner, laptop, phone, USB, wallet, makeup bag, pencil pouch and a collection of different pens and markers. To witness the maximum positivity, I decorate my notebooks myself in the vacations or the semester break with all of my favorite morale-boosting quotations.

Moreover, I have made a bunch of photo frames and wall-hangings displaying my own happy-drawings and positive-paintings. You can also implement this witness-maximum-positivity phenomenon in your life and trust me you will feel an emergence of positive aura inside yourself. I made multiple bookmarks to help myself in not-giving-up on a book and to carry on with a punch of colorful motivation. My planner also has this new-year-resolution front page that reminds me of what I have achieved so far and what is already left, what do I need to improve and how better can I get? Being a free-lancer, I have selected a minimal laptop wallpaper that says “Create” and trust me the wallpaper alone helps me with writing new things and creating new ideas when I am feeling bland. I also decorated one of my notebooks with my favorite J.K. Rowling’s quote that says:

“It is important to remember that we all have magic inside us!”

This quote helps me in my mood swings throughout the lectures, it boosts my morale when I score lesser than expected in any exam, and cheers me up when I achieve something great! Below is a collection of my personal contribution to make my life witness more positivity throughout the day. 🙂

I hope this article would help most of you guys. Happy Blogging! 🙂

Adios,

xoxo.

Hello beautiful souls!

Okay, so today I am going to share one of my articles that recently got published and is very close to my heart. I would love if you kindly visit the website where it originally got published and show some love, I will really appreciate that! <3 

Show your love at: Obaa by GirlTable  and lets get reading!

Yesterday was a lovely day because I woke up to my two publications in two different magazines. I sipped on my customized hot chocolate in a huge mug with a peppermint stick clinging to its side, as I shared the link with my friends and family. An instant message hit back my phone with the dim buzz which turned into a loud announcement when Siri said: You have a text message from Z.

Eagerly, I opened up my inbox and found one of my class mate’s message saying that her book review also got published a day before in the same magazine as mine. However, she was a bit cringed because they published only a fragment of her review. I found it awkward as well!

To my surprise, I got another message from her instantly saying, “I don’t care if they publish the whole content or a single line out of my passage because this magazine is a flop and anybody can get published in it, getting published in it is no biggie!” The conversation got a bit awkward because I was really content with my achievement, while another person in the same world, by getting published on the same platform was disappointed. Instead of arguing, I congratulated her again and told her that no achievement is big or small, an achievement is meant to be celebrated. So cheers!

I opened up my laptop and started preparing for my Law exam that was to be the following day. While going through the topic of “Human Rights”, something got stuck to my mind and my attention got diverted to the conversation I had a few hours ago with my friend. I realized how she was trying to belittle my efforts and minimizing my contentment and self-confidence. Maybe at that very moment, my mind never perceived anything this way, yet there was a strange awkwardness that my mind failed to apprehend. But in that very moment, that mist of awkwardness faded away and the statue of humiliation emerged from in between.

Actually, when she said that there is nothing special in getting published in this magazine as anybody can get published there if you really want to get published, you should go for some international magazines, my mind was being humiliated. All the content and confidence that I felt in the morning by the single glimpse of my mailbox was gone. Hours ago, I was feeling at cloud nine, while after a few words were uttered, all the satisfaction was gone, all that “I am special” attitude was grounded.

I took out my journal and wrote the “why” of the situation I was put into. The first why that I figured out was “Just because she couldn’t get her complete article published, that is why she said that to me”. Secondly, I figured out the what-if of the situation. I wrote down, “What if her complete article got published in that magazine? Would she still say the same about this magazine?” While these thoughts died as the night passed away.

A few weeks after, I saw her WhatsApp story that proudly displayed the link of her song review that got published in the same magazine she was bad-mouthing about a week ago. I read her article, and it was amazing and complete this time. Now, I opened my journal again and checked that what-if condition that I concluded that day. All the knots were open now and the clearer picture stood right in front of me. This is the age of survival-of-the-fittest, where we are running a race every day, running with an urge for more and more. Our urge is never-ending, in fact, it had turned into a Hunger-game. A game where we can easily prey upon others’ emotions, their feelings, and their happiness, just to conceal our failure.

Today, I shared the link of my article that recently got published with the title “Dawn of the Ugly Era of Comparisons.” I also shared how beautifully that website embellished the article with my complete Bio at the end, unlike the other magazine who just write down a one-line intro of their authors. Shockingly, I got a text message from Z again. She said that you should aim for more international magazines as it is all that matters. These national magazines don’t matter, their publications are futile and a waste of time. I opened up my journal again and started writing the answer:

Dear Diary,

Everyone in this world is trying their best to contribute a teensy bit in this huge world with an ocean of knowledge. Some of us achieve the brownie points while others remain deprived until the right time. However, we all get paid for whatever contribution we make for the betterment of this world.

Why are people trying to humiliate and belittle the efforts that others are making every day? Maybe what is insignificant for them, might be a mountain for the other. Just because we couldn’t achieve something, instead of struggling for that, why do we wish bad luck for others? No matter which platform you are submitting your writings to, no matter which company you are working with, no matter which internship you are doing to earn money, never let others make you feel bad. We all have a different story, we all have different characters and struggles in our stories, we all have a unique ending. If Cinderella had a happy ending with his prince Charming, doesn’t mean you will have the same ending. Your Prince can turn out to be a racist.

Just keep your ambitions high, start step by step, do something every day that brings you closer to your ultimate goal. Remember, life is full of bumps and plains, a few people can become your inspiration while the rest of the world will only point out the fingers at your work, at your achievements. Don’t let others dim your spark, Just keep going! You are doing just fine.

After I was done with the rant, I closed my journal and wrote this message to Z:

Hey Z, no platform is big or small, no website is good or bad, all you have to do is just believe in yourself and be confident in whatever you do. I don’t care if someone gets his fragment published in “Letter to the Editor” segment of a remote magazine. I will appreciate that as well because no achievement is big or small, the achievement is always confident!

After hitting send button, I clicked my mobile screen off and opened up the laptop to submit one book review to the same magazine, while sending an activism article to one of the international magazines for the second time. I started with writing critiques in a magazine, and am writing for three magazines at the moment, without any approval from anyone. Let your achievements shine bright like the diamonds because they are a reminder that you are growing into something bigger and better.

This article is to remind you guys that whatever you are doing, and whatever struggles you’re going through, just own them confidently, be proud and believe in yourself. You are doing an awesome job by trying to contribute to this vast world somehow! Don’t let anybody take that away from you!

Adios,

xoxo…