Five By Five

The thing about life is that it sucks. And you can quote me on that.

But there’s another thing about life that’s important to know, the fact that it sucks makes it easier for us to cherish the few happy moments we may get.

I was scrolling through Instagram the other day, procrastinating studying for my exams, and pretty much ignoring everything I was supposed to be doing, when I came across one of those inspiration-picture quotes which said:

The Five x Five Rule to Happiness:  If anything that upsets you isn’t going to be relevant or worth your attention in five years, don’t spend more than five minutes upset about it.

And I really stopped and thought about it. I’ve spent a lot of time moping and being upset about some of my failures, even though some of them really ridiculous. For instance, the fact that I’m still annoyed at the fact that I never made ‘House Captain’ at school is quite possibly the stupidest thing, especially since I hated school and hated everyone in it. And the logical part of me knows I would’ve hated it, but the larger, pettier part of me is still weirdly cut up about that.

But that wasn’t really a failure and I know that now. Failure is when you see what could’ve been and you feel this huge, gaping hole inside your chest next to your heart. It feels like you’ve been sucker punched in the gut and you’re left gasping because all you can feel is pain – even you really tried your best, sometimes things just don’t work out.

So I thought about this rule, and how it could help me get over things because I am an olympic grudge-holder. I can keep stuff pent up for years, and more often than not, it’ll pile on until it really isn’t healthy.

But then I realized, I can’t guarantee what will and won’t be important to me in five years. What if assigning that particular something ‘importance’ is the only way my life would’ve been happier? What if by getting over it I’m actually accepting something that I wasn’t meant to accept?

Life really isn’t easy, it requires quite a bit of blood and tears to be sacrificed, several times over. Even if I spend five minutes upset about something, those five minutes are still going to be incredibly painful. A year ago, I thought dislocating my knee was the most painful thing I’ve gone through, but somehow, I think realizing that I’ve failed hurts even more. And it took me a lot more than five minutes to get over the physical agony of having a bone shifting in my body, so I think it may take me some more time to deal with failure.

Five by five is also slang for ‘everything is alright’ and unfortunately, that’s also a smoke-signal to life that things are getting too good, so it’s time to fuck something up. And then we’re back to square one again.

So yes, life sucks. But someone very important just told me that,

“You can still keep getting up no matter how many times life kicks you in the butt, because the very fact that you’re living and breathing and EXISTING means that you still have it in you.” – Christina.

I’m going to file the Five by five rule for more consideration, for now, I think I’ll just mope and rant and be annoyed until I’m ready to try (fail) again.

Until next time,

Nia Carnelio.

(P.S –  I’d promise to write more, but final year at Uni really is keeping me busy. I’ve watched the entirety of Parks and Recreation and am still recovering from the end of the best show ever, so cut me some slack. And for some godforsaken reason, Pokemon Go won’t work on my phone – life really does suck. No wonder I haven’t been writing as much as I should or want to.)