Keys to fulfillment, part one.

A few obvious things we all know in our gut, at least after having lived awhile and observed cause and effect, made a lot of stupid mistakes, did a few things right.

You have to be physically healthy by eating right and getting some exercise. This is the base of the pyramid. It doesn't matter how strong you think your drive is, if you don't take care of your body you will wear down and get lazy, get sick, have not energy, not finish things, not even start things because they sound overwhelming. No one can subsist on caffeine and junk food and little sleep for long. So before you can make any other changes in your life, you have to do this one. Period. I'm still at this step by the way.

Next, you need to develop structure to your day if you haven't already. Chores like taking the garbage out, cooking, washing up afterwards, making your bed, and keeping the place neat in general (doesn't have to be perfect by any means) need to become ingrained habits so you don't get overwhelmed by having to put them on a list every day. Maybe you will at first, but eventually you should be doing these things automatically and efficiently, leaving you mental energy for more interesting activities.

Next, you need to socialize. Not everyone is an extrovert so this may be difficult for some (it is for me), but you need at least a few good friends to talk to. Human beings are social animals and if we isolate ourselves bad things happen. The internet is ok for complementing physical socializing but it doesn't replace it. You need to get out of the house, meet a friend for coffee or lunch, things like that. This if you've got the health part down and the time-management part down, this time you spend socializing will be energizing rather than enervating.

I'll stop here, but we could keep building on this pyramid to add long- and short-term goals, relationships, spiritual development, career development, ongoing education, and a whole lot of other things. But since I'm rooted in step one at the moment, I would become more and more of a hypocrite as I talked about these things. But these base levels are the most important anyway. They give you a fundamental capability to actually live a life, rather than sleeping it away in depression and apathy. You probably have had some dreams in your life like, "it would be really cool to be a ___." But that's all you do, dream. Maybe you even have a talent for it. But without a foundation of health, daily structure, and a network (however big or small) of friends for support, your dream will never become a reality. You can't cheat.

Good luck. A lot of you will probably think this is preschool stuff, and if it is for you, congratulations. But a lot of us have trouble just getting up in the morning, and we always feel tired and get sick easily. We don't have any goals or our goals are unrealistic. We live in a mess and can never relax or be proud of ourselves for anything. That's why I decided to write this. Right now, I am trying to avoid tackling all of my life's problems at once, because I'll wear out and get even more discouraged. So I'm going to focus on step one, getting healthy. I believe this is the most important single thing anyone of any age should do.