As one of your watchers, I've enjoyed your art. I don't do a lot of art myself, since my talents lay much more in the three dimensional world. My current project is a furhead for someone who's never had one before.

But in the 900 member group I'm in, I'm at least 10 years older than the next oldest member. I've done a lot of things in my life, and learned a lot of lessons. My handle is a more appropriate moniker than my username as it describes the state of my life. And since it's always been a struggle, I came up with my four rules of life to cope with it.

1. Life IS change.

Life is never static. It keeps growing, changing evolving, diminishing, vanishing. Pick an adjective and it probably applies. The trick is to accept that change happens. One can work to make change happen, too. Taking chances may, or may not, lead to good things. But they will be different, if you work to make them different. Embrace change. If you stop changing, well, you have issues with keeping a regular pulse going.

2. Shit happens.

This is self evident, but the point is to accept that shit happens when it does. Wasting energy lamenting reality means you're doing nothing to deal with reality. And reality is what we all have to deal with. This helps you better parse just how shitty things are. Do they HAVE to be fixed? Can it be tolerated? What would be needed to deshitify your life, and do you have the resources for that? The answer isn't always pleasant, of course. But it keeps things real.

3. Pick your battles.

This is more nuanced, but everyone has their limits, and what they can and can't tolerate. You fight what you can't tolerate. But not always directly. Sometimes you have to judo your way out of a situation, by using the negative energies gathered by what life does to you, and with you, and turn them into positive actions. It's also important to know what constitutes "winning the battle", assuming it's not an ongoing one. That is usually a much higher bar than it needs to be. So decide what is important and work to win those. But know winning isn't always possible, and ALWAYS be careful of what you fight for.

4. Attitude is EVERYTHING

If you forget any of these, this is the one you CAN'T forget. The lens through which you view the world is called attitude. If it's positive, the world looks better. If it's neutral, the world doesn't look great, but not bad, either. If it's negative, the world sucks. Even if it helps, attitude doesn’t need to be positive. It just needs to be real, and you aware of its place in reality. Yes a positive attitude is very good, but tell that to the guy up to his ass in alligators that he's supposed to be draining the swamp instead of dealing with the alligators. Keeping it real, keeps you centered and grounded in the moment. And the more you overcome adversity, the more experience you have under your belt in helping bolster an attitude enough to keep it real.

Using these tools, I'd say focus on what you need to do and try to derive something positive by doing it, then enjoy what you want to do to its fullest. There are no cosmic scales to balance. And they'd be constantly getting out of wack if there were. As Columbus in Zombieland learned for his list of rules, you have to enjoy the little things to be able to cope with the big things. That takes a shift in attitude.

I was suicidally depressed before I found a therapist that stopped medicating me (I categorically refused to do that) and started LISTENING to me. How you think physiologically changes the very structure of your brain. And with your thoughts ALONE, you can push yourself to madness, or to normalcy. "Happiness" is always transient. As is sadness. Even depression has lighter moments. But being aware of what's going on in your head, monitoring your thoughts, and striving for objectivity and realistic thinking, helps keep the dark emotions at bay and helps keep you neutrally focused on the here and now.

I know these rules work for me. I haven't seen a therapist in over 30 years, and don't need to. I take no medications for mental health, and ran a business, and now a group of craftsfolk, artists and makers. But that's me.

If you need to reword the rules to suit your mindset, do it. They're supposed to be a framework that keeps you functional, and at least NOT depressed as much as you otherwise could be. Add to them, or change them to make it work better for you. All but the one about attitude. That has to stay there, because it is the foundational way our brains work. We can literally think our way into a corner and get stuck here, just with the power of negative thinking. But we can also think our way out of that rut, too.

Once you have that under some semblance of control, it's highly likely that you'll find a way to make "the little things" happen more often, and enjoy that much more when they do. it can be a long road to walk. But if you do, and keep at it, eventually you'll begin to realize the view is pretty nice most of the time. If you change your thinking consistently for six weeks, and you can keep that thinking forever, with a dose of improved self awareness on top. That's about how long the physiological changes take in the brain to make it part of your daily experience and thoughts.

I mean, yeah, life does suck. But even if life sucks, that doesn't mean you can't find things about it that don't suck as much, right? Build on that thought. If you keep at it, you'll be amazed by the results.

Thank you for taking the time to type out all of this advice.