An Update From 2HelpfulGuys!

Hey guys and gals, some very exciting things are coming soon in the world of 2HelpfulGuys. We will be relaunching our YouTube, putting out new books, starting a newsletter and redesigning our website.

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We look forward to continuing to grow together with you.

Sincerely,
2HelpfulGuys

No Matter What, Today Could Be Different.

On Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, Tumblr, Twitter… everyone is perfect.

Every picture is of people laughing with friends and having drinks, or of beautiful food that’s perfectly angled with just the right lighting.

There are no pictures of those 2am tears. No pictures of pimples or pus, or throw up on your clothes in the back seat of your friends car. Those were my clothes, I was so embarrassed.

If you never met a single person face to face and all you had to judge people by were their social media profiles, you’d think everyone lived a perfectly happy life.

You’d think that they had no problems, no struggles.

But the truth is, every day is a struggle. Every day there are battles.

And a lot of those days you are going to lose.

You won’t go to the gym, you’ll smoke that cigarette after saying you’ve quit. You’ll feel guilty, ashamed and disgusting.

You’ll spend whole days in bed when you should be doing homework, work projects, cleaning, or something. You should be doing something, anything, but there is so much piling up that it paralyzes you and you do nothing.

Some days you lose, and you feel useless. 

Everyone has those days. Everyone has those internal battles.

What separates the people who crumble under the pressure from those that become stronger?

The Morning After.

What happens the next morning?

You either lament, or you try again.

You either step back up on the battlefield or raise the white flag before the day even starts.

Everyone loses. It’s the people who waste no time, no energy even thinking about putting up that white flag that will prevail.

It’s the people who go into their day knowing that there could be blood and pain and they will lose more often than not, but they know this and they commit to fighting that battle every single day.

Every day they will fight for their dreams, for their happiness, and sometimes, for the willpower just to get out of bed.

Any energy spent regretting and reliving the past instead of focusing on your present is wasted energy.

So what if you binge ate yesterday, so what if you didn’t have the courage to speak to that guy or girl again? So what if you spent the whole day feeling useless and questioning the futility of your existence in a cruel universe that barely knows you exist?

That was yesterday, and this is today.

The people who become stronger under the pressure are the people who can let go of yesterday and stop it from contaminating today.

The more energy you spend regretting the past, the less energy you have to break the cycle and make today different.

It doesn’t matter how many hours, days, or years you’ve spent living below your potential. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve felt useless, walking around in a daze.

No matter how many embarrassing stories and mistakes you’ve made over time, you could wake up the morning after and believe that today will be different.

Putting your focus and energy on re-imagining and rethinking the past just traps you there.

Every morning wake up and tell yourself that yesterday is gone, and today will be different.

With love,
Steven Farquharson

Reduce Your Negativity in 4 Ways

Back in March, I started this site as a producer of positivity and hope for the masses. That goal is still incredibly strong inside me. I feel the burning urge to help people.

I feel compelled to help people through my stories and experiences. Everyday, I wake up and check my statistics for the site. I am delighted that people are reading and commenting and enjoying this site. Thank you, by the way.

I am more than content to help people, in whatever small way possible. That being said, I aim to be a ray of positivity in peoples’ lives.

There is so much negativity in the world. It seems as if people are drawn to it. The more they hear about it, the more they want to participate in it.

People surround themselves with negativity through their everyday lives. And for those who do not surround themselves with it, negativity seems to seek them out.

A) FAMILY and FRIENDS

I consider myself incredibly fortunate to have many positive and loving people in my life. These people have molded the man you are reading about today.

But, these people weren’t always there. I had to go through an intense sifting process to filter out the toxic people in life.

I suggest doing the same. Pessimistic people continue to suck the soul from your body. They want to complain, gossip, hate, negative-ate (a patented Leroy word) all their feelings on you.

You don’t need all that in your life. Cut them.

B) TELEVISION 

I BARELY watch television these days. This is partially due to the lack of time, but also because there isn’t anything to watch.

There are so few good (by ‘good,’ I mean positive) shows out there. The majority of them are crime dramas and news.

When I was growing up, there were shows like Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Wholesome television shows with positive messages about family, love, and friendship. Now the biggest shows are about jealousy, backstabbing and meth.

When did we turn towards the dark-side? While these shows are ‘entertaining,’ negative messages are propagated. Through cinematography we consume so much negativity and hate.

C) THE NEWS

This is somewhat similar to television, except for the fact that the news is literally EVERYWHERE. It’s hard to escape it. I never ever watch or read the news.

This is not due to ignorance. Under qualified, stupid reporters that spread negativity reports the news. There is never anything positive on the news. No heroic stories? No Jimmy opening up a lemonade stand? No nothing.

“But how will you fit in?”

A new friend told me in high society, people would look down on you if you don’t know current events. While that may be true, I don’t really care.

My main question is “why?” To fit into some negativity small-talk box? To surround myself with all the negative people, I’ve spent the majority of life avoiding?

Personally, I find it a waste of time.

D) SOCIAL MEDIA

Cyber-bullying is all the rage these days. It is a huge problem. Back in my day (am I really that old?), kids just called me fat and pushed me around. It hurt, a lot. But I got over it.

There is a key difference between my childhood bullying and modern bullying. My bullying was unavoidable. I had to go to school everyday. Social media isn’t necessary. Delete it, you don’t need it.

Similarly, negativity is found in literally all over the Internet. YouTube trolls, Facebook arguments, and Twitter ‘beefs.’ Do not subscribe to these forms of avoidable negativity.

Use these ‘tools’ but do not get consumed by them.

SOLUTION?

Use the word ‘No’ more often. There is great power in that word. Take control of your life. Opt for ‘No’ to anything and anyone you do not want in your life.

Say ‘no’ to mindless meetings, negative people, social media ‘beefs,’ anger, and regret. Mindless television and news. Say no to all the negativity in your life. The moment you do so, you’ll notice an incredible change.

Life will be simpler, almost serene.

“When you have a tiny piece of shit in the soup, it doesn’t matter how much more water you pour in and how many more spices you put on top. There’s shit in the soup.” – James Altucher

Say ‘no’ when people try to place a little piece of shit in your soup.

Be bold, be free, and love on.

5 Tips for Effective Time-Management

I’ve had this current week completely off. I was working like a madman through the summer and I start school next week. I feel like I deserve a break after all that has happened through the summer.

The problem that has recently occurred to me is that school is starting soon. For many of us, that would seem a joy. For me, it’s terrible. During school, I have zero free time to do all the activities that I hold dear.

Reading, writing, and personal learning almost go out the window. I am most worried about how I will deal with school while juggling my many hobbies and goals.

Here’s what I’ve come up with:

A) Sleep

In my opinion, it’s the cornerstone of everything ‘life.’ Without adequate sleep (I need 9 hours because I’m a hippo), your willpower plummets. You wake up with less willpower resulting in doing less.

Feeling lethargic kisses goodbye your time management skills. You don’t feel like doing much of anything and when you muster up the energy, it isn’t done well.

B) Plan out your day

As part of my daily morning routine, I make a to-do list. I usually do it over breakfast. Planning out the important tasks in the morning allows me to prioritize everything.

I am able to figure out exactly what I want to do during my day and it allows me to manage my time around the list. As an added sense of gratification, crossing something off the list feels amazing.

I recommend implementing a list of important ‘to-do’ tasks everyday. It will allow for better time-management and, as an added plus, will take something off your memory.

C) Cut out the Noise

The people that are closest to me know that I hate texting. I find it completely ineffective for communication purposes past single word answers. Having any sort of conversation via text is completely inefficient and a waste of time.

That being said, texting, to me, is considered noise. Noise is anything that eats away at your valuable time everyday.

This can include Facebook, Twitter, YouTube (unless you’re learning or laughing), Instagram, television, or any other form of media that you can lose yourself in.

Social media is not bad in extremely small doses, but once you start tuning out the world around to tweet, you may have a problem.

I consider everything in this category huge time-wasters that soak up your time like a dry sponge. Try to limit your usage to maximize your time.

D) Have ‘Do Not Disturb’ Time

As most of my frequent readers are aware, I’ve currently undertaken Spanish. I’m slowly discovering that learning a language, as with any learning; takes serious and intense concentration (Check out my article on learning here).

In that regard, you possess the ability to control your environment and its factors. If you have something that requires serious concentration, such as learning a new skill, modify the environment to your needs.

Go to quiet areas, tell friends/family not to bother you for X amount of time, turn off your cellphone, et cetera. This allows you to complete your task in the shortest amount of time possible, freeing up the rest of the time for your other tasks.

E) The List is a Guideline

Sometimes I do not complete everything on my list. Sure, it is disheartening, but it reminds me to properly prioritize everything for the next day.

Use your list as a framework for your day. If you do not complete everything on the list, don’t be discouraged. Aim to cross everything off of that list for the following day.

This Friday, I am embarking on another task. I’ll be launching a business with my mom. This will require a great deal of work and time from myself. Sometimes, I worry if I have too much on my plate.

With my fourth year of school, work, learning, reading, this blog, and that business, how will I ever have the time? Compiling this list brings a sense of ease for me because I know that I will be able to manage everything.

How do you manage your time? Do you have any helpful tips for my readers and I? Please leave a comment in the section below. My readers and I would love to hear from you.

Be bold, be free, and love on.

A Lesson in Happiness

I haven’t discovered the key to happiness yet. I don’t quite know where life is taking me or where I’ll be in the next few years. Am I happy with my life right now? Yes. Could I be happier? Of course I could. There is always room for that.

Happiness means different things to different people. Some people find happiness in money, women, drugs, sex, marriage, video games, careers, etc. Some find it in knitting, stamp collecting, wine-making, and hopscotch.

For me, my current happiness lies in making YouTube videos (Check out my channel here). It is something that I would have never fathomed in my younger introverted days. But, now it has blossomed into something that I truly love.

There are a ton of naysayers, a ton of people telling me pursue something with my degree, get a good job and start a family. I feel like that life isn’t for me right now. I need to follow my passions. You need to follow yours.

We can all argue different perspectives to what the key to happiness is because it means different things to different people. For me, I know that the key to my personal happiness only lies within me.

The key to YOUR happiness only lies within you. No one else possesses (or should possess) the capacity to ruin your happiness. Not your friends, family, significant others, co-workers, bosses, government, or the people I may have left out.

Negative statements and remarks come from all sides to hinder people. It is one of the many sad truths of human nature. But we cannot let these comments affect us.

Everyone is responsible for their own happiness

Do not hinge your happiness on anything external. Instead, anchor it to yourself. You are the key to your own happiness. Happiness seems like such a fickle emotion. It can change in a matter of a few seconds. But on the flip side you have the ability to choose!

In your head, you get to choose what affects you. You get to choose how you feel (for the most part). The human mind has the capacity for amazing ideas, feelings, notions, and concepts.

You can choose to let certain things affect you. You can choose what you want to filter out and disregard. Don’t let a Facebook ‘unfriend’ or a Twitter ‘unfollow,’ or any rude comments surfacing in your life affect you. They are insignificant in the larger spectrum.

I ask myself four questions when something ‘terrible’ (Most of the time it isn’t terrible, but your mind overplays it) occurs.

1) Is there anything wrong right now? (The answer is always no, unless I am literally put in a life/death situation which has never happened…yet)

2) Can I change this situation? (Can I ignore the comment? Can I walk away? The answer is usually a resounding yes.)

3) How do I feel right now? (Once I discover that I’m not in a life/death situation, the answer to this question is usually ‘content’)

4) Am I able to continue with my life? (Even though sometimes your mind decides that you can’t, when you ask yourself this question, you quickly realize that no matter what the problem, the ability to move on is always there.)

Analyze the problem with a level head and ask yourself these questions. In most situations letting the minor things hinder your happiness is not worth it. If you have trouble with this, check out my last post.

Unless you’re in a life/death situation you should let anything hinder you. You deserve to be happy. You owe it to yourself. In life, you don’t have the opportunity of practices runs and cheat codes. You get one. Make the best of it and live as happy as you deserve to be.

What do you do when you are unhappy? When faced with adversity? Leave a comment in the section below. My readers and I would love to hear from you.

Be bold, be free, and love on.