What is it Like Living in a Small Apartment?

Over the last month or so my girlfriend Brittany and I have started looking for apartments, because we needed a place to live in together.  We've looked at a few but most seemed to be too expensive for us, except for a couple that we liked, both happened to be in the same complex, one being a very big apartment for the price and one being small but still good for the price.  We chose the lesser of the 2.  Now although the apartment is small we still love it, we not only have our own place to live, but its very simple and we can easily afford it.  All the utilities are even included so we can easily save up money!

I remember a few weeks back when we first looked at the place we both thought it would be livable but be hard to live in, but actually it was the opposite.  Even though the apartment is very small it's perfect for us!  We are still in the process of moving in and buying things we do need, but so far we have it set up nicely.  We bought an airbed, instead of bringing my original bed from my parents house because it would be too hard to bring it over here, at least for now.  Thankfully the airbed is surprisingly comfortable for both of us, and still leaves us with some room.  The only other thing we have that takes up a lot of space is a small table.  The place is small but like I said it is actually quite comfortable!

Who should purchase a small apartment?
Small apartments can be hard to get used to at first so I feel many people couldn't handle it right away, especially since a lot of us have all this stuff we "need" with us all the time that we spent money on that might not even be serving us anymore.  So if you are that type of person and do want to live in a small apartment you must be willing to be able to live on the bare essentials.  Now I'm not saying get rid of everything, you can still keep some things that you may not need, but if that seems too hard to do then living in a small place may not be your best bet.
Now, who are the perfect people to live in a small apartment?  I would say anyone who is young and has to move out, or anyone looking to save money, or that wants to spend their life traveling.  Recently I have been watching videos with my dad of people traveling and guess what?  Most of the places people stay are small rooms, even smaller than the apartments I am talking about living in!
My reasons for living in a small apartment
One word - money.  My girlfriend Brittany and I could afford a bigger apartment but would probably have trouble buying the things we need like food.  Right now we can kind of be flexible on what we buy to eat, which is good for both of us because food is a big thing to both of us and if I haven't said it before on this blog I can kind of be picky on the foods I do eat,  which annoys people but its a step for me to getting a better body, so having the money to buy healthy foods most of the time is a big bonus for me.  I wouldn't trade a nicer apartment for that, because to me what I eat I become.  And having the smaller apartment Will allow us to save up some money as well.  As of right now we are paying a lot as we have just mover in but I know once we get everything settled down money won't be much of an issue.  So my number one reason would be money!
Number 2 I would have to say would be not having to waste time going through the whole house to get something and getting side tracked.  Whenever I would need to get something and get up, like water for example, it would be kind of a struggle where I would wait a long time because the water jugs were all the way in the back room, instead of like 5 steps away from me in the fridge like they are now.  So it would encourage laziness if I had to get up and chances are I would get sidetracked into doing something else while I was going to just get water then sit back down and do whatever it was I was doing.  In a small apartment I don't have to worry about that as much because there isn't much to get side tracked on, and I don't have to walk all the way to the back room, which saves me time and enables me to focus on the things I need to be focussed on more of the time.
The small apartment life isn't for everyone, but if you can handle living in a small space then it is  defiantly recommended to stay in one especially if you are looking to travel in the near future, which are our plans, so we are hoping living here will prepare us for traveling the world.  I also hope this helped you guys decide if you would like living in a small apartment or not!

Make Someone Smile Today.

Recently I have noticed many people do one thing that we should never be doing most of the time, and the worst part many of us don't even notice it.  We are constantly frowning or have a serious look on our face.  We have all seen it on a lot of people but many of us never notice it throughout the day because many of us are constantly doing it.  Shouldn't there be a reason to smile?  Well to me theres always one reason and that may be different for everyone, but each one of us can help someone smile.

Why should you make someone smile?

Giving someone a reason to smile is an amazing experience.  It can be something so little that could mean the world to someone, giving a loved one a hug when they need it, or even something as small as giving someone a few cents for a parking meter.  Whatever it is that makes someone smile.  It will also make you happy that you gave that random stranger or love one a smile, because you never really know what someone is going through and how much doing a small act of kindness could've changed not only their day but their life!  

I talked about this story before but I'll say it again for any newer viewers of the blog.  I did this a couple times even though I was low on money, I bought a random stranger chipotle without them knowing.  until the cashier told them they were all set.  The one person caught me before I sat down to eat and was SOOOOO thankful, he couldn't believe someone would do that, he even tried to offer me the money for it, but I assured him that I just wanted to buy someones food that day.  The happiness that man had sticks with me, months later.  It's crazy how literally something that costs $7-8 can make someone so happy.  I remember smiling so much because I totally helped someones mood, because I don't know how bad of a day that person was having.  I mean they could've been depressed, or losing someone close in their life, and having some random person there that would do that could've helped them get over a huge struggle in life.  What this boils down to, to make this short is to always know you can help anyone around you just by doing something that makes them smile, and it doesn't even have to be a gigantic gift!

How does smiling affect the brain. (My own experience)

There have been many times I have been feeling down, and whenever I do theres one thing I notice overtime.  I'm never smiling, instead I'm usually frowning with my head down and neck hunched over.  Lately I've been able to easily detect if I am doing this and quickly switch back to smiling most of the time, but how does that affect how I feel?  Well first off let me say this is what it does for my mood and not going based off studies, or research so this is solely off the experience I have when I smile more often, and how I feel it'll benefit you guys.  Alright so lets jump right into it.  Since I have been noticing bad emotions and quickly striving to change them by smiling, I have noticed my mind quickly going to a happy mindset, and not having as much stress.  I then go to stand straight and tall, which helps with making me feel confident and strong within myself.  Doing this alone gives me the freedom to relax my body from tension and clear my mind.  Not only clear my mind but to fill it with good thoughts that boost me in the direction I want to go.

See you on the next one,

Brian

Why I Eat Black Beans, and the Benefits of Eating Beans.

     Over the last few months I have really gotten into eating beans.  At first I never was really into black beans and more into pinto, but for some reason that changed, tustve just gotten a different taste preference I guess.  But now I love black beans and the best part I can buy them very cheap even if they are organic!  "Just how cheap can you buy a can of organic beans?" you may be asking.  Well for my location at least I get them for 80 cents a can, which I believe is a steal!  Less than a dollar for a whole meal of part of a meal depending on how hungry you are is outrageous.

The main reason I started to eat beans was because of the price.  They were, like I said very cheap and could fill me up pretty easily.  I came to a point in my life where I have to start saving money and spending less, so since then I have been finding the best healthy foods for cheap I can buy, and beans happens to be one of those, and one I find could help anyone reading this if they are tight on money.  I may make more blogs on cheap foods that are still healthy, but less talk about that lets get into some benefits beside it being a cheap food.

Protien
     Black beans are packed with protein.  Each can has about 24 grams of protein and can easily be used as a meal or side dish as I stated above.  This is excellent if you are looking to build muscle and eat healthy foods.  
Health benefits
     Although Black beans have many health benefits I am only going to talk about a couple here in this blog.  Do you have any heart problems? Well it just so happens black beans help fight heart disease!  They are high in soluble fiber, which helps balance out cholesterol levels.  Mother nature has all the solutions, but thats only the first.  Our heart is one of our most prized possessions, and we must take very good care of it, black beans happen to be a very amazing, tasty, and healthy way to do so.
     Not only does it help protect our hearts but also helps our bodies protect against cancer because of their high levels of antioxidants.  These antioxidants found in back beans help fight off and protect against free radical damage.  The is very beneficial to many of us in the U.S., the diets most of us are eating is very deadly to our health.  The food we eat can either be making us live or slowly killing us.  I used to be that way, eating junk food continually everyday not knowing the effects they had on me.  Its a horrible trap to fall in to, and I would love for this post to change someones life into eating a more healthy diet and finding fun ways to eat healthy food, black beans are just a start to a healthy life, but anyway enough talking about the bad of junk food, lets jump back into another benefit of black beans! 
     Choosing this last one was hard because there are many to name but I think that this benefit would help you guys the most.  Black beans are a healthy carb.  What does this mean for you?  If you are diabetic or pre-diabetic it can aid in fighting against your resistance of insulin, because the starches are made of a natural sugar, glucose, which the body can use easily for energy.  Also along with the energy use in the body, you won't find a sugar high then crash, but instead a good amount of energy without the nasty tiring crash, like you would from bread!

Why You and Your Boyfriend or Girlfriend Should Encourage Growth in Each Other.

     Anyone in a relationship knows that to connect stronger and deeper you must both grow together, but many times this is overlooked and each person gets comfortable where they are and stops growing to become the greatest they can be.  We see couples unhappy all the time, they both stop trying to improve and end up watching tv all day or just being lazy in general.  Working to help each other improve will not only help you grow but help your partner as well, and also the relationship because the two of you are both lifting each other up instead of letting each other become comfortable.  The true love of your life will know whats best if you make it clear to them its what you want, and if they see you slacking they will always be there to motivate you, and get you back on your two feet, and you will always do the same for them.

     Lets imagine for a minute you get into a relationship, everything starts off perfect but then things slowly change, you let go of your health, mind, and inner passion, and so does the other person.  Sound familiar to anyone?  I sure hope not!  But like I said this is the case for many people today, and what I want to talk about today are some practices my partner and I use to keep each other on track with our mission!
1) Always be uplifting.
     If your partner needs encouragement or thinks they have hit a "dead end" in something you need to be there to show and encourage them what they are going for.  We all face struggles but this person should be there to help you through the struggles you face, and vice versa.  A couple who lifts each other up will both be growing together which leads to more love and passion for the relationship, because both people are growing instead of one growing and the other not or both not growing at all and the relationship losing passion, 2 people lifting each other up to become their best selves will keep you and your partner not only in line with you but also together, you will be on the same frequency, and show each other more love than ever as you both grow!
2) Give them love, don't buy them a bunch of shit they don't need.
     Showing love has been something that works for my partner and I for a while, although buying each other items can be nice it doesn't really encourage growth at least for us.  Being compassionate about achievements and success for each other is one of the biggest motivators for us.  You could buy your partner anything but without showing your true interest and love in what they are doing it is going to be harder for them to want to achieve their goals.  The touches of love you throw in to their work will help them even just 1% more to help them achieve what they want in life.  Highly recommend focusing on love not only for growth in their dreams but for each of you as a whole, it will help personally and for the both of you, as you see a vision for your future of growth together.
3) Why not helping each other improve is hazardous.
     Lastly I would like to talk about why you must help each other improve in a relationship.  First off the relationship will just get boring and the both of you will always be the same people, never improving, and feelings will die away quickly.  It's not about change but about improvement, and both partners should see that and feel like themselves while becoming their best selves.  Tony Robbins says that change will happen no matter what.  I think this can be very useful for life but for now lets look at it for relationships and growing as a person.  20 years from now you and your partner will change, just by looking older, but this isn't change you created, you both must seek improvement, it may take lots of work to improve to your best self and help your partner improve to their best self, but for any relationship it is necessary.

How to Have Peak Experiences.

     Everyone's had a birthday, so we all can relate to a peak experience in this way, no matter if your 5 or 50.  You wait all year to get to that one day of the year you spend with family and friends and have lots of fun at your party.  They are some of the greatest feelings in the world, your life is filled with working to achieve them.  Working toward something you really want to achieve makes life fun, worth living, and once you achieve your goal it makes you beyond happy.
     If you are just handed a sports car or given millions of dollars you have trouble cherishing all that went into earning that, since it was just given to you you have no concept of how to cherish it.  Now lets look on the other side where if you earn the sports car or money, you take deep appreciation for it.  You are likely not to drive real fast all the time and take care of the car.  For the money you are likely to reinvest in something or yourself to make your life better, rather than if you don't earn that money and blow it all on useless things like parties, expensive clothes, big TV's that will be out of date in 6 months to a year.
    Real peak experiences come from accomplishment.  Something you truly worked towards, whether its materialistic or not can bring joy as long as it is something you wanted to achieve in your life.  For myself I got away from a lot of junk foods and strive every day to become better at it.  I talk about this a lot in my posts and videos, but it is something I really do gain happiness from.  It is practically a 180 to go from eating fast food everyday to for the most part avoiding it and eating what I think is going to be best for my body.  I often talk about eating Mcdonalds 5 days a week and that is not an exaggeration.  I would literally eat that almost everyday, of course I barely knew how bad this was for me to do back then because all I thought about was the flavor of the food I consumed.  I remember almost everyday in the summer one year, I had to be 11 or 12, and every morning I would wake up and eat crackers with peanut butter.  Talk about unhealthy!  I was eating so many unhealthy carbs and peanut butter processed with sugars and hydrogenated oil just starting off each day.  Also during school I would always and I mean ALWAYS start off my day with Ovaltine and some days Olga bread as well before I would head off to school.  This clearly wouldn't help me get through the day as processed carbs tend to make us more tired.  And the Ovaltine which also included processed sugars.
     Working on my journey to a better, healthier diet is a very tough struggle at times but is well worth it and there are often better tasting foods that are good for you than the high processed junk food out there.  Although I still do eat some junk food or what I consider to be junk for me is very rare.  I have been able o feel easier breathing along with the food change which enables peak experiences in meditation at times.  I will find myself in a state of bliss some days during meditation if my breathing is good.  This is becoming more and more easy to achieve the more I meditate, but for now is still a rare experience, but I know without the change in my eating I would've never been able to achieve this.
Like I said earlier peak experiences will take a while to achieve and lots of work, but in the end it is worth it every time.  Our life is a journey, what we make of it is totally up to us.  If you want to have this amazing experiences you must be willing to do whatever it take to gain them in your life!

When to Give Up, Should You Give Up?

Giving up should be worst case.  Have your ever heard the phrase "Never give up"?  This can be used for whatever your goals are, and must be used, let me repeat that it MUST be used to achieve your goals.  Before I used to go from shiny object to shiny object only for making money "fast" but if it got too hard or wasn't working fast enough I would go to the next thing and repeat just to have the same thing happen again.  It's a terrible trap many people fall into.  A question I like to ask myself for doing things is "If I wasn't getting paid would I do this everyday"  If the answer is no then why do it? Now there is an exception but it shouldn't take you away from working toward what you want to achieve and that is a job or anything you can make money doing until you have saved enough to quit and go full time on what you want to truly do.  Many of us including myself need a source of income until we do start making money doing what we love, and many people have it way harder than I do, they have children, a house, a car to pay for, and they cannot let their chider starve.  If you are in a position where you have to rely on a job that does not mean give up on working toward what you want, still make time for it everyday, and there will be one day where it is achieved, just be sure to pour your heart out into it, find that reason to not give up no matter how much life throws at you!
If it truly is your dream you won't give up.  The second you know what it is that is your calling 1) you will not wanna stop doing it 2) you will never stop.  Giving up should only be for something that we get bored of which in turn means it is not your calling.  Most jobs no matter how much they pay will get boring or stressful, unless you actually love the job you do even if its not the most money, if you love doing it and if money weren't involved you would still do it then keep doing it, and never give it up or quit.
If its not your life purpose change focus to what is.  What do I mean by this?  If you do something and easily grow bored chances are you aren't meant to do it.  How could you do something your whole life you don't love doing?  It should simply be a waste of time and energy.  So if you are doing something you don't like to do then change it up to what you truly love doing!  Even if it's only a little bit a day or all day as long as you put focus into what you want to do and enjoy it then thats what matters.  When I used to try things just for the money I found quickly it was not something I liked doing.  Sure money is an awesome tool and I love money because it can surely be used for good.  But our main goal shouldn't be to just get money unless that truly is your motivator , which it can be a great one, and can help make you happy, but won't make u happy forever like following your true purpose will.  But for me I have the most fun sharing a story because I never know who it will impact in a positive way.  I love giving free value, and know in some way it'll come back to me in some way, but that is not the reason I do it,  I only do it because it makes me happy and I enjoy sharing what I am learning day to day.

5 Steps to Practicing Optimism

We are all struck with hard situations, what we do in each of these situations are all based on how we choose to feel about the situation itself.  I know for me myself I can get all caught up in my head about why everything is going to go wring or is already going wrong.  Some of the things I will talk about I am working on myself already and progressing everyday to be as optimistic about every situation as much as possible.  The good thing for you guys that with me still struggling with some of these steps is that you will not get discouraged about not be optimistic right away.  So anyways lets get right into it.

1) Don't take things personally
Number one is defiantly my biggest challenge.  In the world it becomes so easy for us to take the smallest thing personally.  In reality the other person may just be doing something thats better for them and not knowing they are hurting you.  We have all been there, we had a plan to do something with someone or people, and then they cancel.  You start thinking "what did I do wrong?" when in reality that person may be sick or have something going on in their life, but we usually always feel like the victim.  For me it helps to just sit back relax and take a deep breathe and put myself in that persons shoes and see where they are coming form instead of only thinking my point of view.  Although I really struggle with this, when I take that small action it helps me not just feel how I feel but also see through the other persons eyes and instead of feeling mad or hurt I feel that I know they aren't doing anything board me which can put both parties in an optimistic headspace because we both see the good instead of the bad.

2) Everything happens for a reason
Many bad or terrifying things will happen in our life that we cannot control.  There is one thing we can do though, and that is knowing that the event happened for a reason even if it doesn't seem good right now, it will help shape us to grow.  You may be driving along and in a hurry to get home and you hit every red light and feel angry, but on your drive home you witness an accident that could've been you if one of those lights were to be green.  Maybe your low on money and are trying to do something big but feel that the lack of money is holding you back right now, but it could be a lesson for the rest of your life, or even be used to show later in life that you came from nothing to doing big things, and using that to help motivate others to do the same and help them realize they can to.  Just remember no matter where you are, whatever happens is the universe trying to push you toward what you are meant to be.
3) Mediation
I talk about meditation for a lot of things.  Having the ability to stare at a wall or close your eyes for a period of time and do nothing sounds boring and torturous at first.  We live in a fast paced world where we are all rushing to do everything, but many of us need to slow down and chill for even just a few minutes.  The rushing around is known to not be beneficial to our cardiovascular system, because rushing causes stress, we are known to rush to a job we don't like which will cause us stress, or rush to get somewhere even if we do like it but any bad traffic will do the same, cause us stress. So for me slowing down and taking some time to myself and just doing a mediation and telling myself "I am" statements throughout the mediation can help bring me back to center.
4) Don't care what others think
The biggest trap we can fall into which can bring us into pessimism is doing what everyone else wants us to do.  We live in a world where others opinion of us can shape how we feel about doing the things we truly love.  Your not gonna please everyone and you shouldn't try to.  Now I'm not saying to just not listen to others, because many times people want to help us learn something that can help our life.  If its something you know won't truly help you its best to do what you know truly will despite the opinion of others, and if you do try to please others all the time you won't do it and you'll ultimately be letting yourself down.  To be your true self you must care what you think of yourself, wha others think isn't who you are, only what you think of yourself is what matters.  Are you thinking of yourself as powerful or weak? A winner or loser?  These are thoughts only we can control, no one else.
5) Do what makes you happy
I am currently working a job I don't really see as useful where I am doing the same thing everyday and becomes boring and repetitive.  But for me writing, doing videos, and working out is much different, I seem to enjoy the process because I know I am doing good for people and influencing people while working on myself as well.  Even if I'm not making money doing it I still love the process and have fun with it, and truly brings me joy to share a message I find important.