As I sit here awake at 1:30 in the morning, unable to sleep despite having to wake up in 5 hours for work, I’m dwelling on a lot of things that have been going on in my life personally. Mostly family stuff.

I did what I’m sure any person awake at 1:30 in the morning and on the computer would do, and I checked into Facebook. A friend had posted an article on Forbes, titled, “Mentally Strong People: The 13 Things They Avoid”. I scrolled past it, not really interested in reading anything in depth, but then changed my mind and went back to it. I’m glad I did.

You can read the whole article here, but I wanted to share the keypoints:

13 Things Mentally Strong People Do Not Do:

1. Waste time feeling sorry for themselves.
2. Give away their power.
3. Shy away from change.
4. Waste energy on things they can’t control.
5. Worry about pleasing others.
6. Fear taking calculated risks.
7. Dwell on the past.
8. Make the same mistakes over and over.
9. Resent other people’s success.
10. Give up after failure.
11. Fear alone time.
12. Feel the world owes them anything.
13. Expect immediate results.

I am not saying, by any means, that I am these things. The reason I’m sharing this is because I struggle with almost all of these things, but it gave me something to think about in the face of a lot of grief recently over events that are out of my control. Number 4 and 5 in particular. I may need to get these two tattooed on the inside of my wrists, so that I can be reminded of them every day and try to be a mentally stronger person.

Now if only I could be an emotionally stronger person.