DOwhat youlove

The Life Guide for the Optimist

HELLOHELLOHELLO

This is your guide to doing what you love and doing it often. We want you to realise your dreams and then fulfil them. Life’s too short to stand around waiting for everything to fall

into place, so get living.

Carpe Diem - Seize the Day

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a very strong or irresist

WANDE RLUST

ible impulse to travel’

RLUST

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A TRAVELLING

DREAMER

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Meet Stephanie, a girl who follows her heart. She woke up one morning and decided she wanted something different; moresunshine and less rain. She now lives in La Réunion; a French speaking island in the Indian Ocean, where her nearest ports of call are Madagascar &Mauritius We have asked her a few questions to find out how she went about making her dreams a reality.

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TELL ME YOUR STORY

‘I’m Stephanie; a 20 year old modern languages student at Sheffield University. I have always loved to travel and have been fortunate enough to have holidayed in many exotic places, so when the opportunity for me to study abroad came up, I grabbed it with both hands. I chose Université de la Réunion to study at, for the simple reason I had never been to the Is-land before. I love trying new things.’

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TELL ME YOUR passion‘I love languages. I can speak fluent French, Spanish and Italian & I hope to learn even more. When in a different country I simply have to speak their language and get total-ly emerged in the culture. It’s my favourite part of travelling.’

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YOUR dreams‘I hope that one day I can travel the world, there’s so much to see and I just want to see it all!’.’

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best thing about the island

‘It’s definitely the laidback attitude of everybody here; no one ever seems to be in a rush. I’ve embraced this attitude entirely and now even when I’m twenty minutes late for something, I just can’t help but stroll. Oh, and of course, the weather! Whenever I have a day off I spend it either on the beach on trekking up the mountains, the views here are amazing.’

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life motto

‘‘What’s worth the prize is always worth the fight.’ I say this to myself every time I’m miserable or doing something that I don’t enjoy, it keeps me going.’ 13

‘‘Twenty years from now you’ll be

more disappointed by the things you didn’t

do than by the things you

did.’’Mark Twain

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YOU KNOW ALL OF THOSE THINGS YOU’VE ALWAYS DREAMT OF DOING?

You should do them.15

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Remember; sunrises are free, a full moon makes a wonderful torch for midnight walks & fresh air cures all kinds of ailments. So go for long walks to clear your mind, dip your toes in the sea even when it’s freezing & fall asleep whilst counting all of the stars in the sky. Save money for a rainy day and spend it when the sun is shining. If your dreams don’t scare you, you need to make them bigger and then biggeragain. You won’t look back on your life in years to come and remember the nights where you had a peaceful nights’ sleep. Think about the last time you tried something new. There is so much more to explore. If you don’t have enough time; stop watching TV.

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If something made you smile, it should never be regretted, because at one point in your life, that was exactly what you wanted. Life is easy; do what makes you happy, don’t do what doesn’t, it’s as simple as that. If you love someone, let them know. If you don’t love your job, find somewhere better and quit. Try not to over-complicate things. It’s important to forgive & forget; life is really, really short, and there’s just not enough time to hold grudges. Every single day is a new opportunity for you to change your life, & the only person stopping you from doing what you love, is you.

When someone is having a bad day, a

simple smile could be all is needed to pick up their mood. A small gesture could lift their spirits more than you could ever

imagine. Smiles are free, so give away as many as you can. Make it your own personal aim to go

out of your way to try and make someone feel that extra bit special every single day. Really get to know people. Pay compliments often and take

compliments graciously. Acts of kindness release serotonin into the brain; so selflessly helping someone

is a sure fire way for you to feel good on

the inside.

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Smile at strangers,

you don’t know how much it could make

their day.

It’s completely

possibly to create your

own luck.

Give it a go.

Keep an eye out for shooting stars. Remember that umbrellas are for outdoors only. Keep your brand new shoes on your feet, and off of the table. Avoid black cats unless you’re giving them a cuddle. don’t tell a soul what you wish for, for it might never come true. Keep your horse shoe the right way up, don’t let the luck pour out. Touch wood and it might just come true. Search high and low in your garden for four leaf clovers. When leaves are falling in autumn, have a go at catching them. Keep your mirror safe. But, most importantly of all, absolutely everyone should have their own special lucky number. So, what’s yours?

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If you like to paint, you should paint; if you like to write, why not write? It doesn’t matter that you’re not an art ist or an author . Creativity is beautiful and it’s there for us all to enjoy. You should embrace it. One of the greatest feelings of freedom that you could ever have is the freedom that no one is judging you. Ignore other people’s negativity and try to stay upbeat. Although you can’t control what other people may say, you can control how you let it affect you. You’ve been blessed with hands to create and a mind to think, don’t let them go to waste.

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It’s okayto have bad

hair days

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Just wear

a hat

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‘’What makes you itch? What sort of a situation would you like? Let’s suppose, I do this often in vocational guidance of students, they come to me and say ‘Well, we’re getting out of college and we don’t have the faintest idea of what we what to do.’ So I always ask the question ‘What would you like to do if money were no object? How would you really enjoy spending your life?’ Well it’s so amazing that as a result of our kind of educational system, crowds of students say ‘Well we’d like to be painters’, ‘We’d like to be poets’, ‘We’d like to be writers’; but as everybody knows we can’t earn any money that way. Another person says ‘I’d like to live an outdoors life and ride horses’. I say ‘Do you want to teach in a riding school? Let’s go through with it, what do you want?’ When we get down to something that the individual says he really wants to do, I will say to him, ‘You do that and forget the money’, because if you say that getting the money is the most important thing, you will spend your life com-pletely wasting your time. You will be doing things you don’t like doing, in order to go on living to carry on doing things you don’t like doing, which is stupid. It’s better to have a short life that is full of what you like doing, than a long life spent in a miser-able way. After all, if you do really like doing what you’re doing, it doesn’t matter what it is, you can eventually become a master of it. The only way to become a master of something is to be really with it. And then you’ll be able to get a good fee for whatever it is. So don’t worry too much; somebody’s interested in everything. Anything you can be interested in, you’ll find others will be. It’s absolutely stupid to spend your time doing things you don’t like, in order to go on doing things to don’t like and then to teach your children to fol-low in the same track. What we’re doing; is bringing up children and educating them to live the same lives that we’re living. They then might justify themselves and bring satisfaction in life by bringing up their children to bring up their children to do the same thing, so it’s all wretch and no vomit. It never gets there. And therefore, it’s so important to consider this question, ‘what do I desire?’’’

-Alan Watts

Whatlife m

i s

i s yourmotto?

Neil, 22

‘You Only Live Once’

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William, 21‘‘Why put off until tomorrow,

something that you can do today?’

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John, 20

‘‘It’s impossible to fail, as long as you

never quit.’’

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My life motto is

..........................................

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Even when it feels like everything is falling apart, it’s simply because even better things are coming together. The journey can be tough, but some-how the pieces always manage to fall directly into place. Some of life’s most important lessons are learnt in our darkest days, and without the hard times, you would never learn how to be strong. Happiness isn’t constant and it’s not meant to be. It wouldn’t be such a special gift if it was around all of the time; it comes and goes, simply to add a dash of sweetness to our lives when we need it most. Remember to appreciate it while it’s around.

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It’s funny how you always end

up exactly where you’re

supposed to be.43

Have you done anything today to make yourself closer to where

you want to be tomorrow?

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Dear me,Write a letter to yourself for you to open in a couple of years’ time. Note down all of your dreams, aspirations and feelings, everything you have achieved and everything that you would like to achieve. Make some mid-year resolutions. Now, take a moment to ask yourself; ‘what have I done today to make my future-self happy?’If you’re not doing enough, now is your chance to change it. Go for more long walks; write a letter to an old friend with whom you’ve lost touch and then book a flight to Paris. Today isn’t your last on the planet, so don’t act as though it is; it’s the first, the beginning of something really special. Make your future self proud.

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AcknowledgmentsWritten & Compiled by Rosie March

Art Work by Alice SyronModels; Victoria Gardner, Gabrielle Thompson,

Neil Orr, John Chapman, William Watson.Thank you to Stephanie Gibbons

lovewhat youD0

Written and Compiled by Rosie March