How to have the best summer ever

Reading Time: 2 minutes

1. Take a vacation. Even if you just spend a day or two in Salt Lake or buy a hotel room in downtown Provo for a couple nights, it is absolutely necessary that this summer, you take yourself to someplace new. Do not allow yourself to stagnate.

2. Figure out what you want to do. Find the best way to do it, and then go to! This may seem to get more and more complicated in real life. Try not to let it be.

3. Learn to do something new. Take knitting classes at Heindselmann’s yarn store in Provo. Learn to swim at your local rec center. Take a look at who you are now, figure out who you want to be, study the difference between the two, and learn something to make that deficit smaller.

4. Surprise yourself. Never been to Vegas? Drive down there and dance all night. Afraid of heights? Go bungee jumping. Find something that you might want to do but would never see yourself doing. Shake things up.

5. Embrace the clichés. Check out a self-help book from the library, with the words "happiness" or "better you" in the title. Take a couple words of advice from the book. And don’t be embarrassed to drown yourself in chocolate and kittens.

6. Make friends with someone with a boat, because sometimes, money (or the lack thereof) gets in the way of happiness. Sometimes it’s OK to become a hanger-on. Just contribute to the relationship in any way you know how to even things out.

7. River rafting is sure to be wonderful this year. All of that snow will make the rivers swollen by July, and that’s when rafting is the most fun.

8. Take lots of happy pictures, and write the date on the back of the print. Even if you don’t have much fun this summer, the pictures will make it seem like you did.

9. If none of this floats your boat, here’s some broader advice: Decide what you want to do with the day when you wake up. Then proceed to do it until you have to go to sleep. Repeat.