22 Ways To Spice Up An Otherwise Bleak, Dreary Week

1. Text someone you haven’t talked to in months/years, completely out of the blue. They’ll smile. Smiling is better than the other thing.

2. Strike up a friendly, out of left field conversation with your grocery store cashier. As our 9th grade english teachers aptly taught us, it’s the little things.

3. On your commute home, get off at a different subway stop or drive through a different town. It’ll force you to observe the fascinating world around you. Engaging in the same routine time and time again can make one easily susceptible to tunnel vision.

4. Carve out an entire evening to massively rearrange or overhaul your kitchen. “A room is never done.” – some notable interior decorator, probably.

5. Organize and execute a dinner with a friend you’ve met in adulthood. (Of course you’ll first need to find yourself an adult friend, which…well…)

6. Take the extra time to really put together a proper work outfit in the morning. Dressing the part will make you feel that much more in control. So like, 5% in control.

7. For an afternoon, try not to depend on your caffeine/tea crutch. If you actually manage to power through, you’re an instant legend.

8. Embark on a book outside of your typical genre. If you’re usually going for feel-good teen romance stuff, go for the Steve Jobs biography. If you’re all about murder-mysteries, hit up Jack Handey’s Deep Thoughts.

9. If you’ve been spending two hours before bed internetting away, remove yourself from the screen. What you actually do instead isn’t entirely crucial–it’s just the fact you aren’t submitting yourself to the all too pervasive screen cancer that’s gonna plague society in 25 years.

10. Going out hard during the weekday definitely has its next-morning consequences. But after a long day spent questioning how the hell you ended up in a place where all you do is question your career choice, unwinding can be a lifesaver.

11. Man or Woman up and finally click the “register” button for the improv/cooking/I now have something to live for class.

12. Go through an old photo album, or read messages people wrote in your high school yearbook. The nostalgia shock will provide an incredible natural high. And make you realize how unbearably awkward you once were still are.

13. If meeting up with a friend who lives in a different part of town, venture over there instead of hosting. A slight inconvenience, but a nice way to extricate yourself from that neighborhood induced tunnel vision. And more importantly, they’ll now owe you one.

14. If in a relationship, surprise your significant other with a flower arrangement/funny drawing/Tate’s chocolate chip cookies. If not in a relationship, hold off on crying for just one evening.

15. Depart from the show you’re currently watching, and actually get around to that pilot you’ve been meaning to watch for years. For bonus points, buy an episode if its not available on the ‘flix/HBO GO/etc.

16. Dust off that cookbook, and do what you resolved to start doing when you bought Jamie Oliver’s “Meals In Minutes” 8 months ago–actually cook one of those meals displayed in those awesome looking pictures. It probably won’t match the picture exactly, but it’s a start.

17. Instead of trying to round up a crew to go see that movie only you want to see, go by yourself. You’ll feel #accomplished.

18. Wake up early, and be one of those people who eat breakfast diner windows, sip coffee and pretend to read the paper. Hashtag Interesting Human, Hashtag Starting The Day On The Right Foot

19. If a band you really like tweets out a surprise show that’s going down tomorrow night, aspire to do more than what you’d usually do in this situation–wistfully decide that head-nodding your boss at 9 02 AM is more important than having something to hang your memory-making hat on for years to come.

20. When you find yourself stereotyping some stranger/person/coworker, think about how you’d feel if they did the same to you. Take solace in the fact that you’re adhering to some life lesson that was probably once the focus of a Barney episode.

21. Finally get around to fixing that lightbulb in the living room. This will fill your productivity quota at least three days.

22. Overcome the impossible and…try and have a positive outlook.