.SOMETIMES RAW.

Aim to get better every day. Get rid of all the negative elements stopping you from being more focused or content. This could be people, relationships or environments. I think you are an amalgamation of the five people you spend the most time with, so now is your opportunity to assess those characters closely and distance yourself where necessary. The chances are, if these people are sucking the joy out of their own lives like a human Hoover, they are doing the same to yours. Surround yourself with people you admire, respect and want to emulate. Their qualities will rub off on you. For free.

Be more Bee. Twenty percent of bees don’t obey the waggle dance (how they tell each other where to find food and water). These ‘rebel’ bees choose instead to explore the areas where most of the bees aren’t going. If every bee obeyed the waggle dance the hive would get trapped in a local maximum. What would be the benefit of 100 percent of the bees exploring the same area day in and day out? Without the 20 percent of rogue explorer bees, the hive would never discover anything new and it wouldn’t be capable of adapting. It is okay to do your own thing, that’s where discovery and new ideas happen. So, be more bee.

A daily work reminder: A bad boss creates a culture that mimics from the top down. There is a bit of a ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’ attitude. It takes people a long time to recover from a bad boss. The positive? It teaches us how not to behave if we are ever to become a boss ourselves.

A Fat Lie: Here is a home truth that might sting a little: Many of us were raised by our parents to believe we could be anything we wanted. That anything we set our minds to is achievable. Unfortunately, the real world is tough and unpredictable. Sometimes working hard isn’t enough. Opportunities don’t come knocking at your door, you have to go out and find them. When you are raised to believe you are destined for success and the world is your oyster, of course, you are going to feel like you have failed when things don’t turn out the way you had expected. Have a little self-compassion.

What are you good at? Age-old advice tells us to do what we love. While it is true that no one should ever give up on their passion, if it feels like you are not getting anywhere, it might be wise to pursue what you are good at, rather than what you obsess over. If you are good at what you are passionate about, you have hit the jackpot.

On success: If there is something you want to learn, pursue and attack it in the most unconventional way, so it takes deep root in your soul. Keep goals short-term. The best strategy is high intention and low expectation. Remain as flexible as possible. Your only concerns are the things you can control which are your thoughts and your actions.

On destiny: The narrative of ‘believe in yourself, follow your heart, ignore the haters, follow your vision and you will have the destiny you choose’, all that is the typical tale told by successful business gurus. But it is also a recipe for devastating failure. It completely ignores the role of fortune, of luck, of what life throws at you.

On luck: Develop your talent, develop the energy with which you get it out there and the rest is all luck. If you get the first two bits right, you are nudging the third bit to work in your favour.

Assumption is the mother of all fuckups: Ask, clarify, ask again. Don’t fall into the trap of nodding your head and pretending you have understood something when you haven’t.

On money: It is worth remembering that money makes you happier only to the point you don’t have to worry about it. Beyond that amount, money does not make you happier the more you earn.

Things will always pass. Things pass, it is just one thing after another. Don’t work so hard to impress people.

Let your mind be your playground. It’s where I work and have fun. I don’t often let people in, but when I do, I make sure it’s for a fleeting and confusing period that we both quickly agree was a mistake.

On solitude: I’m not into crowds; I’m into clouds. I’m not into clubs; I’m into shrubs. I prefer the predictable rhythms of photosynthesis and convection to the shocking neediness of people who start conversations. I never feel obligated to attend house parties, dinner parties, or godawful weddings when I have books just begging to be re-organized. I practice the Walden technique: If too many social invitations pile up, I go live by an abandoned pond for a year.

Genuine connection is ease. It is peace. When you find it you will know. You will feel seen, you will feel like you are being mirrored back to yourself like you are discovering the shadow of your own heart in another human being.

Slowly, through loving the right people, you will come to realize that the human beings who are meant for you in this world will not exhaust you, or hollow you out, or leave you feeling like you are hard to love. Slowly, you will come to realize that you do not have to romanticize the things in this life that hurt. You do not have to run towards the fire. Love does not have to feel like a fight, does not have to feel like battle, does not have to wound.

Slowly, you will learn how to lay down your arms. How to walk away from those who will only ever love you in halves. Slowly, you will learn that you cannot love someone into loving you, or being ready, if they are not. You cannot close their hands around your heart if they are not willing to hold it themselves. You have to let them go. You have to focus on the people in your life who bring you back home to yourself. You have to focus on standing up for that kind of connection, on honoring that calm, because it exists.

Learn to trust that, because when you come across it, when you ultimately experience it, it feels as if you are standing at a door you finally have the keys for. You enter it with ease. There is no fumbling through your jacket pocket trying to find the right way in. There is no desperately reaching into your bag trying to uncover the point of access. You are no longer banging your fists against the door, asking to be invited in. You walk through. Soundlessly. Softly. Relief washes over you. You take off your shoes. You hang your coat in the closet. You put on a pot of coffee. You’re home.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

can I please have your attention for this public service announcement: I did it again. My sixth book has been published. 

What the book is about

Like my previous books, I have written essays on my life in general; and ideas on how to create a passionate life for you and the people you love to spend time with. You will find inspiration, health tips, and how to be a better version of yourself. This time, more focus is placed on deeper thought, humour, and of course, cake because cake is always awesome!

What I hope to achieve with my book is that you get comfortable, enjoy a glass of beverage of choice, send your kid(s) to bed, and read my book in silence and peace. I hope it will transfer you into a relaxed, thought-provoking, or inspirational mode, make you reflect and most importantly think. Always think outside the box. 

I really want to thank my family, friends, and blog readers, and the support I have gotten to make this happen. I will have book signings coming up in Vienna at independent bookstores. Announcements and dates will be shared on this website. 

To sum this book up according to Morawa/Buchschmiede Publisher: 

A new rip-roaring essay collection from the smart, edgy, hilarious, unabashedly raunchy author Daniela Henry. She published successful books and loves to write mostly in her beautiful garden near the pond in the countryside. The essays in this collection draw on the raw, hilarious particulars of Henry’s life, experiences and observations. “I Was Told There Would Be Cake” is Henry at her most unflinching, riotous, and relatable.

Order your copy here, here, or in any bookstore. I would love to hear your thoughts about the book and anything else you like to share.

Thank you for reading my stuff and buying my books. <3

If there is any message I want you to take from this article, it is that befriending a parrot can be both frustrating and infinitely rewarding. And if there are two more messages to get from this article: buy my book “I Was Told There Would Be Cake” which will be released any day now, and just be happy – because you can be happy. There is so much bad news in the world right now and sometimes it is hard to see the positive side of things, but it is possible and there are things you can do to be happy. 

In the interest of full disclosure, I want you to know that I am not a spiritual adviser. Yes, it’s true that if my mother didn’t name me Daniela she was going to name me Deepak. But she didn’t and that is not the path I followed. And I would never want to mislead you by telling you that I have all the answers, because I don’t. I mean, I do know a lot. Like, A LOT a lot. I am very worldly. What’s that? No, I am not in Mensa or anything. But I could be. Obviously. I just don’t have time for all the paperwork. Or those meetings. Those are probably a drag. So, in conclusion, the only reason I am not in Mensa is because I don’t have time for the paperwork or the meetings. Moving on. 

I spend a lot of time listening to spiritual advisers and I have read a lot of books on the power of positive thinking. And I agree with what they say – it makes a big difference in your life when you stay positive. I am positive about this. It helps to surround yourself with positive people. No one likes to be around Negative Nellies. Try and spend more time with Positive Peters and Happy Helens.

Another thing you can do – and this is just off the top of my head – is read all my other books. I try to make it an escape from the things in life that are not so great. I keep it happy and positive and upbeat. Plus, it is much cheaper than a prescription with none of the negative side effects. 

It has been proven that when we are positive and happy, endorphins rush through our system. Now, I am no scientist, but I know what endorphins are. They are tiny, little magical elves that swim through your bloodstream and tell funny jokes to each other. When they reach your brain, you hear what they are saying and that boosts your health and happiness. “Knock, knock…. Who’s there? … Little endorphin…. Little endorphin who?… Little endorphin Annie.” And then the endorphins laugh, and then you laugh. See? It’s science. 

Don’t get me wrong. Everyone has good days and bad days. We are humans. We have emotions. In fact, I don’t trust anyone who doesn’t have emotions. Have you ever met someone who says they have never had a bad day in their whole entire life? Don’t you want to poke them in the face? I don’t understand people like that. We all wake up on the wrong side of the bed some days. Some days we even wake up on the wrong side of our neighbour’s driveway because of a late night out and some confusion over strikingly similar front doors. My point is, life is about balance. The good and the bad. The highs and the lows. The piña and the colada. 

The thing everyone should realize is that the key to happiness is being happy by yourself and for yourself. If everything you have got stripped away – your home, your job, your family, your things, your favourite T-shirt with all the holes in it that you won’t throw away even though it reveals a large part of your stomach region – if you lost all of those things and you had to live in a cave all alone with absolutely nothing, you should still be happy. Happiness comes from within. You have the power to change your own mindset so that all the negative, horrible thoughts that try to invade your psyche are replaced with happy, positive, wonderful thoughts. 

I myself have made a conscious choice to not allow negative thoughts to even enter my mind. Is it hard? You bet it is. Negative thoughts are powerful. For example, if I didn’t make that commitment to myself to think positively all the time, I would probably start thinking about how scary it would be to live in a cave all alone with absolutely nothing. Because I mean, if I really think about the reality of that situation, it’s terrifying – to be trapped in a cave with all those bats flying around everywhere. And the spiders! There are probably literally millions and millions of spiders in caves. I don’t have anything against bats and spiders. Especially if they are happy living their lives all alone in caves. More power to them, I say. It’s just that it’s so dark in caves. I guess that goes without saying. They are caves. But once you really get inside, there is not even a hint or trace of light. Just little bat eyes darting around everywhere, waiting for you to turn your head so they can pounce on the back of your neck like a cheetah with bat wings. 

I am so scared of the dark. I usually leave the bathroom light on all night with the door slightly ajar (notice my Mensa-level vocabulary) just so there’s a strip of light. I know it wastes electricity but one time I woke up in a pitch-black room and thought for sure I had been kidnapped by cave dwellers who had taken me and my bed to their underground cave where they would train me to move like a dinosaur and only eat tree bark. Turns out I had an eye mask on, but that’s neither here nor there. My point is, I like a little bit of light. 

You know, there is probably a lot of moisture in caves, too, which would be bad for my hair. And all those sharp edges. I wouldn’t want to move. I would just sit in the cave all day long and think about how scared I was to be there. I am probably not gonna sleep tonight thinking about how I could easily end up trapped in a cave one day, surrounded by bats, spiders, water droplets, sharp edges, and complete and total darkness. 

What was I saying? Oh right – negative thoughts. Get rid of them! I did! You know what a wise person once said? “Why pay full price for  a sweater when you can steal it for free?” You know what another wise person once said? “Happiness is a journey, not a destination.” Amen, my friends!

Let me break that down for you so it’s easy to understand. Happiness is a journey. This means that happiness is like a long car ride. Let’s say you are in a car and you are driving to Hawaii. Sure, it seems like Hawaii, your destination, is going to be the happiness part. But really, the car ride is the happiness part because of all the fun games you can play in the car and all the stops you can make at beautiful public toilet areas, not to mention how fun it would be to be in the car with three young kids for hours and hours. Be happy on your journey to Hawaii so that once you get there you can be miserable. Wait. I don’t know if that’s right. 

However you choose to live your life, just try to enjoy it as much as you can. Fill yourself with joy. (Not the dishwashing liquid.) And accept what life throws at you and what you cannot change – the good, the bad, the ugly, the awkward, the fun, the boring, the sweet, the weird, the sour, the salty, the ripe, the unripe…. I am sorry, I have to be right back. I just got really hungry.