you can stand right there if you want but i'm going on

and i mean every word

i just want to take this moment to thank each and every single one of you. yesterday's blog took a lot of balls for me to post and all the anxiety melted away the second it went live. over 400 of you (WHAT) have read that depressing essay (depressay? that might just be my best) and offered up even more words of support and love. some of you have spoken out about your own experiences, some have told me it gets better and some have silently appreciated it. it doesn't matter what was said or done, i'm just glad it was so well received. a heartfelt thank you. 

don't worry, "oh, mitch please!" isn't entirely becoming a self-aware, self-obsessed, self-conscious, self-help blog: there'll still be snippets of real life emotion and possibly maybe potentially the rare big emo piece but it's going to stay very grounded. there'll be lots of talk about the little things that make me happy: music, clothes, impulse buys, all the stationery, letters, experiences and everything else in between. there'll be awful advice, funny anecdotes and, of course, lots more giveaways.

it's strange, today feels like the comedown from yesterday's hubbub. 

regardless, "what the fuck are you on about?"

no relevance but bloody delicious

mean girls told me to suck all the poison out of my life and i've been trying really hard to do that over the past few months: yesterday's revelatory blog will only concrete that. but today i wanted to actually dish out some cold, hard advice for all of you who are struggling. it might be a bit more tongue-in-cheek than yesterday's sobfest but i honestly think that some of you could benefit from taking note of a few. so here is mitch cole's guide to:

"sucking the poison out of your life"

1) make peace with the past. easier said than done, a hard place to start, but crucial. forget your regrets, let go of your grudges. life's too short to constantly be getting worked up about something that you have no control over. sure, you might still feel bitter/sad/emotional about it but there's plenty more to look forward. you're in charge of your happiness so get going. "the past has passed and every new day is a gift. that's why it's called the present" ew but also aw. 

2) let the haters hate. taylor swift might be too tall and very catty (in more ways than one) but a) she sure knows how to write a fucking good pop song and b) she gets it right sometimes. there a lot of people who are out to shit on everyone else: somewhere along the way, they lost themselves and now they're keen to drag other humans down with them. we all know their type. leave them to it and worry about you. sometimes it really is just about #1 - you'll be slapping them off of your coattails on the way to happiness come the end anyway.

3) unsubscribe to those fucking emails. honestly, waking up to 17 new inbox messages becomes very tedious very quickly when you realise it's just huge corporations bullying you into spending money you don't have or charity muggers (chuggers) preying on your finely tuned sense of sympathy. set aside fifteen minutes today to sort your cluttered inbox and sever the ties to those hounding bastards. 

4) say sorry. when you know you've done something wrong, don't be a stubborn little gremlin about it. be honest, be open and be apologetic. harbouring bad blood isn't a good thing - there's several songs about it after all so it's common knowledge by now. on the other hand, don't sit there and wait for somebody to apologise to you. take it from me, that probably won't happen. talk to them, let them know you feel and try to sort it out. life is easier when you know what's happening: if only everything could be so black and white, eh?

5) be nicer. it's nice to be nice, isn't it? sometimes doing nice things "just because" is wonderful. in my experience, i've found that niceties are met with more niceties. that horrible comment you were going to make about the fat, ugly girl that just looked at you like you had shit on your face? write it down, throw it away and save your words for someone who deserves them. try to remember that wonderful sales assistant or the old friend that commented on your picture saying you look great. look harder for those silver linings and draw inspiration from them to be someone else's silver lining. control, alt, repeat. 

i could get used to being this positive all the time, you know? enjoy it while it lasts because, much like my hair, it'll be gone before you know it xo