Gratitude Is My New Attitude

I always try to take away something positive from every experience in my life.  I think, for me, it's yet another coping mechanism.  If I only focused on the negative aspects of the less than stellar situations in my life, I'd be a complete lunatic by now.  As it stands, I am only borderline.

Let's face it, life is not perfect.  Every day holds disappointments and "surprises" that we all wish never happened but we ultimately have no control over these occurences.  I know people who constantly moan and complain about EVERYTHING.  How the heck do they get out of bed every day?  If I KNEW, beyond doubt, that every single day was going to be filled with nothing but drama and trauma and I was going to be angry and disappointed about every curve ball thrown my way, I'm not sure how much motivation I would have to greet each new day. 

We all know these people.  They never feel well.  Every little sniffle is a monumental illness.  Every person they encounter is rude, unhelpful, or abrasive.  It's funny, I've been to a ton of stores and I always find the people in them very pleasant.  Of course I am always friendly with them.  I believe when you are very nice to others they have no choice but to reciprocate.  If you approach someone like an ogre I guess you are going to get a little bit of that back.  They end up finding fault with their friends eventually too.  That one I can never figure out.  I don't have perfect friends.  Who would want them?  I would feel such pressure to appear perfect next to them,  NOT my style.  I like that my friends are a little quirky, it keeps things interesting.  We all make mistakes.  We all need support when we are not making the best decisions.  Many times we see our friends doing things that we would not necessarily do but we don't drop them.  If they ask our opinion, we give it and hope that whatever decision they make it works for them.

Happiness is a choice.  Every day I choose it.  Sometimes I feel as though the entire universe is conspiring against me but that does not deter me from my goal.  I think we all want peaceful, harmonious lives.  I'm pretty sure we don't wake up and say, "wow, I really hope everything is a hot mess today and I'm completely stressed out and miserable ALLLL day!!"  I know I don't.  When a bump in the road comes up I navigate around it or run it over but I do not let it change me intrinsically.

We have so much power over the lives we want and we don't even know it.  I used to feel like my life was just what it was.  I felt like the decisions I made in my mid-twenties were what I was stuck with forever.  I was wrong.  My life can be anything I want.  I can be anything I want.  The only limits on me are the ones that I place.  I think you need age to gain this wisdom.  I think you need to go through these tough times in order to understand that you can get through them and prevail.  I can only imagine what I will believe myself capable of when I get 20 more years under my belt.  Skydiving at 65, anyone?