It is amazing to me how much I've learned about myself in the last year. I have found a confidence that was once hidden and a voice that had been silenced for so long. We are not given many chances to experience life, especially if we are stuck in a routine and don't deviate to other paths. Get up, go to work/school, go to bed, rinse and repeat. Some folks do this for 80+ years and call it a life. But was it? You are given one shot at this world, was what you made of it worth it?
I have learned, this past year especially, that you are the only person who can be the director of your life. Sure, circumstances influence what happens to us, people come and go but, we are ultimately the directors. I can choose to wake up and have a terrible day and I can also choose to have a fantastic day. I can choose how the words of others affect me. Not one person can make us feel a certain way, it's us allowing them to have that control in our lives. Life is too short to allow others to dictate your feelings.
I have found the confidence to not allow others to have a say in how I feel. I have found the voice to be different. I don't always have to agree with what others are saying and that's okay. We shouldn't be agreeable to everything and not question others. How else are we supposed to learn or grow? The voice that I found has allowed me to share my thoughts and opinions when I disagree with something, but doing it in a respectful and tactful way.
If I have learned one thing in nursing school, it would be to really, really live day to day. Not taking things for granted and living in the moment.
I am somewhat "Type A" in that I make lots of lists. I make lists of lists and then redo them again. I would write down everything that needed to be done by next week and get totally flustered and extremely stressed. Only when I learned to focus on one day at a time, did I truly feel at ease and could be present for other things and not be so chaotically stressed.
The truth is, life isn't easy...I know that's extremely cliche but hear me out. Life isn't always fair and it gets tough almost as much as it doesn't. The problem with the people of 2014, is that we all walk around acting like this place owes us something. We get disappointed a lot due to this type of thinking. If we continue to live our lives thinking people owe us something, or that bad things may happen so lets live in a bubble, are we getting the most of what our one life has to offer? If we live our lives worried, stressed and ignorant will we be satisfied when the day is done and the sun is gone?
When we quit blaming others for our unsuccessful attempts and we stop looking at every bad thing that has happened to us in the last 24 hours, does not our outlook change? When all the bad isn't given the acknowledgement it wants, are we not left with a silver lining? I saw a post a while back that said something like, stop complaining for 24 hours and see the changes your life will undergo.
This world continues to move on whether we are focusing on the bad things that may or may not happen or whether we are seeking, always, that silver lining. How you spend the 86,400 seconds we are given in a day is truly yours to choose. It will go by just the same when we are happy as when we are sad. Do not fall into a routine that you don't veer from for 70 years and as the sun goes down on your last day, call it a good life.
Truly focus your attention on doing what you love, pursing every dream imaginable, seeking happiness and surrounding yourself with the ones you love most.
Find that confidence to know what you want and pursue it fiercely. Allow the voice within you to speak and not just agree. The beat goes on whether we want it to or not.
Find what makes you happy and pursue it!
