Every Day is a New Day.

The ever lovely Meg Fee offered this gem of a quote on her blog, and I believe it deserves some reflection:

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy, for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves, we must die to one life before we can enter another.

                                                                                                   -Anotole Frances

I am sure most would agree that everyone goes through life changes almost on a daily basis. But what this quote speaks of is the complete surrender of the old in order to usher in the new. Certainly a feeling of loss is inherent within leaving behind what was once familiar, and just as certainly there is the accompanying feeling of jubilance in accepting a new way, a new life. Opposition in all things. Right?

Happiness is a choice.

This is the simple principle I live my life by. Over this last year or so, I have learned how to be happy even when it is difficult to make that choice. Sometimes crap just seems to rain down on your head, and sometimes it is easy to get buried in that crap, but you really can choose to stand up in the air, shake your fist at the world and scream: "I am happy, dang it!"
And while I have discovered this simple principle to be true, again and again, I have also noticed something else. While happiness is still a choice, it is also a process. More than a single choice, it could be more accurate to say that happiness is a series of choices. Decisions define us. Daily, everyday little decisions. Deciding to choose the right has the power to make us infinitely happy if we so choose. On the other hand, deciding to go against what is right has the power to make us sad, unfortunate souls.
Truly, I have learned that each little decision matters, because the whole may be greater than the sum of its parts, but each part still constitutes the whole.

Happy Chinese New Year

It's the year of the rabbit, and about the time that I actually start trying to do my New Year's Resolutions. I have been okay about exercising lately, although not that great at eating healthy(there are currently 4 peanut butter cookies in my backpack for a library snack...don't ask if I have already eaten several), and my other goals are either non-existent or should be since I am not working at them.
I actually really like Chinese New Year, even though I am not Chinese, nor have I ever really taken the time to celebrate it. It reminds me of a childhood friend of mine named Linda (name change) who would always bring these really yummy white rabbit candies to school and share them with me. Linda would also get a bunch of little red envelopes from her family members with money in them. I was always slightly jealous of those little red envelopes, and I could definitely use a couple of those sent to me right now. Anyhow, one of these days I will have my own little celebration of Chinese New Year and everybody can bring me a little red envelope filled with cash, and we can dance in the street and launch firecrackers in the backyard. But this year, I will just have to live with reevaluating my New Year Goals, make a few more, and actually work towards accomplishing them.
To conclude, a quote my Physics teacher shared with the class from our prophet Thomas Monson:


"Success is contingent upon our effective use of the time given us. When we cease peering backwards into the mists of our past and craning forward into the fog that shrouds the future and simply concentrate upon doing what lies clearly at hand, then we are making the best and happiest use of our time. Success is the ratio of your accomplishments to your capabilities."


Gung Hay Fat Choy!


Miss M