Optimism: Makes Life Better

It was around September of 2004 when I really learned a life lesson.

This lesson has served me well since then and honestly, I don't know where I would be if I didn't realize then that having a positive attitude; an optimistic outlook on life really DOES make a difference.

If I hadn't hoped and prayed for the best and tried to do everything in my power to work towards that end, I'm pretty sure I would have sunk into a very deep depression. That knowledge has helped me in every life situation since then.

For example:
(I've recycled part of this post from a previous posting.)

I've walked a path this past year full of changes......but the good kind of change. The kind that came about because of optimism. You know, as opposed to the pick-your-world-up, shake-it-around and then-drop-it-on-it's-side kind of change. Oh, how I love this change where I haven't had to pick up the pieces and figure out a way to move on. The kind that I walk away from smiling.

I think the thing I love most about the changes of 2008 is that they were all with my consent. I CHOSE the changes and was lucky enough to not have them "happen" to me, as has happened in the past. I'm sure you can all imagine that being able to chose makes the manager in me very, very happy.

I headed down my path in 2008 with a New Year's Resolution. I resolved not to resolve....out loud... rather in my heart and mind. And I did. I was sick and tired of carrying around the baby weight I had been unhappily lugging with me since two weeks after the twins were born. That's right. I weighed the same weight 2 years post child birth as I did 2 weeks. That slayed me. Really slayed me.

So, I started the year with a plan. I was optimistic. The plan was to lose that weight once and for all, and keep it off. And, I have.

The second major path I followed in 2008 led us 1000 miles south on a prayer. Jeff and I finally felt good about our decision to walk away from our house (that had been on the market for 6 months and that we'd spend the previous 2 years remodelling), pull our children out of a school they loved, take them away from their friends, change jobs, and leave family and friends, and move. So we did. And those prayers paid off because a day after we left Oregon we received an offer on our house, and although the girls had a bit of an adjustment at school, we weathered the flurry and are all settled in our home of perpetual sunshine. Literally and figuratively.

I expect 2009 to be just as "sunny" as 2008. I'm counting on optimism to help us sail through.

*For more information on optimism, visit Tiffany R, who is sponsoring a contest on optimism in conjunction with her role on the Fishful Thinking Campaign by Pepperidge Farms, or the Fishful Thinking Webpage. Cecily R is also a good resource as well.

*This just IN: please head over to The R Family Diaries and vote for my optimism story. Pretty please?

LASTLY, see that fish over there on the left? Be sure to click it.