Choose to Be Happy :)

I'll be the first one to admit that the motto, "Choose to be happy" is not always as easy as it seems. In fact, there are some days when I simply don't have the energy or the desire to choose to be happy. It seems as though if something is going wrong, everything is going wrong. Or if nothing's going wrong, there's nothing in particular going right. One day my roommate from freshman year had come into our room smiling. "What a great day!" she said. "What happened?" I asked her. "Nothing," she said, "but nothing bad happened." That really stuck with me. Since then I've tried to make an effort to be more positive in my life, but if I'm being honest, I haven't really tried that hard.

So, fast forward to now. Today, May 10, here at the lovely Aspen Grove. Well, actually, fast forward to the day before today. I went to my grandma's ward in Alpine, and there were some really great talks given, one especially about prayer. I realized that there were so many things that I needed to pray about, and I just hadn't been. I knew that if I wanted to make this week more productive and more enjoyable than the exhausting week I'd had before, that some things were going to have to change. So, I decided to wake up a little earlier than was necessary the next morning and spend some time praying and reading my scriptures. So, this morning, I got up at 6:30, prayed, got ready by 7:00 and read my scriptures for thirty minutes. And of course, before I left for breakfast, I heard Alison Jones' voice in my head telling me that "Happiness is a choice!" And I decided that I was going to be happy and I was going to have a positive attitude today. And it totally worked! My feet didn't hurt as badly, and even though the day was still long, I was able to enjoy the company of those around me and to get my work done without complaint. Then of course after work it was incredibly easy to be happy- we had FHE up here and had a great spiritual thought and then played a game, Body Body. (Oh yeah- before FHE, I was nertzing it up with some friends... let me just say this: it was intense.) After FHE, a few of us just watched some youtube videos, which is always a blast. Anyways, it's the end of the day, I'm sitting on my bed, and somehow there's a smile on my face, where usually it's just an exhausted neutrality of emotion combined with an aching desire for sleep. But today- today, I'm not even tired yet.

Now I'm not saying that this will work for me every day. In fact, I know that it won't. I know that there are some bad days and sometimes I'm probably going to despise the work that I'm doing and no amount of positive attitude will be able to overcome my distaste for the task. However, I do know that at least for  the present and future, I am going to try to get a consistent schedule of prayer and scripture reading, because I truly felt the difference that it made in my day today. I am going to continue to make a conscious effort to have a positive attitude.

It's all a part of my master plan for self improvement this summer. My main goal is just to become the best me that I can this summer, while I have the time to focus on it. Without the distraction of school and tests and homework or even drama with friends, I'm hoping that I'll be able to focus on improving myself. I plan on exercising daily (although at the moment, that's probably going to have to wait until June when I have shifts and I'm not working 8-5). Anyways, even without exercising daily, I still feel that I'm being quite active, and my pulse is definitely up there throughout the day. I also would really love to get my voice back into shape. Since I've been up here, I've been able to sing more than I have in a long time, which has been really great. (Whenever we clean, we put on music... and naturally, the singing follows.) Of course, there's my spiritual goals: more consistent prayer and scripture study, etc. I also want to read a whole lot more this summer, although now that I'm up here I'm not sure how realistic that is, as I'm hanging out with people more than I had anticipated. Originally, it was my goal to read through the Work and the Glory series again, but I honestly don't know if that's going to happen. There are a couple of self-help books that I want to read though, so hopefully I can read those.

Anyways, I'm just so grateful that today was such a happy day. I'm grateful to be up here where everything is so gorgeous, with people who make life so much more fun. Most of all, I'm glad that I made the choice to be happy, and that it worked. :D