Looking Back to Look Forward

More often than not when we go about our days on a regular basis, we start dwelling on the negatives that plague our memories. We agonize over little mistakes, the missed opportunities to achieve success, all the phrases that were left unsaid that could have made a difference in the end. When this occurs, we forget how to be happy; we lose the ability to cheer up and usually end up wallowing in a medley of self-pity and sorrow. The well known phrase, "Smiles are contagious", isn't a lie. Seeing other people smile at you or even talk excitedly to you just makes you want to smile too. You can't help but want to; it's the type of good pressure from your peers or complete strangers that everyone benefits from. Smiles truly do beget happiness because once you smile sincerely, all of your life's problems that were weighing you down are lifted up. Smiles act as a relief for society; they lift up our burdens allowing us to be truly happy, to be truly free.

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This was an assignment I had done for my AP English class on November 20, 2008. Lately, it's been one bad day after another, just a constant state of sadness ruining this new year. Looking at what I had previously wrote during one of my high points in that year has made me realize that I need to be moving forward rather than staying in place. Everyone that I thought would never leave has left, whether due by my own actions and behavior or by their own choice. I can't keep dwelling on spilled milk. Nothing can be undone or redo-ed like when we were little. What can be done is getting up from that and allowing myself to fully appreciate the life given to me: by being happy, by wearing my smile.

I'm moving forward with my own power. I'm not going to let the negatives overtake me again.

"Everything is the way it is, because everything was the way it was." (Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything is Illuminated)