Why I choose cheery over teary

If I had to put myself into the half full or half empty categories I would say I am most definitely in the half full camp. I believe in seeing the beauty in all things, finding the good in everyone and never leaving my house without a smile ...and lipstick.  

Life is not an easy ride for anyone. We will ALL experience struggles and difficult times regardless of our health, jobs, marital status or financial situation. Some challenges are big, some are small, personally, I don’t believe the size of the challenge matters, I believe it is how we face, and overcome, the challenge that is most important. Epilepsy is a daily challenge. Some days are more difficult than others, some days bring physical pain and others emotional. Some days are easy to handle, and others could bring me to my knees in tears if I allowed them to. I don’t.  

I choose to pull up my big girl pants, put a smile on my face and count my many blessings each day. Even on the days when I don’t feel like smiling. In fact, on those days I slap on the biggest smile of all. My dad once told me the best way to get over your own sadness is to help others. The Dalai Lama said “a simple smile. That’s the start of opening you heart and being compassionate to others”. These two simple rules are what I try to live my life by. The truth is we never know what another person is truly thinking or feeling, nor do we know what difficulties and challenges they are facing in their lives. There have been many days when I have been at rock bottom and have been unable to find a smile without first finding tears, when I think back to those harder days, I can remember clearly the people who smiled at me. I can remember the old man on the train that started a conversation with me, and I have become good friends with a lady I met in the doctors waiting room. We each have the ability to make a difference to the lives of those around us, we just have to be willing to do it, to put aside our personal struggles and help others.  

I struggle to understand the todays culture. The culture where it is “weird” to make a conversation with a stranger you are sitting next to on the train, or where you are “strange” if you smile at people in the street. This cultural norm that makes it almost unheard of for someone to speak to other people in the building they work in and yet it is totally acceptable to speak to total strangers we have never clapped eyes on before online. I just don’t understand it. I speak to everyone. I speak to and smile at everyone I pass at work, including staff and students. I look forward to my morning chat with the cleaner and I always make sure my classroom is filled with laughter. I have no doubts that some people I meet/work with/ am related to think my desire to be friendly is strange. It does, after all, go against modern culture, but to be totally honest I don’t care. The reality is I don’t know what is going on in someone's life, but what I do know is I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I didn’t speak to someone and they ended up feeling so lonely they gave up on life. So I choose to be happy, I choose to be thankful and I choose to smile. It makes me feel better about my own challenges too.  

Life is not a perfect walk in the park. There will be rain showers and puddles and sometimes the grass will be muddy but raindrops hitting puddles make beautiful patterns. There is always beauty, you just have to look for it.