Peace Starts with Yourself and Grows

     Each and every day I love to surround myself with positivity. I always strive to find joy in each day even if it is simple as serving another with a good deed. Personally I love wall art that has inspirational sayings on them, one that I particularly love has the following saying: Peace Starts with Yourself and Grows. This is by far one of my favorite sayings because it is absolutely 100% true! Each and every day we wake up and we have a choice to make, either we can chose to be happy or we can chose to let outside forces and people control us.   


Growing up I unfortunately had the mindset that others controlled my destiny and I let other people get to me. For example I found myself commonly thinking that my own happiness or lack thereof was caused by others. This occurred for me commonly in middle school, a time where kids are extremely cruel, and as a kid you have no idea who you are. Reflecting back I put my search for happiness into the hands of others. My thoughts consisted of things like I would only be happy if the popular girls like me, or I would finally be happy if I was able to get all A’s.  This mindset continued into my high school years and into my college years as well. It was not until I started to serve others that I found this mindset was not true.  Peace and happiness are internal elements that WE create in our lives. If a person is constantly going through life with a mindset that they will one day find happiness the bottom line is they will never find it because happiness and peace are internal factors that we CHOOSE to bring in our lives. Peace comes from within ourselves and can be manifested by works that we do, but ultimately it is a choice we make each any every day. Remember you CAN find happiness and peace in your life, you just have to stop looking for it externally and rather look within yourself.     

Look for the “Positives” of Life

How many people always focus on the negatives in life rather than looking at positive elements? I know I am a culprit from time to time however as an unwritten resolution for 2014 I am trying to look at the positive elements in my life. For one, positivity this will allow a person to achieve a greater level of happiness in their day to day life. Additionally who wants to be a sad sack all of the time?  This morning I woke up and discovered that something I was planning on for a couple of weeks was switched around so that I had to change around my plans. Well the old me would have become really upset and sad for a little while. Did I do that? ABSOLUTELY NOT! Instead I dealt with my initial upset and then decided that I was going to see what I could do about it. After much thought I realized that this switch may actually benefit me and I decided to move on with the day.

                As one final hurrah before the start of the spring semester, my sister and I had lunch plans so we went to my favorite Thai place and we had a nice relaxing lunch. After that I wanted to show her the local trendy thrift shop and we decided to split up and find lots of cute clothes. In the store I immediately began finding lots of great deals on name brand clothes and accessories such as Nick and Mo, Forever 21, Nordstrom brands, as well as Coach.  To my surprise all of the items I was finding were ½ off the ticketed price which meant I would really save a lot of money! I basically got my items for $5 and under! This is AMAZING and I attribute it to my positive look on the situation and the day. Who knows if I would be open to shopping if I continued being upset about the situation that I previously experienced earlier in the day.  

I would really like to challenge you to try to see the positives in your daily life as you really will see that it pays off in the long run.  Remember smile each day and try to bring a little bit of sunshine to the people around you it really will pay off!