It’s unfortunate that the system makes us spend 7 hours a day for 12 years in a classroom yet still we aren’t taught to have a positive attitude towards life. I can go on complaining about how society is trying to separate us from our families through social constructs, but I’ll save that for another day. For this passage I wanted to talk about the importance of having a positive outlook on life.

People will take the biggest breath on a bright and sunny day while taking a walk in an enchanted forest, just to complain about the dampness in the air. Our lives don’t take place in heaven nor hell, but at an awkward place in between where we can choose our destiny.

A philosopher would say that it is all subjective. Life can be burdensome, you may be on the way to the most important meeting of your life only to not make it due to the positioning of a nail on the road. Burdens and mishaps are not all of creation. People will complain for weeks about a blown tire and not once in that time show appreciation to the fact that they own a car.

It is easy to fall apart and stay in the pit of complaint, but this takes a toll on the soul. On the contrary, maintaining a positive outlook on life requires more effort but over all is more rewarding. When you put a negative label on your identity, the terms of life, or the world that we live in, you are putting holes in your bucket of blessings. You prevent yourself from enjoying every single moment in between the valleys of life because of the holes in your bucket.

So how do you have a positive outlook on life? You start with right now, start counting every successful breath you have and you will start realizing that so many things in your life had to have gone well for you to make it to this very moment. Start enjoying the littlest things like the cherry blossoms blooming and the weather changing. When a bad experience starts to tarnish your perspective, remember scale of unfortunate events that could have happened and where you are now. Patch the wholes in your bucket with your love, your passions, your achievements.

Every lesson in life can be blessing, but you have to make it one.