POV: Your Life is a Movie

“Your life is like a movie, Rachel.”

I laughed and took a sip of coffee.

“My life?”

As my friend recounted the last few weeks of my life, I realized I really do have a lot to be grateful for.

But meanwhile, I had been brewing over the fact that I had gained a few pounds, complaining that I had a ten-page paper to write, and sighing over the fact that someone had disappeared from my life as fast as they came into it.  I could only think about how to avoid getting burned out, trying to come up with a magic formula for happiness.

While all the time, the happiness and beauty were right in front of me.

Maybe contentment was that magic formula I searched for so desperately.

So I asked myself, why am I dwelling on the negative parts of my life when I can focus on the opportunities around me instead?

Of course, there are real, difficult parts of life. Life is sometimes really awful. But we can miss the good moments easily, and not even realize it until much later.

There’s really no point in letting stress and disappointment blind me to the beauty of life.

So here’s to living like your life is a movie…

To taking risks because failure doesn’t make you worthless.

To taking advantage of your classes at school because it can open your eyes to incredible parts of our world.

To learning new things because you don’t have tomorrow guaranteed.

To speaking only good of others because gossip never gave you more than a moment of attention.

To spending time with people because that’s what matters most in life.

To planning cute outings yourself because living through the eyes of someone else on Instagram just isn’t enough.

To enjoying exercise and eating lots of colorful meals because just criticizing your body in the mirror never did anything for you.

To experiencing every moment before pulling out your camera because people don’t need to know what you do for something to be worth your time.

To looking at the world with awe because the clouds and grass and flowers are just as impressive as the Sistine Chapel.

To laughing loud and dancing when you’re happy because most people don’t care about you, and that’s a good thing.

Seek contentment. Stay in the moment. Live life.

Life isn’t perfect, but let’s change our mindset to see the parts that aren’t so bad.

Three, Two, One… Action!