Who do you want to be known as?

What do you think of when you think of your past?  About a million thoughts come forth when we answer this question to ourselves.  The question then becomes, what of our past should we remember?  The answer is that which we can use to build a brighter future.

There are a handful of things I recall in my past, and people who know me intimately generally only know the negative things I went through.  The reason for that is it's easier for us to talk about the bad things we went through.  The question is, do you want to be someone who everybody knows as the one who only has bad things happen to him?  Most people would say no.  The problem is, as humans we crave negative information, gossip, sad stories, and violence.  Look at what the majority of the news reports on, look at the subject matters of the most popular tv shows and movies being made.  As a species we love controversy and suffering.  Why is that?  Some would say it is because suffering is a part of life, some that our parents taught us to be ashamed of ourselves because their parents did the same unto them, and so on.  There are many plausible answers and yet none of them really matter.

We don't have to be like everyone else or like our parents, we can be different.  Someone who refuses to follow the status quo is happy more often, shares stories of good things that happen to him/her, and not only believes in a brighter future but through all circumstances lives in that brighter place.  I myself am currently making a effort to be the person I just spoke of.  It is my duty as such to remember the good I've been through.  So now it is only appropriate to share one of those stories in hopes that you may recall one of your own:

When I was 15 I fell in love.  There wasn't a specific person I fell in love with.  I just remember on my 15th birthday I was in Connecticut staying with my grandparents and I was putting my clothes on and it hit me, "I want to be in love, I want to find the love of my life."  The feeling was incredible, as if a burden had been lifted from my shoulders and I felt like I was as light as air.  The feeling stayed with me for a while, and whenever I got quiet I could bring the feeling back, to this day I can do it.  I haven't found the love of my life, but I have faith when it is truly meant to happen it will happen, so until then, whenever an ocean of anxiety comes over me about whatever I'm going through, I bring myself back to that place and the world becomes a better place.