pursuit of happiness

     I have an ongoing love-hate relationship with school.  The constant stress of assignments and tests make me want to scream.  But on days like today, I remember how truly grateful I am to be doing what I am doing.  Once I get past the anxiety of the overload of information needing to be learned, remembered and recited, I remember how truly amazing the field of occupational therapy is.

     Today we had the privilege of listening to two guest speakers inform our class about their personal experiences having undergone a stroke.  Rob, one of the speakers, said, "I can be sad or I can be happy, but I choose to be happy.  I see the good things in life now rather than the bad."  Unfortunately for him, it took the occurrence of a life threatening disorder to make this man realize what really matters in life.  But for most of us, it doesn't have to take a near death experience to make us see the good in life rather than the bad.  It is a conscious choice whether or not we want to be happy and in my opinion, we all have reason to be happy so why waste time being pessimistic and feeling sorry for ourselves?

     As a student in the OTA Program, I get to see an array of people with disabilities ranging from mild to moderate to severe.  But even a mild disability is a disability nonetheless and even the smallest challenge can make life so much more difficult than a person deserves for it to be.  How many of us are fortunate enough to act independently?  And how many of us take that for granted?  Maybe it is a hasty generalization to say, but I would guess that most of us in that category still feel sorry for ourselves the majority of the time something unfortunate happens to us.  Seeing so many people with challenges far greater than mine gives me a better appreciation for the life I have and reminds me of how many things there are to be happy about.  Happiness isn't determined by what happens to us, it is determined by how we respond to what happens to us.  Though at times it may feel impossible to find, there is always something positive that can come from a negative situation.  However, it is up to us to find it.  It is up to us to look for the good and to choose to be happy.  And it shouldn't be hard, because after all, we all have something to be happy about.