Simply beautiful...with a smile.

When I lost my seat in medical school, I swore I was carrying bricks on my shoulders. I attempted to get my seat back by begging, which did not work. Also during that time, my engagement turned into a break up. It was a whirlwind for me because it happened all at once. I couldn’t think straight and things were becoming increasingly complex for me. I lost sight of my goals…career and otherwise. I felt my window of opportunity was closed. I knew somehow I had to find a way to recover and regain my “Self.” I started to pay closer attention to the simple things that made me smile. Things like hearing my niece call me “Auntie”, watching my parents enjoy their lives, watching my grandparents joke and laugh with each other, watching my sister report the news. I switched my focus on what I lost (or thought I lost) to focusing on the beauty in those things. That helped me change how I was looking at my life during that time. I was starting to see beauty in my life again. When life gets complicated, find a place where you can see simplicity and beauty. Find a place where you can at least smile even if you have trouble laughing. Things will become clearer. Opportunities open. Laughter returns.

Nouveau

Yep! It’s 2013. I remember when the year 2000 was a big deal. People were running around like mad men and women preparing for a complete life shut down. People were rushing out to stock up on food and water to prepare for an apocalypse! Since that year has come and gone, I haven’t heard of a new year causing that type of frenzy. I wonder if people even think about preparing to go into a new year anymore. Now I’m not talking about preparing for a catastrophic event, I’m talking about preparing for some New “stuff” (I really wanted to use another “s” word, but my grandmother reads this!) Well, what does the word “New” really mean? Webster tells me the word refers to “something fresh, novel, striking, having a pleasing quality.” So to prepare and make room for the new, the old must go. Old thoughts, old conversations that hold no substance, old habits, and old ways of doing things that produce results you don’t want, or that produce no results at all. Not a hard concept. Yet for some reason that old stuff becomes familiar and we wonder why nothing changes. Of course none of us know what is going to happen in these next 365 days. (And no, your horoscope can’t tell you either!) But I expect new business opportunities, I expect new roads to travel, I expect to meet new interesting and positive people. I can expect all of that, but do I have room for it? Honest Moment: I don’t trust people. Anytime I meet someone new, my mind has gone to the negative: “What are they up to?” or “What’s really behind that smile?” This makes it hard for me to build any relationship…business or otherwise!  I have improved over the years, but it’s time for that way of thinking to be tossed out for good. Now it’s your turn. Please share the old that you have thrown away to make room for the new in 2013.