It is the best time to be Alive.

If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. – Wayne Dyer

When asked How am I? I usually reply with “It is the best time to be alive” 9 out of 10 times. I respond with this statement not because I am Pollyanna or I don’t have issues am dealing with; there is always a situation to contend with. Life is a rollercoaster of ups and downs, peaks and valleys, trials and tribulations, but you still have to keep it moving despite all the challenges and vicissitudes of life. It is easy to be optimistic and upbeat when things are going right; the real test is how you would handle the trying times. One needs to stay optimistic despite the challenges of life.

The road to success is not straight. There is a curve called Failure, a loop called confusion, speed bumps called Friends, red light called Enemies, caution lights called Family, You will have flat tires called Jobs, but if you have a spare called Determination, an engine called Perseverance, a driver called willpower, you will make it to a place called Success.

Optimism is an inclination to put the most favourable construction upon actions and events or to anticipate the best possible outcome. Optimism is from French optimisme, from Latin optimum, which means ‘best thing’. It is the ability to see the best in every situation and make the best of the moment. An optimist sees the cup as half full, while a pessimist sees the cup as half empty.

“Optimistic people explain good events to themselves in terms of permanent causes: traits, abilities, always’s. Pessimists name transient causes: moods, effort, sometimes’s.”

American writer James Baldwin once said, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” As the optimist creed states: “Promise yourself: Look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true. Think only of the best, work only for the best, and to expect only the best. Wear a cheerful countenance at all times and give every living creature you meet a smile.”

To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble

The optimist believes that bad events have specific causes, while good events will enhance everything he does; the pessimist believes that bad events have universal causes and that good events are caused by specific factors.

Life is too short to let life’s challenges hinder you from putting your best foot forward and doing your best in every moment. I know it can be tough holding it all together when the storms of life come around: the grief, pain, melancholy, anxiety, worry and sadness won’t subside. Life can be tough. I have gone through my share of it: losing a parent, losing a job, relationship challenges, getting depressed, it is tough dealing with all these challenges, but one has to keep their head up high. It is not what happens to us; it is about how we deal with it. Whatever would go wrong would eventually go wrong; the key is to not stay down for too long because if you can look up, you can get back up.

In his 2016 Howard University Commencement Speech 1, former United States President Barrack Obama echoed the sentiment of “It is the best time to be alive” in his inspiring address. He said:

Class of 2016, by opening your eyes to the moment that you are in. If you had to choose one moment in history in which you could be born, and you didn’t know ahead of time who you were going to be — what nationality, what gender, what race, whether you’d be rich or poor, gay or straight, what faith you’d be born into — you wouldn’t choose 100 years ago. You wouldn’t choose the fifties, or the sixties, or the seventies. You’d choose right now. If you had to choose a time to be, in the words of Lorraine Hansberry, “young, gifted, and black” in America, you would choose right now.

You have to go through life with more than just passion for change; you need a strategy.

I tell you this not to lull you into complacency, but to spur you into action — because there’s still so much more work to do, so many more miles to travel. And America needs you to gladly, happily take up that work. You all have some work to do. So enjoy the party, because you’re going to be busy. So make no mistake, Class of 2016 — you’ve got plenty of work to do. But as complicated and sometimes intractable as these challenges may seem, the truth is that your generation is better positioned than any before you to meet those challenges, to flip the script.

And when your journey seems too hard, and when you run into a chorus of cynics who tell you that you’re being foolish to keep believing or that you can’t do something, or that you should just give up, or you should just settle — you might say to yourself a little phrase that I’ve found handy these last eight years: Yes, we can.

Living with optimism and believing that the best is yet to come is a great way of handling the vicissitudes of life. Austrian neurologist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl advised in his very illuminating book, Man’s Search for Meaning ^2, “Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now!” Living like Frankl advised, you cannot help but be optimistic about life. Frankl noted:

“Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now!”

When a man finds that it is his destiny to suffer, he will have to accept his suffering as his task; his single and unique task. He will have to acknowledge the fact that even in suffering he is unique and alone in the universe. No one can relieve him of his suffering or suffer in his place. His unique opportunity lies in the way in which he bears his burden.

Life is like being at the dentist. You always think that the worst is still to come, and yet it is over already. – Otto von Bismarck

Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.

Radical Acceptance
The most you realize that life is always changing and impermeant, you realize that the only thing you can do is radically accept whatever happens to you. It’s OK That You’re Not OK, to feel down, fearful, worried, anxious or sad; we all feel these emotions. In her book, Radical Acceptance: Awakening the Love that Heals Fear and Shame ³, meditation teacher and psychologist Tara Brach observed:

Part of the practice of Radical Acceptance is knowing that, whatever arises, whatever we can’t embrace with love, imprisons us — no matter what it is. If we are at war with it, we stay in prison. It is for the freedom and healing of our own hearts, that we learn to recognize and allow our inner life.

We suffer when we cling to or resist experience, when we want life different than it is. As the saying goes: “Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional.

Meditation

Daily Calm with Tamara Levitt – Support
When we embark on this path, it is common to struggle to maintain a regular practice. It isn’t easy to meditate once a day, and it is hard to sit for as long as we would like. As a result, we can have feelings of defeat and disappointment. We can come down on ourselves for having busy minds or berate ourselves for breaking our streak, convincing ourselves that we are not good meditators. And with these unpleasant thoughts and feelings, our practice slips.
The challenge is to balance a healthy commitment with self-compassion. We want to practice discipline, but we also want to find forgiveness when we slip.

Don’t be shy about asking for help. It doesn’t mean you are weak, it only means you are wise

Daily Jay with Jay Shetty – Travel

‘Traveling—it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.’ – Ibn Battuta

Travelling doesn’t just open new worlds for you but also new worlds within you.
Kellee Edwards – Kellee Set GO Youtube Channel, Mysterious Island-Travel Channel
When we shift out of our regular routines, we create an opening to grow and learn.

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