Happiness & Hope vs Disappointment

Here is one of the many reasons why Lisa Mangum is my favorite author! Not only is she local, but she is an incredible inspiration to me in regards to more than just writing.  This blog post will hopefully help explain at least one of those reasons.

In a blog post written earlier today (as in 2 AM earlier), she stated the following:

"As I walked back alone, I started to think of all the good things that had happened to me and all the things I was grateful for. Including winning Book of the Year for my other books. I’d received five nominations and had taken home three gold medals and one silver. That’s pretty amazing, I told myself.

But I still wished I hadn’t spent a whole year dreaming about the win because then it wouldn’t have hurt so much when I lost.

Except–and here is the lesson I learned–I hadn’t wasted that whole year dreaming of something that didn’t happen. I had enjoyed a entire year of living with hope. I had hoped for the win. I had imagined the win–and it had made me happy. I had dreamed of seeing gold stickers on all three of my books–and that had made me happy. I had talked about it all year, told people about it, shared my excitements and my dreams about it–and all of it had made me happy.

So there in the sunshine and under the palm trees, I decided to choose to remember that year of happiness and hope instead of the single day–the single hour, the single moment–of disappointment.

And all my sadness was gone."

How many of us have been disappointed at a loss of something we dearly wanted?  How long did it take us to get over that loss?  Even during these dark times (whatever they may be) there is always light, always hope and positive memories we can look back on.  Sure we can look on the negative side of things, but that only makes life more miserable.  Instead, if we focus on the light, our path in life becomes much brighter and easier to tread.  Lisa has illustrated this perfectly in her blog post and I feel I can't adequately add to what she has already said.  It is truly an inspirational post.

Read Lisa's full post here (and I would highly recommend it!).