Choosing

Today I have much gratitude for the freedom to choose my attitude, on this nineteenth day of November I'm thankful I don't often surrender to the negativity all around, with optimism I am usually found.

On Facebook I've been posting a rhyme each day since November first for which I am thankful; this was today's.  I have been asked periodically how I can be so upbeat and positive.  "How do you do it?" is the way it's usually phrased.  It always catches me by surprise somehow.  I'd say I don't know how I do it, but I do know.  I choose to be happy, content, hopeful.  There have been times when I was depressed, negative, and mostly angry.  It is exhausting!  I know people who always seem to be angry, looking for the worst to happen, and looking for a fight at every turn.  I don't know how THEY do it!  I tried for awhile to keep up the snarky attitude and found it wearisome.  I've said before that I think I just have a merry heart.  Truly, I don't remember sad times as well as I do happy times.  I love to laugh, I love to make others laugh, and so I choose most days to do as much laughing as I possibly can.  To have hope, to give others hope for a better outcome or circumstance is how I choose to live.  I'm not saying that I'm never negative or feel hopeless, but I try not to stay there for long.  And I have the freedom to choose to be that way.  So do you.

I leave you with this verse that I wrote when I was a child:

Happy faces smile no matter how long the mile,
Nor how high the hill or how nasty tasting the pill.