Grattitude Changes Everything.

What a night.

I don't normally celebrate New Year's Eve, aside from the familial champagne toasting at midnight, but this year, I wanted to do something different.

My best friend Caroline is back in Alaska and we decided to have ourselves a rager. Well, as much a rager as two homeschool girls can afford!

As our night was settling down, we found ourselves in the steamy hot tub, resting our weary dancing bodies and having that classic tipsy talk.

It was during said talk that the question of New Year's resolutions came up.

I was stumped, and it wasn't just the alcohol. I was never one to have that "new year, new me" type of attitude, but I knew I wanted something to work on, something to look forward to and change my perspective on.

Not wanting to think too hard into it, I set the thought aside to let it simmer and it wasn't until I was changing out of my bathing suit that I noticed a saying on my vanity that rang real and true.

Grattitude Changes Everything.

That was it.

If there's one thing I've been trying to work on, it's my perspective on the present. For a long while, I couldn't appreciate where I was and what I was doing because I kept comparing it to this preconceived idea of how I should be living my life.

Like being in a relationship, living in a big city, being independent, going out, having a "real" job. I continuously made myself feel not good enough, focusing more on the negatives of my current situation instead of looking at the positives.

There's a quote in Rupi Kaur's new book, the sun and her flowers that reiterates the saying that gratitude is where the satisfaction lives.

you have so much but are always hungry for more. stop looking up at everything you don't have and look around at everything you do have.

Life becomes so much more vibrant and colorful when you start appreciating everything you have: like a healthy happy body, a safe home, a loving family, a confident attitude, an opportunity of a lifetime to a be a part of starting a family business, and an adorable cat that cuddles with you every night.

I want 2018 to be a continuation of this mindset and mentality because truly, life is so good. Obsessing over all that you haven't yet attained, comparing your chapter of life to someone else's, and focusing all of your energies on what isn't will never leave you satisfied and happy. Look instead at all the little things in your life that have all added up to who you are and be grateful.

2018, let's make this a good one. 

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