I am the most pessimistic person you will ever meet.
I'm not kidding. My name is synonymous with the famous "Debbie Downer". Okay, not really, but ask any of my friends; my outlook on life is that if it's going to go wrong, it will.
Just for a little background information, I have had a horrible school year. I have had to deal with a lot of petty high school drama, and it has created a dark cloud perpetually hanging over my head and giving me a really, for lack of a better term, crappy outlook on life.
So with this in mind, today, day of all days, I woke up in a great mood. I had no idea why, and I still don't; the weather was miserable, I had to wake up early, blah blah blah. Bottom line, there was no sunshine or pancakes to start off my day in a positive way. So why I bounded out of bed, ready to start my day in the most positive way possible, is beyond me.
Throughout the day, I was a lot nicer. I talked to more people. I stopped being quiet Taylor and smiled and laughed and didn't have an expression on my face that made people think my cat had just gotten run over by a truck. And you know what? My day was GREAT. I had a great day because I ignored the bad stuff going on and I just smiled and found something to laugh at. Words can not express how much better I felt when I got home; I still feel like a heavy weight has been lifted off my back.
Which got me thinking about this book I read in ninth grade. (All of these meaningless stories will make sense, I promise.) It was called Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli. If you haven't read the book, it was about this girl who was completely and totally herself. She wore wacky clothes. She said hello to complete strangers. She sang "Happy Birthday" to people on her ukelele--in the middle of the cafeteria. When we read this book in English, our teacher assigned us to do at least one "Stargirl" thing--say hello to 10 complete strangers, wear a weird outfit, whatever.
Guess what I didn't do? Any of it.
I mean, I couldn't say hello to complete STRANGERS. That would imply I was friendly, and you better not be friendly in high school. That's the WORST thing you could be.
So my great day brought on thoughts of Stargirl...and I thought, what if I were more friendly, like Stargirl? Every single day?
What if I said to the rude people, "Wow. You must have serious self-esteem problems. I'm sorry," instead of letting them get to me?
What if I said hi to ten new people a week, possibly making new friends in the process?
What if I apologized to that person I had been wanting to apologize too?
What if I called that person I hadn't talked to in forever?
So while these "What if's" are running through my mind, I came to a decision. (No, I will not be singing you "Happy Birthday" on a ukelele any time soon.)I'm going to challenge myself.
I AM going to call that person I haven't talked to in forever and make plans.
I AM going to apologize to that person I really need to apologize to.
I AM going to say hello to ten new people every week.
I AM going to say to the rude people what I should have said a long time ago.
I AM going to be more positive every single day of my life, knowing that yes, some days are going to suck and I am going to want to scream, but ALSO keeping in mind that I am making myself an overall better person when I say, "Hey, this really sucks right now. But I'm going to find the positivity in this and move on."
So what is my point in publishing this to the world? I want to challenge YOU.
YOU should call that person.
YOU should apologize.
YOU should say hello to ten new people.
YOU should say to the rude people what you should have said a long time ago.
So the question is: are you going to take the challenge?
