Bringing Balance to Life: Choose the Beautiful

Poor emotional health robs us of valuable time and prevents us from enjoying a balanced life. The good news: Our emotional health depends on our attitude. The proper attitude creates a life worth living and makes time worthwhile. We can choose: 

• To accept or refuse love
• Grow from or surrender to challenges 
• Enjoy or complain about our work 
• Modify our habits or let our harmful habits control us
• Cultivate tranquility or be overwhelmed by stress
• Seize opportunities or cower in a corner 
• Enjoy being alive or dread waking up. 

Our response to life's difficulties determines our happiness and health. Within us resides the gift to accept responsibility for our own happiness. We can shape adversity into an advantage. We can turn tragedy into hope. We can live the life we choose. The power to change gives us the opportunity for a blessed and balanced life.

The blind poet, Milton, wrote, The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven. 

Thoughts of two famous people underscore Milton's point:

• Napoleon who had power, riches, and glory said, I have never known six happy days in my life. 
• Helen Keller, rendered blind and deaf from childhood meningitis, declared, I have found life so beautiful. 

Events and acquisitions fail to give us lasting happiness. Our thoughts can. Mind-body research (psychoneuroimmunology) proves that negative thoughts produce stress hormones. Optimistic thoughts cause the release of endorphins and other beneficial brain chemicals causing good feelings. What we think determines how we feel.

Let's choose the beautiful.