Privileged

I am privileged. I live in a privileged world. I come from a privileged family. I have grown up living a privileged life. I do not take the life I have for granted. In a world with so much heartache, pain, and suffering, I can find comfort knowing that I had the privilege of growing up somewhere I did not have to experience so much pain, so much suffering, so much sadness. I'm not saying I've never felt pain and that I've never faced heartache, but the challenges I've faced are so different than the challenges other people face. Sometimes, I feel that I might take my challenges for granted. While the concept may be difficult to grasp, I know I need to be grateful for all of the challenges that I have faced. The challenges I have faced have helped build my character, but they have never been overwhelming to the point where I felt that I needed to quit. 

Life's daily obstacles are there to build character, teach lessons, and encourage us to keep moving forward. God will never give us more than we can handle, He will never push us past our breaking point, He will never leave us with a problem we cannot solve.

Life is a challenge, but it is also simple. Life is chaotic, but life is pure. Life is a gift, one that should not be taken lightly.

Finding beauty in all things is one of the many gifts God has given us.

Contrary to what most people say, don't live everyday like it is your last. Live everyday like you've just been given life. Live everyday like it is the first day you've been born. Try new things, participate in new experiences, broaden your horizons, and never lose faith. There is beauty all around us, but that beauty is only visible to us if we take the time to seek it out.

Move forward, live your life, but never lose sight of who you are and what you have been given. Do not look down upon your obstacles, but embrace them. Turn your weaknesses into strength, use your strengths to defeat your negativity, and most importantly, believe in the person you are today, but also the person you will be tomorrow.

This One's for the Girls...

Sometimes, we get so caught up in life that we forget to take a step back and look at where life is taking us and where we have been in the past. I can say with absolute certainty I wouldn't be where I am today without my girlfriends. 

People say that after high school, you start to lose touch with your old friends and move on to make new friends. While I've made new friends in college, my high school friends will always have a special place in my heart. There's a special bond there. Maybe that bond stemmed from knowing one another for almost your entire childhood, or maybe it's because they were the ones who comforted you when you had your first heartbreak, your first fight with your parents, your first fallout with each other, and they were the ones who were always there to pick up the pieces and put them back together. I'm not saying there hasn't been heartbreaks and fights since arriving to college, but I do know that you just don't forget those sorts of things. People like that don't just walk out of your lives. You keep them around, whether that means skyping now and then or seeing each other a couple times a year, that bond never really goes away. Your friends are your friends, and they'll always be there for you, even if they can't physically be there. 

I could not be more grateful for the friends I have today, old and new. I know that at the end of the day, no matter what, I'll always have someone to lean on and a shoulder to cry on.