What exactly is a sunshine notebook?

The first "official" sunshine notebook was actually a yellow spiral 70 page notebook in which I wrote situations that I had experienced throughout the day at work (I worked in retail/customer service). I would write how I handled tricky situations in an optimistic way and how, if I had let negative emotions get in the way, the situations could have ended up with a much more negative effect on both myself and the customer (and perhaps even the company I represented). For this particular sunshine notebook, it will not necessarily be about work situations, or even my personal situations; I plan on making this a place where anyone can come and get a dose of optimism, hope, happiness, or encouragement. I may have situations from time to time which happen in everyday life and are not necessarily good situations; yet, I will insert my opinion on how you determine the outcome instead of the situation determining your mood.

I want to let everyone whom reads this know where I am coming from. Being an extremely optimistic person, you would have expected me to have grown up with no responsibilities...perhaps I've never had to jump a hurdle. For someone whom is nearly without stress within my life, I have been through a lot in my short twenty years of existence. As I have matured and am now able to talk about my past, I want to share this with you.

I made the informed and researched decision at thirteen years of age to go vegetarian because I had some pet chickens whom I loved very much. After I researched the pros and cons of vegetarianism, I found that any cons I researched were thoroughly unfounded and/or biased with opinion, and I stopped eating meat altogether. I had two close friends at the time whom also saw the charm in my chickens and loved them as well; one of these friends went vegetarian with me, in fact. To make a long story short, most middle school aged kids do not understand that differences and individuality is an asset to a person. After these others found out about the vegetarianism--and my pet chickens--we were severely ridiculed. For my entire eighth grade year, we had meat thrown at us, threats about my chickens' lives and my own life made on a website I had and in school, there were chants of "KFC" in the cafeteria by over half of the kids it held, and by the end of the year, I had comments made by people I'd never met nor seen before. I had literally over two hundred individuals ridiculing me a day, and hundreds of hits made on my personal website by people whom either threatened the lives of my chickens or laughed at how "weird" I was.

Before long, I became severely depressed and overwhelmed. I wrote a "hit list" on this personal website of mine where the kids could see it and promptly tried, unsuccessfully, to commit suicide afterwards. The next day, I was suspended from school; within a week, I was expelled. That Christmas I was in a local Children's Hospital for suicidal tendencies, and it has taken me years to fully come to trust people again. I used to be filled with an immense hatred for the people whom got away with emotional torture. This hatred poisoned me on a daily level. Even though I had become successful to prove to the kids that were the source of torture for me for over a year that I could rise above their ignorance (I started working at the age of fourteen, had started a real estate business at fifteen, began modeling, and bought my first car at sixteen), I was a miserable person.

I had always believed that happiness was something not meant for me. I believed there'd always be something that would stress me out; something would always happen to ruin my day if it had the chance to go well.

One day, I realized I had only been holding myself back.

I sat down and thought to myself...what was really making me unhappy? Why could I never reach the happiness that seemed so available to others? And I realized, in a split-second epiphany, that it was myself.

Others were always to blame for my unhappiness. If I was stressed, it was because of something that happened or someone who had ticked me off. I didn't believe I could ever be happy; therefore, since I didn't believe it, it never happened.

Blaming others or thinking that stress "just happens" will never lead one to happiness. Happiness starts with accepting. From that moment where the lightbulb flicked on for me, happiness was within my reach. One has to work at being optimistic, don't get me wrong; you cannot just "be happy" without first accepting what life throws at you and dealing with it in a manner that will not hinder the emotional-being of yourself or others in the present or the future.

Optimism starts first with a way of thinking. Instead of thinking of how unhappy you are with your job, ponder about how grateful you are that you even have one. Instead of getting angry that it's a rainy Saturday, be grateful for the rain's ability to renew things within nature. Instead of mumbling about how you don't like to get up earlier for work than usual, perhaps you have a chance to see the sun rise on the way to work and you normally do not have that privilege. Be grateful for what you have; do not be angry because of what you don't.

To accept life for what it is and as it is--is the key to happiness. If you never accept that you do not have control over the weather and cannot make it stop raining no matter your complaining, you will continue to be miserable until Mother Nature grants you a sunny day, most likely then taking the beautiful day for granted. Complaining, whining, or being miserable over something that will not or cannot change is fruitless...whether it is about little things such as the weather or bigger things such as the direction of your life. Either change something you don't care for or deal with what is--and like it.

Once my life changed drastically--and only because I had stopped and realized I was not putting myself up to my true potential--life is so much greater to live because I am not wishing for so-called "better" things. I have come to accept that life is not fair, and I deal with it all the while being grateful. My life has little to no stress on a consistent basis--both because I am productive and optimistic. I am grateful for what little income I make by my real estate business and how well I manage this income instead of wishing for more money now and spending it thoughtlessly. When someone rear-ended my car a few days ago I even told the man how grateful I was that he was kind and what a shame it was when people get angry at others with whom they wreck. My car is missing a reverse light--yet, I am so grateful that I even have a car, that I have the money to fix the car, and that the night of the wreck was not the last of my life.

The night of my car wreck could have been stressful. I could have called the man names and screamed at him how I had just picked up two new kittens and had wanted to get home since I left on the crowded highway three hours prior...that I didn't want to stand out in the rain for forty minutes waiting for the police to come and make a report...but what would that have solved? Would that not have made things worse, instead of better? Would being a negative and ugly person in the situation made things any easier? No. Yes, the man hit my car, but to blame him for anger over it if I had had any would have been futile. No one person besides myself can force emotions to run through me. If I had become angry, it would have been my fault.

Thus, I hope to open a door for at least one person whilst writing my thoughts and experiences on this blog. I hope to help one person whom hasn't yet had that lightbulb moment that I was so fortunate to have over a year ago. Even if that does not happen here, I hope to at least provoke thought and possibilities in someone's mind.

And here, for a quote:

"A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery while on a detour." -Author Unknown