This week has been a tough one. One of polar opposites. It’s been both screamingly dull at work and breathtakingly stressful. I’ve attended a sad but celebratory thanksgiving service of a wonderful women of God and both held two precious babies and heard wonderful news about two more pregnancies. 

Now I’m sat here with a horribly sore throat, wanting to sleep for days but feeling so thankful for time to rest alone, and also for three hours catching up with close friends in the pub last night. Life is like that. It can leave you deflated and yet buoyant at the same time. 

What a paradox that is. 

But I guess we have a choice. I could sit here and think of all the hard times of this week. Think of grief, illness, stress, tiredness and lowness. Or I could choose to think of role models, friendship, good books, gifts and the simple joy of eating strawberries in Autumn. I know which would make me feel better! But how easy it is to just wallow and hold a pity-party for oneself. But the thing about pity-parties is, they’re very lonely. They shut people out. Instead, gratitude and joy are open, welcoming people in to share in the party. I know I have a very similar blog post on this already, yet it is something that I keep coming back to. Life isn’t about what happens to you, but about how to respond to it. 

So how has this week been? Or rather, how are you going to decide to see this week? I don’t know your life, obviously. This week may have been the hardest you’ve had in a long time, or ever. But can you think of one thing that brought light in the darkness? Have you got it? Now dwell on that thing, let yourself feel the joy that thing brings. If you can, make the whole week about that thing. Whether it’s the colour of the leaves, a cute dog you saw, some good news you heard or an amazing cake you ate. It doesn’t need to be huge. But if it brought you joy, make it huge, celebrate it, focus in on it. This life is too short and too long to be lost in darkness and negativity. Let’s bring light to this crazy world by choosing and spreading joy. 

I’ll happily sound like a stuck record on this one. In fact, I even had the title of this blogpost (a quote from the stellar Elizabeth Gilbert) engraved on the back of my new iPad mini (I have one of those now… Isn’t life grand? I’m choosing to believe it is.)