The Journey of Positivity and Acceptance

Written by Nicholas Koukoulidis, Marketing Director

In today’s day and age, everything moves so quickly. With a million different things going on at once, it is very easy to take the important things in life for granted while taking a mental toll on things that hardly matter.

Like many others, my eyes are bigger than my stomach. Whether it’s clubs, friends, work, or hobbies, I believe I can speak for many when I say I want it all.

As I become busier, spreading my time throughout my many interests comes with some challenges—a lot of which I have little to no control over. For example, friends canceling plans last minute, someone cutting me off on my way to work, or even dislocating my shoulder for the second time while playing sports. There are things that might bother us, ruining our day, slowing us down, or even causing us to take it out on the people we love.

When you want everything to go right, the things that ruin your perfect world tend to get to you. Whether you like it or not, it doesn’t have to be that way.

Over the last few months, I have been practicing acceptance. While obviously I wasn’t happy about dislocating my shoulder, after the fact, what will getting upset serve me? While initially upset, I took a step back and realized that things could be a lot worse. Now, a week later, people don’t look at me in my sling and see someone moping around. Instead, I am happy to share that treatment only cost me 20 Euros. People have told me they have never seen someone so excited to dislocate their shoulder. In this case, an unfortunate situation unfolded, so I thought to myself, “Wow, that sucks,” moved on, looked at the positives, and made a story out of it.

I have spent so much mental strain on things that I could not change. It was ruining experiences, days, and even friendships. I found that when I just took a step back and accepted whatever situation I’m in, I could make much more rational decisions and move on much quicker than if I let it consume me.

This is not to say that I am perfect, nor is anyone else reading this. Things will still bother you. You will still have crappy days, but that is okay. It is important that we learn from, become stronger, and move on from bad experiences rather than dwell on something we could have done differently.