A word to live your life by...

OPTIMISM.

-noun

1. a disposition or tendency to look on the more favorable side of events or conditions and to expect the most favorable outcome.

2. the belief that good ultimately predominates over evil in the world.

3. the belief that goodness pervades reality.

4. the doctrine that the existing world is the best of all possible worlds.

I am a very optimistic person by nature and have been asked many times by many different people why that is so. I tell them all the same thing.

I am optimistic because I choose to be.

And before you either laugh, "suck your teeth", roll your eyes and/or groan at that statement, hear me out. (and yes, I've been on the receiving end of any and all of those responses)

Optimism is an individual choice that is available to each and every one of us, no matter our personal "stature" in life.

You can choose to let life's trials and tribulations get you down, or you can choose not to. It really is up to you.

If you look hard enough with pessimism, you will be able to find the negative side to any situation. But if you look hard enough with optimism, well... you'll not only find the positive side, you will also go much further in life and achieve a greater happiness.

You may not be aware of this, but people are attracted to you by your energy and you actually get back what you put out. If you surround yourself with negative thoughts and negative energy, you will only attract negative people and negative situations.

The same holds true for the positive.

Ask yourself this:

Would you rather spend time with someone who is positive and happy all of the time, or would your prefer the company of someone who incessantly bitches about how shitty their life is?

Or ask yourself this:

Would you rather be optimistic and wrong some of the time, or pessimistic and right all of the time?

And, wow... ask yourself this:

Is it just me or is this post filled with cli-fucking-ches?

*laughs*

Ah, well, at least the cliches are positive!

xo

No question about it!

Someone asked me what was one of my favorite movies in the past year and I just had to choose this one:

The Stoning of Soraya M.

As much as it hurts me to watch these types of films, these are the types of films I love to watch the most.

The films that make me feel.

I cried so hard and I'm not ashamed to admit it. Even hours after I finished watching it, I still felt the sting of tears and a residual sadness in my heart.

I can't believe that in this day and age, these types of atrocity's still happen to people.

Trust me when I say that my heart is broken for the real Soraya M. I know how much her story affected me so I can not even imagine how it must have felt to her while she suffered through it.

At the end, I'm sure she prayed for death to come quickly.

Too bad it didn't.

Her death was slow and brutal, and as hard as it was for me to watch it, I stand up and applaud the director for choosing to show the true reality.

There was no pretense and no "sugar-coating". He filmed it the way it happened. It took the actress almost as long to die in the movie as it took the real Soraya M. to die in life.

It made me feel sick, yet I couldn't look away. Other than the tears streaming down my face, I don't think I moved at all, until the closing credits.

Brilliant film making, in my opinion, and definitely the type of movie I strive to make one day.

I've dabbled in horror and done not too badly in comedy, but my true passion is in telling stories that connect with the audience on an emotional level.

I want you to cry.

Because if you cry, you won't forget the suffering. And if you don't forget the suffering that others experience, perhaps you'll do something about it.