it's all in my head

This last weekend I Hied to Kolob... Kolob Canyon that is. It was amazing and beautiful and so, so fun. Sadly, my camera battery died right when we got there so I have no photos to show you. We rode the 4wheelers, saw lots of wildlife, went crawdad fishing, watched movies, ate and slept. I really wish every weekend could be like that.

I was a bit apprehensive about going because I was afraid of spending too much "quality time" with my head. Lately, I've developed a tendency to dwell on things a little too much and after the week I had I was worried I'd get up there and just drive myself crazy thinking about things I have no control over. But, escape turned out to be exactly what I needed. Not only a physical escape from my environment but an escape from my unproductive thoughts.

I can fully attest to the adage:

Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
Watch your words, for they become actions.
Watch your actions, for they become habits.
Watch your habits, for they become character.
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.
~Anon

It all begins with how we choose to think. And that is the key. We CHOOSE to think whatever we think. So, ultimately it's all in my head. I have two options really. I can think happy or I can think depressed.
As Abe Lincoln put it:

Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.

And I choose to be happy. In choosing to be happy I'm finding that I have to seriously monitor my thoughts and where they are taking me. If I start thinking, stressing, commiserating about how much I have to do and how little time I have to do it, my church calling, my current relationship (or lack thereof), my finances, the past, the future, etc, then I have to stop my thoughts and change them to something productive, motivating or just plain happy.

I've been in an emotional rut for far too long. I've been struggling to figure out how to get happy again. I'm not sure why it took me so long to decide to be happy but I've finally done it. This is my life. I'm not going to waste it by making myself miserable. I am done spending too much time dwelling on the past or thinking anxiously about the future so that I forget to live in the present.

See. This is what happens when you Hie to Kolob. You figure stuff out.

Invictus
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole;
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance,
I have not winced, nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of change,
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade.
And yet, the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll:
I am the master of my fate.
I am the captain of my soul.
~William Earnest Henley