Grieve and Move On

"You've always got two choices. One: You can swirl and twirl in gloom and doom forever. Or two: You can grieve and then face the future with newly sober eyes."
-Neil Pasricha

I recently watched a Ted Talk with Neil Pasricha about the 3 A's of Awesome.

You can watch it here.

Anyway. It got me thinking about the things in life that happen that we can't control and the things that hurt us and make us sad or upset or angry. But it also made me think about how life is still awesome, and that we can still be happy despite the terrible things that happen.

Just like Neil says: We can end up in gloom and doom forever, or we can choose to grieve and then move on and face what lies ahead. We can choose to leave what happened behind us, and look forward to the wonderful things in our lives.

There are a lot of things in life that I struggle with. Things that people know about, and things that people don't know about. And I'm certainly not the only one. We all harbor little things and secrets, and sometimes even big ones, that others in our lives don't know about because we choose to keep them hidden from others. But those people still love us, even if they don't know everything about us. The people in our lives are the reasons for moving forward. They help us grieve and then move on.

Planes

Over at 1000 Awesome Things, Neil Pasricha made a really great post about how incredibly awesome planes are!

And it's true! Planes really are awesome.

Think about it: without planes people could not travel as efficiently, cheaply, or quickly as they currently can. They would have to take cars, or boats, or horses. It would take days, weeks or months to travel instead of hours and minutes.

The problem is that people really do take these amazing machines for granted. They complain about how the flight attendants are not attendant, or how it's too cold or too hot, or how the baby in the back won't stop crying, or how the talkative elderly woman sitting the seat over won't stop talking, or that the seats are uncomfortable.

People, come on! You're flying. And not only are you flying, but your flying in an aircraft that weighs more tons than you can probably comprehend. How is it that it's in the air? I sure as heck don't know how, but it manages to get in the air! It's, to put it extravagantly, a miracle!


Today, I'm stoked about airplanes. Tomorrow I fly to Budapest--a trip that would take me well over 15 hours by bus, 8 by train, or weeks and weeks and weeks if I walked.

So, here's to planes.

What is something you take for granted about planes? Do you have any fun stories from a flight you took, like how you met someone or learned something? What do you appreciate most about being able to fly to a destination of your choice?