Happen to Life

I heard a phrase somewhere that seems to epitomize what we should all be thinking of in the new year, and indeed, at all times. "Life can happen to you, or you can happen to life."

I once played a cat in a little theater performance. My friends and I looked over the play's script and read all the production notes, and realized one day that it said something to the effect of "the part of the cat can be played by a live actor, or a puppet may be used." Well, you can imagine how that made me feel. My friends were always joking around, saying that I could always be replaced with a puppet.

But you know, I decided to play that cat to the best of my ability. I did things that no puppet could ever do: I sang, danced, made hilarious facial expressions, and ad libbed. I made myself so valuable that by the end of the production I'm sure it never entered anyone's mind that the cat could be played by anyone but me, much less an inanimate puppet!

That's how we need to be in every area of our lives. Instead of going with the flow and making all of the obvious, but not necessarily right, decisions, we're cheating ourselves out of a fulfilling lifetime! People say that life happens, which is true. The plumbing will burst, it will rain on wedding days, people lose those they love...but we decide how we will react to those situations. Through the chances we take and the opportunities we make, we can happen to life instead of life happening to us.

Go forward into 2010 with purpose, definite goals, flexibility, and yes, a healthy dose of courage and daring. Work on making yourself indispensable to those around you, so that no one could ever imagine a world without you in it.

Tata For Now,

Abby Rogers

Picture from here