Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans.

The movie Mr. Holland's Opus incorporates an old saying, "Life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans." Recently, I have been thinking about those moments where you have a choice to change the course of your life. Sometimes those moments occur within a second and you may not even realize how the outcome will shape your future. Then other moments are more recognizable, those are the moments where you stop and think before taking action.

I believe that everything happens for a reason. So I am inclined to think that even when making a split second decision, we make the right choice. Still, it can cause you to question your decision when you look back. I think about some of the choices I have made in my life and I think how different my life would be if I had chosen the other path.

I am a person that believes you should stand by your decisions...never do something you may regret later. And as an adult I have learned that isn't always possible. Still, our lives are what we make of them. And that is what I believe that saying means. Don't get so caught up in planning your life that you forget to look around and enjoy your surroundings. That is my goal for 2009. I vow to not be so absorbed in my job that I forget to appreciate how lucky I am. This is a thank you to all my friends and family that I have neglected all these years. God bless you all for standing in my shadow when I was too selfish to share the limelight.

Best wishes to everyone that may read this and Happy New Year to everyone as well!

Second chances...

This past week has been very interesting to say the least. My sister interviewed for her first internship. It was crazy at work and I learned a piece of information that was about 9 months too late. I spent my first Thanksgiving completely alone. Still, after all the loneliness, craziness and disappointments I have discovered another one of life's great lessons. It is the lesson that life will put curves in your road, but it is impossible to do a u-turn and go back unchanged.

I tell my associates everyday that we all make choices. There will always be consequences for those choices, good or bad. As I have learned this year, even though we may be aware of that...we very rarely are aware of how our choices affect those around us. I never believed my life would turn out the way it has, but when I look back at my choices I wonder how I could not have seen this outcome. Regardless, my life hasn't turned out all that bad. It isn't what I had planned it to be, but maybe that's the beauty of it.

I have loved and lost. I have ventured and not gained. I have jumped and fallen. But through all life's curves and disappointments, I have found wonderful friends. So it is with that conviction that I can still travel home and not cry. I can still go to work and not have a breakdown. And most of all, I can recognize that when I allow "moments" to pass with potential nice guys...those moments are few and all too far between. Still, once the moment is gone it is hard to jump back in and recreate it.

Yet, as of late I find myself wishing for the innocence of youth. Hoping that I will open my front door one day to find Mr. Nice Guy who wants to grow old with me. Although we can never go back unchanged, when we do visit past haunts we see things from a completely new perspective. That is the point my friends. You can go back, it will not be the same, but it can be a new beginning.