Rising to Light and Shining

I must say that ever since I came back from Thanksgiving vacation to school, things have started to really shape up. I started reaching out to others that I wasn't really friends with before, and now, those people are my good friends now. Another thing that happened was one of my friends that I met in my choral class last year and was really good friends with actually texted me one night and actually apologized for treating me like crap since the school year began. She felt really bad and actually wanted to continue being friends with me, so we sat down with one another after choral class and talked about this after the night that she texted me. After that was done, she became one of my really good friends again. So, come to think of it, I'm actually really glad that she is still my friend, and I'm happy that we worked things out with one another (I won't get into details about who this is, and no, it's not any of the girls that I've mentioned in some of my blog entries; this is a different one that I'm just simply good friends with). However, that's not the only great thing that happened. Before the day of my birthday, I had a nice feast with my family, and we topped it off with a really nice, delicious red velvet cake (mmm, tasty I know huh? Hahaha! That's just me though. ) On the day of my birthday, I was receiving birthday greetings from others at school left to right, some even sang happy birthday to me (even though they were singing out of tune, but I still really appreciated it because it's the thought that counts), and I received quite a significant amount of gifts from some of my really good friends. Later on that day, I went out to dinner with my mom to have a delicious meal. As you may have read in my last blog entry, my 18th birthday was really an enjoyable, memorable day well worth experiencing.

On another note, the past few days have been really enjoyable since the holidays are drawing near towards us. I went out shopping over the week for a few of my friends (I still have quite a bit of shopping to do for my little sister and my mom I'll get it done by tomorrow though), and when I gave them their gifts today, their expressions of gratitude were just truly a rewarding thing to see and hear. Heck, I even received a couple of gifts for Christmas in return from a couple of my friends (one of the two gave me a simple gift, which was a candy cane, but I was just really pleased to know that she thought of me since I thought of her when I gave her a simple gift as well, which was white chocolate and a greeting card with a personal letter for her written in it; yes, it's actually someone that I have a crush on and showing a keen interest for currently, but I'll save that for another entry). Just this very Friday night, I had a great performance with choir tonight at the Christmas concert that we had. Everyone in the audience stood up from out of their seats and clapped for us, the band, and the mariachi; it was really an awesome moment I must say. After the concert was over, I gathered everyone in choir and we all took a group picture together. All in all, it was truly a fantastic day; it couldn't have gotten any better than that.

I bet some (if not all) of you that read my blog regularly (ooh, I have some secret stalkers here...hahaha, I'm kidding ) are wondering why I'm feeling more alive, positive, and up-beat. Well, to tell you the truth, the reason behind that is from a book that I received from my best friend's mom. The book is called The Secret to Teen Power by Paul Harrington. I strongly and highly recommend that you buy that book and read it (those of you who are viewing this particular blog entry) because it really helps you indulge into positive thinking and guides you to making anything great happen in your life. I'm serious; it really doesn't bluff on any of the stuff that it talks about. It's got some personal stories in there that introduces the hardship(s) that particular people went through, and how he/she overcame that obstacle and made everything possible to make great things become a reality for themself. It's also got some "exercises/objectives" that it wants you to do (if you want to; you don't have to, but I highly recommend that you do) to actually "dig deep" and explore who you really are deep down inside.

So, if you don't believe that this book that I mentioned can actually help change your life and the way that you think, I beg to differ on that, and to justify my reason, I'm going to be sharing my personal experience with what I learned from reading The Secret to Teen Power. Here it is:

Before reading The Secret, I was just in constant doubt with myself for such a long time about the things I wanted to happen in my life. I wanted to stop feeling so lonely deep inside myself, stop stressing out with problems in my family and worrying about world controversy, and what could happen in the years to come with regards to that. More crucially important for me, I yearned for a long-lasting love relationship with an amazing girl that I was just losing faith in. It's true that I did some "digging" of my own and have gotten advice from various people on these particular subjects (including the ones on here). However, I just didn't feel really motivated enough to taking the advice into consideration and actually making it happen because I just didn't know how to go about taking action. As you can tell from reading some of my blog entries, there were times that I was just really depressed, sad, crying, upset, frustrated, you name it. I felt all these emotions at those times because I was thinking about and expecting the worst to happen. Surely enough, that's what actually happened. I was really lost, confused, scared, and felt like breaking and losing hope and faith. I didn't know what else to think or do. Constant negative thoughts were just flowing through my head from time to time, but after reading The Secret, it gave me a whole different perspective of thinking, and it changed my life. I'm constantly reminding myself to be thankful for all the people in my life that are in front of me as well as health and other things.

I also discovered my very own secret, and this was one of the exercises that I did from the book. It basically told me to write all the things I enjoy doing/looking forward to down on a piece of paper, and I had to choose three from that list that I really felt passionate and heartfelt about. Now, I know what I need to focus on. Also, there's also a section in the book that talked about love relationships, and the exercise that it told me to do for that subject was to describe my perfect match and explain why this special someone is someone that I can really call "the perfect match". Now that I have that special someone pictured in my mind and envisioning having this girl in my life already, I don't even worry about finding that perfect girl all that much now. I just simply believe in the love and joy, and that's the way I'm going.

Okay, I can go on and on about this book into intricate detail, but you've got to read this book; I'm not kidding. Once you have done so, you'll be really glad that you did, and it will be well-worth your time. However, the choice to decide whether or not to read the book I suggested is completely in your hands; I am only just passing on knowledge that might actually be useful to some of you.

After all, knowledge is power, and having good power goes a long way in life.

In short, I've just been feeling really good and fantastic. I view this world as a beautiful place to be in and to live life and enjoy myself because the truth to the secret to life is just feeling good and enjoying your life. That's it. It's as simple as that.

From this point on, I will be uplifted and soar higher than I've never imagined before, and I will believe that this universe has amazing things in store for me, and truth be told, it actually does.