The Pivot Year

by Brianna Wiest

Will you continue to replay the memories of yesterday, or will you meet the moment and make the most of what is in front of you now?

You are exactly where you need to be. This is the perfect day to start your life again.

Happiness is not having the best of everything, but the ability to make the best of anything. Happiness is knowing you are doing what you can with what you were given. Happiness is not something that comes to you when every problem is solved and all things are perfectly in place, but in the shining silver linings that remind us the light of day is always there, if you slow down enough to notice.

Self-protection is learning how to take a pause between what you feel and how you react. When there is no awareness between what you perceive and the way that you respond, anything can control you. Practice the pause. Widen the space between what you sense and what you do about it. Decide what’s worth your energy, because what you engage with is what you empower.

You cannot desire what you do not already contain. Desire is a projection outward that is proportionate to potential inward.

Maybe you don’t need to find more energy, maybe you just need to find a dream that makes you actually want to get up in the morning. Maybe you need to find something that gives back more than it takes. Maybe you need to stop trying to be good at the hundred things that do not light up your soul, and finally choose the one that does—the one that asks you to risk, to lay your heart bare, to try again, even though you’re scared. You’re not failing because you’re not motivated. You’re not supposed to get far on a path that was never yours to walk.

Eventually, you will have to stop pouring yourself into the things that will give nothing back, that take without any intent to give. You will have to stop trying to make yourself fit into places you are no longer meant to be. If you are going to give your energy to anything, give it to what’s already working. To the people who already love you, to the things that show potential, to the places that make you feel more alive.

The healthiest things for you may seem underwhelming if your soul has only known the loudness of continued chaos. Your biggest feelings are not always the most accurate ones.

Do you know how many perfect moments are unfolding before your very eyes? Do you know how much you already have? Do you know how many quiet nights of peace you have already experienced, how many hearts have loved you, how many people would love to see your name pop up on their phone right now? Do you know how much you matter? Do you know how good you are?

It is easy to tell how you are doing in life. When you go outside, how beautiful is the flower? That is how you know.

Life is a blank canvas upon which our subconscious minds paint pieces of our souls. What matters is not so much what’s in front of you, but what’s within it that you see. That is what will tell you everything you need to know.