Until I Say Good-Bye: My Year of Living with Joy

by Susan Spencer-Wendel

“Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.”

Enjoy life more because of the uncertainty, not less.

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.

“I am the master of my mind. I have a choice about how to feel,” I tell myself all the time.

Is there a stigma to admitting depression? To admitting that I have moments of anger and despair? If so, I choose to ignore it, because my mind is healthy.

Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.

That is the secret I learn more of every day. Not to want things I cannot have or cannot do. Remove the want, and you remove the pain.

Do not pine for things you cannot have, I thought, for that is the way to the loony bin.

Focus not on people who let you down, but on those who lift you up.

Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.