“Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears.” – John Lennon

Disclaimer: If you feel your good enough friends with me to harass or make fun of me… stop reading immediately.

Life is hard. It’s a rollercoaster ride that offers highs where you can’t stop smiling and lows where you can’t stop crying. Life’s unpredictable. It’ll give you an unexpected laugh after a hard day and pull you back to reality when your happiness wanders off too far. Life’s brutally honest. It holds you true to the karma that surrounds you. It constantly reminds you that no one lives forever, and that joy can be found in the most unexpected places. Life is cheesy. It’s a highway. It ain’t always beautiful. It’s wonderful. It’s pretty chill, bro. It’s a song, created just for you. Life is a funny thing. It’s something you should never take too serious, because no one gets out alive. Ever.

Life is what you make it. In the past couple months, I’ve been pretty damn happy. I got dealt a few cards that I could play and I developed some confidence that even Michael Jordan would be jealous of.  I had a new perspective that laughed at the old me, who bitched about evvvvverything. I was going on trips with my family and friends. I was going to Kenny Chesney and Corey Smith concerts. The buccos were competing with the best of the NL. I had one of the best weekends of my life in Atlantic City, followed up with a nice get-a-way in Deep Creek, MD. I could see the end of the tunnel in my academic career. I was in relationships that seemed right. I was letting the good in people outshine their ugly side. The summer heat was replaced with a painted autumn breeze. I updated my Apple fanboy technology. Football season finally started back up again and Holgy bear had the mountaineers ready. Gameday finally stepped up and made an appearance in Morgantown… where I managed to be within the first five rows. Women were complimenting my silver fox-ish ways. I helped my brother take another step toward his life of happiness and tie the knot. A few weeks later, I also was lucky enough to take part in my good friend’s nuptials. My classes for the semester seemed promising and I was genuinely excited about them. Hell, I was excited about my future as a whole. Life had me ready to leave out each day to the fullest.

Life caught up to me. I woke up one morning and it was all gone. It was like I, all the sudden, was lost and all by myself. I was pretty damn depressed. I had as much confidence as Superman in a room full of kryptonite. I was bitching about evvvvverything to those who were willing to listen. The sun infested summer changed to the leaf-killing fall. The buccos ended up in the bottom tier of baseball. The gray hairs started to tell the tale of my quarter life crisis and stress that surrounds me. I had to sell my Apple desktop. WVU ended up losing to LSU and Syracuse. I’ve grown to despise Morgantown as a place to live. I barely had enough money to drive to my hometown, let alone go on trips. I started to realize that the majority of people are selfish, and if you dig, they are more than happy to show you their ugly side. I wasn’t excited about anything. Hell, I didn’t care about my future. I had health problems. I had depression problems. I had money problems. I had school problems. I had girl problems. I had life problems.

Life is honest. It has a funny way of working things out. I’m a firm believer in karma. As the song goes, “you get what you give and people get what they deserve.” (yes, I just referenced Kid Rock) Starting that morning, I deserved to feel ghastly about life. I wasn’t fair to myself, and it finally caught up to me, and it kicked me square between the legs. Yet, sometimes that’s just what you need, a nudge to jumpstart some sort of transformation that betters you as a person and the life that comes with it. Instead of doing what I need to simply get by, I’m starting to look at each day as an opportunity to change into something better. A chance to change the way people look at me and more importantly, how I view myself. There’s nothing more contagious in this world than smiles and happiness. If you surround yourself with people who care about you and go out of their way to make you smile…then it’s going to be hard not to be happy. There’s no point in living, if you’re living a life of misery and despair. Life is what you want it to be…and chasing that dream is half the fun.

Life is real. Go live it.

Cheers,

Pauly