Life is better when you’re happy. Happiness is associated with staying positive. Human nature is to focus on the struggles, and bad things in life. According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the word positive means “Thinking about the good qualities of something or someone.” Although everyone faces struggles, it is easier to enjoy life and achieve goals while being happy.

The buzzing of my alarm wakes me; I turn it off, pronto. Rolling out of bed, my body's indicating that I’m tired, but I convince myself that I’m ready for a great day.  I feel excited for the morning. It will consist of a 3 mile run with my Cross Country team and a quick weight lifting session. I tell myself that with a positive mentality, I can accomplish anything  A positive attitude reminds me of muscle.  The more I run the faster I get. The more you work your muscle, or mind in this case, the more it will improve. I thank my running career for my positive attitude.

Choosing to be positive is recognizing pain and ignoring it. Whether I’m running 2 or 8 miles, I know my uplifting attitude will get me through anything. I quickly lace up my shoes, pull my hair back, slip on my headband, and plug in my music. I am ready to run.

The first mile is tough,  I want to give up, but I have faith it will only get better.

My life can relate to the first mile. It reminds me of last year’s basketball season. It was hard. The beginning of last year started off great. I played with an open mind, ready to practice hard and perform even harder. I fell back immediately when I strained my quad. I remained positive, eager to overcome this hurdle.  For about a week, practices consisted of icing and stretching.  Although I prayed for a fast recovery, my quad had other ideas.

A fast recovery, that’s all I wanted. I am sitting in the ER waiting room, rattled about the situation. It is two weeks  after my car accident, and things seem to continue to spiral out of control. My mom has her back hand press across my forehead, she looks bothered by the heat coming off of me. Today is Saturday. I started feeling ill the last Sunday. All week I have been  home alone trying to sleep off the one or two day sickness I thought I had. I’m wrong and it continued to get worse and worse. 

I take a peek at my watch. I am just reaching the second mile, and it’s becoming easier. As my run continues, I’m quickly beginning to overlook the bad side and see the good in it. 

I become alert as the door swings open, a nurse yells out my name. I nearly faint walking back to the room. I sit down in the chair near the nurse. The nurse then proceeds to take my temperature, the results aren’t promising. Her eyes wander to my face and announces my temperature is 103.7. Sitting quietly I zone out the discussion my mom has with the nurse. I am too tired to listen, to more, or even think.

Two weeks passed, I am beginning to feel bummed out. Warming the bench, and watching the girls practice has started to wear on me.  My optimistic attitude started to dwindle away quickly. “It will be okay” I told myself. Sure enough, everything was okay, and I started to regain my strength. Slowly, I started to get back into the groove of participating. I knew I could do it.

It takes all my strength to get  my body out of the hospital. Hitting the car seat I instantly fall asleep.

I lie on my couch for the next four days after my visit to the ER. The meds the doctor prescribed me didn’t seem to be working. My mom checked on me very frequently, I knew she was worried. Every hour she checked my temperature and it never went below a 102.5. It could be a lot worse I told myself, keep hanging in there.
One mile left, and I am hopeful it will fly by.

The next day my mom loaded me up and we went back to the hospital.  I was so tired I could barely lift my head up. I was running such a high fever I couldn’t comprehend what was happening. Eventually, we arrived to the hospital again. The nurses recognized me right away and lead me into a room. I was nauseous and just laid on the bed while the nurses drew my blood for test work. I wasn’t in a good condition.

The season is in full force. My confidence returns. My first game back, I am thrilled to be  on the court once again.  Pushing all my fears aside, I tell myself I can do it.  The ref throws his hand in the air, and I enter the game. Running up and down, I am delighted to be back in my element.  I listen to my shoes squeak on the floor, playing quick defense.  The whistle is like a scream, drawing my attention to the scoreboard. We are ahead.   Staying positive during this tough time kept me working towards something better: winning the game.

After my last visit to the hospital, the doctors gave me a new set of medicine. They were thankfully more effective than the last ones. I was feeling better almost instantly. The test results came back about a week later, and we found out I had caught a virus. The virus symptoms are similar to mono, we came to find out. 

The sun is starting to beam from the horizon. I stare ahead of me, just reaching the school. We have completed the three mile run. Finding the optimistic viewpoint  helped me overcome this run, and my negative basketball situation.  “In order to carry a positive action we must develop here a positive vision”. -Dalai Lama

If I’m being honest I thought I was going to die those two weeks I was sick. But, I continued to push through and get better. The quote I found from the Dalai Lama, reminds me a lot about my experience being sick. The last two weeks of summer I was sick, never left my couch. That wasn’t what I visioned, I imaged I was working, hanging out with friends or playing at the beach. That wasn’t reality but I tried my best to carry out a position mind.

Works Cited
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 2004. Print.
"Positive Quotes." BrainyQuote. Xplore. Web. 07 Nov. 2016.