Is Your Glass Half Full?

Are you a glass half full or glass half empty kind of person?  I've been thinking about this a lot lately.  I've been getting a lot of flack for the way I live my life, and I am perplexed.  I am a very positive, happy person.  I have my bad days, sure, who doesn't, but overall I wake up ever single morning with a fresh outlook and, (after my morning caffeine jolt), a smile on my face.  So why, I ask, am I such an easy target for cruelty and negativity?

As most of you know, I am a new entrepreneur.  I have started my own business.  I have never been so excited.  As an Arbonne Consultant I get to work with a company that holds true to values I hold dear, like environmental stewardship, kind treatment of animals and the elimination of toxins from our beauty and health products.  I get to meet new people everyday who care about these things too.  I get to talk health and beauty all day long!  Plus I get paid, and I still get to stay home and raise my children.  You couldn't ask for a better job!  So why then, am I constantly having to defend my business decision to people?  I spent 20 minutes at lunch with a friend the other day, listening to her tell me all the things that could go wrong and why this was all just a bad idea. "But good luck", she said, "I'm sure you'll do fine".

Fine? Fine?  I'll do better than fine!  How could I not do AMAZING?!  I'm working for myself, with a company that is amazing to it's workforce.  I'll be putting my kids through college and driving them there in my sweet-ass Mercedes thank you very much.  Plus I'll be helping to give my clients the very best they could have in good health and beauty.   How could anyone be so negative or discouraging?  Take a happy pill for heavens sake!  I just couldn't live with a little black cloud hanging over my head like that.

Likewise, I seem to make a very easy target for hate and cruelty because of my weight.  I was always the biggest girl in our family.  By that, I mean I was average and everyone else was a toothpick.  I remember constant comparisons.  I remember one time, when I was in high school, I was working in my front yard when a group of kids walked by and one of them said, "Hey, is that Liz's sister"? And the reply was, "No.  Liz's sister is fat"?  Well, kudos to me for fooling them, but I wonder where they heard that.

When I lost a lot of weight in college, (thanks to not having a car and clubbing every night), I went home for a holiday and my new figure was all anyone could talk about.  A soon as I opened the fridge to get a snack, I was warned, "You'll gain all that weight back if you pig out".

I have twice, been yelled at out of car windows that I was too fat.  Thanks goodness they told me. I might not have known.  Recently a co-worker was looking at my wedding album.  Her first comment, "Wow, you were so thin back then"!  I have had my fitness magazines scribbled on that I should, "keep dreamin'".  And most recently I was once again reminded by my own family just how overweight I am and how much I need to loose "some major pounds".  "Just being honest, what do you want me to lie?"

Guess what people.  I am aware of the situation.  Regular readers of my blog know that I write about my health and fitness goals all the time, with a sense of humor.  I DO NOT care to hear your negative two cents.  If you are so unhappy with your life, write a journal, don't try and bring me down, because you can't.

I am the luckiest woman alive!  I have an amazing husband, who just rolls with my various health kicks, two amazing children how tell me how beautiful I am every day, two amazing dogs who think I am the greatest human EVER.  I have a college degree, had a great career and now, I am my own boss.  I don't live my life in the shadows.  I get out there!  I meet people and I have fun!  When I wake up in the morning I don't say, "Oh God, it's morning"!  I say, "Good morning God"!  My first thought isn't, what's gonna go wrong today?  It's "which of my beautiful kids am I gonna get to kiss first this morning"?

You know where I'll be ten years from now?  I'll be a happy wife and mother, millionaire driving around in a benz convertible while my beautiful skin glows in the sun and my beautiful hair blows in the wind and I might, just might, be back in my size six jeans.  Where will you be?

Michy