…were it offered to my choice, I should have no objection

to a repetition of the same life from its beginning,

only asking the advantages authors have in a second edition

to correct some faults of the first.

So I might, besides correcting the faults,

change some sinister accidents and events of it for others more favorable.

But though this were denied,

I should still accept the offer.

from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

Could you say the same?
Given the choice, would you live the same life over?

It’s sort of mind-boggling, so let me be more precise:

Given the choice, would you live 2010 over? Like, starting today?

I think most of us would say, hellz to the no. 2010 sucked. (That link takes you to a post with lots of profanity, FYI. Hilarious, spot-on profanity.)

So now I want you to ask yourself: what am I gonna do differently this year so it’s not just a repeat of last year’s suckage?

And more importantly, how am I going to use my experiences from last year to turn them to my advantage?

That’s key, people.

In order to truly live a life of no regrets, to live a life worth repeating even if you’re not allowed to change “sinister accidents and events of it for others more favorable,” you have to take all the crap and make it useful, worthwhile. You can’t gloss over them, bury them in the recesses of your mind, pretend they never happened. You have to own them and examine them and find the good within them. You have to figure out how to turn back and be able to say, things happen for a reason.

–This one horrible thing happened and it made me stronger.

–I made this idiot mistake and because of it, I didn’t make this other idiot mistake.

–This tragedy happened and it made me appreciate how freaking lucky I am and how beautiful my life really is.

You can’t avoid turbulence. Life is hard. A lot of it sucks.

That’s the way it is.

The question is, when life slings crap at you, are you letting it chip away at you, break you?

Or polish you into something beautiful and shining and strong?

How’s this for a new year’s resolution:

Start living a life worth repeating. Make every event count.

——–

And now, gratuitous photos from the Franklin Institute at closing time. Because it was so pretty and I can’t imagine any way I’d work them into a future post.

Happy weekend 🙂