Smart Quote of the Day

You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.
-C.S. Lewis

I read a lot of quotes. Sometimes I'm looking for something to add to a story, or a guiding principle for a character. And sometimes I'm just looking for words that make me feel good.

People get hung up on their pasts. I might even go so far as to say that most everyone I've ever met has something in their past that they can't let go. Childhood traumas are a biggie and probably the most difficult to move past. I struggled for decades to get past mine with mixed results. Early on, the pain was so big it filled me and I couldn't see beyond it. Slowly, very slowly, I grew beyond the trauma and the power it held over me shrank.

One day I reached a point where I realized that if I lived each day, each hour, each moment, to the best of my ability, my past no longer mattered. It didn't magically disappear. It's still there, buried deep, influencing me in subtle ways I'm sure, but it no longer defines me. I made the choice to look forward, not back. As Mr. Lewis says, "You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending."

Every day, every moment, I choose a happy, fulfilled life going forward. I look for joy–and I find it–in people, in places, in the little things, in the small pleasures.

This is the best way I can find to make the world a better place.