Thing To-Do: Live Well, Love Spring

“An optimist is the human personification of spring.”
Susan J. Bissonette

After a long and cold winter it’s refreshing to finally have some warmth, a few birds singing and see more smiling and enthusiastic faces as you walk the streets. Bright and colorful wardrobe choices replace the dark chocolate fabrics of winter. Wind blows fresh air through open windows and focus is placed on getting organized. While doing your Spring cleaning and getting rid of the excess junk acquired over the past year, get rid of any negativity. Embrace the sunshine you have within yourself. Become an optimist:the human personification of Spring.Here are a few of my favorite sayings about spring that can help you make this year's Spring the best one yet.

Be consistent to get some real results.

“One swallow does not make a spring, nor does one fine day.”
Aristole

To live a happier life and make a real change you can’t just take action or do things on a day when you feel inspired. Sure, the spring may give you a boost of energy and inspiration right now. But what will you do with that? Just surf on those good feelings for a day or a week? Or let it be a start to consistently taken action each day, even if that inspiration and initial enthusiasm may dissipate (which it pretty much always does)?

Keep going.

“No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn.”
Hal Borland

Persistence might not exactly be the sexiest sounding quality. It might not sell a lot of products to people looking for the magic pill. But it is an immensely helpful quality to cultivate and put to use.If you fail, what do you do? You dust yourself off, learn what you can from what happened and try again. If the success you are looking for won’t come that quickly – a pretty likely scenario – then you have to persist. Persistence is one of the most useful qualities one can have. Not only because you will still be out there in a less competitive playing field as lot of other people have given up and gone home. But also because developing persistence will enable you to get what you want. It may just take a little longer than had hoped for. But if you keep going, if you refine your approach based on what you learn from experience and other sources then better times will come.

Winter makes the spring so much better.

“If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.”
Anne Bradstreet

The winter of life is often in retrospect a gift. It makes you stronger. More empathic and understanding. It helps you out in some way and guides you. You can always look back at it when you feel down and be happy that you aren’t in that place anymore.
Your winter and adversities expands the spectrum of human experience, understanding and emotions for you. Your capacity for genuine gratitude increases because of it. The sad times make the happy times even sweeter.