Ou est me joie de vivre?

My friend Hsiu-Hui and I were walking around campus this afternoon and we started talking about how difficult this semester has become. We talked about our case loads, classes, personal issues, etc. We were going round and round in circles until all of the sudden I shouted "OU EST ME JOIE DE VIVRE??" to the entire quad.

Hsiu-Hui's first language is Chinese and she stared at me for a few seconds blankly until eventually giggling at my terrible french accent. I explained that 'joie de vivre' meant 'life's joys' in French and that I thought we were currently lacking in that particular department. I told Hsiu-Hui of my newly formed plan of Project: Reclaim My Joie de Vivre.

I don't know if I'm sold on any theoretical foundation in counseling yet, but one I keep coming back to is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. To simplify, It's just the idea that our perceptions and beliefs about events can get is stuck in cognitive ruts. If we're constantly seeing everything as bad, the world becomes a bad place and we begin to internalize the bad feelings.

I've been internalizing the bad feelings and I need to knock it off or I'll never make it out of this semester alive. So, each day I'm determined to appreciate one thing or do one thing that makes me happy. Today I was driving home and that ridiculous 60's song about sharing an umbrella at a bus stop came on. So, the first thing I appreciated today about the world was how wonderfully random it can be. My Aunt and Uncle met in an elevator. Their son met his wife through a crazy guy sitting on the bus. A high school friend of mine met her fiance because her apartment flooded and her fiance was the firefighter who came to help her clean the place up. My dad met my mom at a bar when my mom's friend elbowed my mom and said, "I get the blonde, you get the brunette." It's comforting to know that life gives you random surprises via the people you meet. And that you never know who's just around the corner from being a part of your life.