Attitude and self-esteem should never, ever, be based on your circumstances. It should be vice versa. I'm pretty sure that's called enlightenment or something, so chances are none of us will ever make it to the far side of the spectrum. But perspective checks are constantly necessary in life. I find it very easy to feel good or bad based on what's happening in my life. The thing I discovered is that "what's happening in my life" is constantly changing whether I like or want the changes, so letting my attitude and self-esteem correlate with these events doesn't do a damn thing besides stress me out. The other disadvantage to all of this is that people don't like your more or less based on your circumstances; rather they either sympathetic or envious. Which are fine emotions, but they're not friendship-building emotions. Your attitude and confidence will bring in a lot more good things from the outside than great hair or a respectable job.

I think Lao Tzu said it better than me, "Rejoice in the way things are."

This is me, for better or for worse!

What happens when you lose your job, you move, you have finals for online psychology, several family holidays, and are trying to maintain your sanity, your yoga practice, and all your friendships? And as a result of all this, you've decided you're going to forego the cable/internet bill until the cash flow stabilizes (hey, it's summer, I should be outside anyway, not boob tubing it). Your blog gets the shaft! So I guess it's to be expected, I do rank low on blog consistency! Like I said before - it's a pretty accurate reflection of my life. The moving is done, the psych class is done, family celebrations are on hiatus for a few months, leaving only one major problem. The sanity is slow creeping back. This leads back to my favorite yoga metaphor of all time:
Last fall is when I began yoga, and I wanted to do a headstand in the middle of the room SO BADLY. I knew I was capable of it, so I decided to make it my goal to land it by the end of 2010. Then, like always, life got in the way, I got really sick for 2-3 weeks, I had a Biostatistics final (that one was much more painful than the psych class) and the headstand (hmm kinda like my blog, I'm seeing a pattern here) was all but forgotten. I did a yoga workshop on New Year's Day, and lo and behold! I landed the headstand in the middle of the room! And I hadn't even really tried. I was ecstatically telling my yoga teacher this story, and she reminded me that that is the beauty of yoga: sometimes you let go and things just happen. With everything that I've been trying to sort out lately, I can promise you this is true. Stress is just the devil.