feeling hopeful because...

what a big change in my mood that happened in less than 24 hours.

thursday night, i was in a depressed mood. okay i had been in that mood on and off for a few weeks but thursday night it was especially bad. i was stressed out and lacking hope. i had been thinking about all the negative things in my life and wondering when things would get better- IF they would even get better. i can't remember if it was before or after i wrote the journal but i was crying.  not too long after i wrote that journal, i went to bed, earlier than normal, because i was in such a bad mood that i didn't feel like being awake.

friday morning, i woke up feeling a little better. i even made progress on a oneshot free! fanfic i'm currently writing. (i had tried to make progress on it the previous night but i was not able to write a single word. i had been foolishly trying to write the fic without planning it first. friday morning, i realized i needed to plan, and i completed a detailed plan!!) i ate breakfast after that, but after breakfast, i began to feel depressed again. i sank down into my bad mood and even cried a little bit more. i took a nap that afternoon even though i wasn't very tired because i had gotten sleep the night before. but again, i was in such a bad mood that i didn't even want to be awake.

i had an unusually long and detailed dream where i was exploring a large city all by myself. because i happen to like big cities, i really liked that dream!! i feel like the dream was God-given. i woke up with a completely different attitude. my bad mood was gone, and i was feeling hopeful and happy instead of hopeless and depressed. i felt like, even though there are things in my life that i'm unsatisfied with, and even though there are things i've messed up on, there's always hope for those things to get better. i just had to have more optimism and courage, and fight harder. i thought of city i had explored in my dream as a symbol of exploring the possibilities for things to get better in my life. so ever since that dream, i have not been feeling that negative mood. instead of feeling a burden, i now feel capable of achieving things.

i've realized this before, but i had forgotten: negative thoughts are like quicksand. they will trap you and bring you down. once you're in, it's hard to get out. you just get buried deeper and deeper in your own negativity. hope is the way out. hope is something you need to have and try to hold on to, don't lose it. i guess you can think of it as a rope swinging above, that can pull you out of the quicksand. it's your lifeline. if you lose hope, you will be trapped and suffocated by your own negativity.

having negative thoughts wastes time. it doesn't accomplish anything. feeling sorry for yourself doesn't accomplish anything. if you want things to change for the better, you have to make enough effort. and you can't make a strong effort if you don't have enough hope that you will succeed. so like i said, hope is your lifeline. don't let yourself become trapped in negative thoughts.

EDIT: i forgot to mention, friday night, i made a tumblr post: sachi-pon.tumblr.com/post/9850… that post is significant because i have never thought that before. i had always thought of MAYBE selling at my local convention, but i wasn't sure if i truly wanted it. part of me wanted to do it but part of me wasn't so comfortable with the idea. but yesterday, because i was in an optimistic mood, i decided that i not only wanted to sell at a local convention but also, travel to others!!