When I first moved to New York, someone told me that it would take everything I had some days to just even stand on the sidewalk. It's so true: this city overwhelms you. It never stops. And when you have other concerns and struggles and pain in your heart, it makes it hard to hold it all in until you're home.

I have this "daily mood" calendar on my desk at work, and for the last few months it's been displayed at "splendid," whether I'm feeling "splendid" or not. It challenges me to be optimistic, to find a silver lining in the clouds of chaos. Negativity, I've discovered, does nothing but spread poison. And when you're around that poison daily, there's nowhere to go but down.

I want to be the kind of person who lights up a room when she walks in, not when she walks out. I want to live with the kind of joy that I've witnessed in others who've inspired me to be a better and stronger person. There are so many things in life that will be thrown at us that will wear us down. If I don't have some joy in my heart to start with, I'll constantly let the fires destroy me. Life's too short for that.