Choose.

So I came across this mysterious Word file in a mysterious folder-within-a-folder among the mess of random files and photos and folders scattered across my computer desktop. (Sometimes being pathetically disorganized pays off in unexpected ways.)  I don't remember writing it, though I clearly did at some point in the not-so-distant past.  It was the advice I needed to hear today, though.  And it's advice FROM MYSELF!  So I get to congratulate myself on being terribly sage and compassionate and admonish myself for being a materialistic idiot AT THE SAME TIME! 

No, really.  When my fantasy life starts to run along the lines of "wealthy benefactor treats me to a week alone in some random large American city where I know no one and can stay at a fancy hotel and go to day spas and buy myself anything I want as long as it's JUST FOR ME because those are the terms and I'm not allowed to feel guilty"...well.  That's when I need to hear this:

"Decide to be happy.  Just make the decision.  Stop fantasizing yourself out of your life, even at night, even when you’re sick, even when you’re sick and tired of everything being hard.  Live it.  Choose it again every day, all of it, everyone, every inconvenience and every bowl of beans and every scorpion and every class that goes horribly.  Choose the weariness and the backaches and the wanting to talk to someone in English.  Choose the laundry and the dishes.  Choose the traffic and the bloqueos.  Choose Ibis.  Choose his smile and his problems and everything that’s good and everything that could be better.  Choose your Little Bird, even when he doesn't let you sleep, even when he doesn't let you do ANYTHING for yourself, even eat.  Choose it and be happy.  That’s all." 

Because once I'm reminded, how could do I anything else?