As you know, I took a little extended vacation from the blogosphere throughout the past month. This was largely self-imposed, as I have had several changes of the personal kind brewing. In the past month, I’ve ended a job and started a career, spent some much needed time with family and been spending an inordinate amount of time with the newest furry addition to our family (notice, I said FURRY; furry = puppy, not child).

The self-imposed part of my blogging break was to give myself some time and space to enjoy the exciting transitions and not feel the burning need to write about them immediately. That, and of course the fact that I have been busier than usual, as staring a new job doesn’t usually afford you the time to type away during the workday. At least not for the first few weeks.

I’m happy to say I’m back. And no, this won’t be a post simply dedicated to letting the world wide web know I am back to blogging.

In this past month, I’ve had the opportunity to see – and feel – how impactful change is in life. People are instinctively afraid of change. The fear of the unknown is a much more intimidating adversary than routine, no matter how dreadful, miserable or painful. It is much easier to accept what we know than it is to try to do predict what we don’t.

However, by shifting perspective, it is evident that change is our most valuable asset. Our generation tends to get caught up in circumstance. We focus on what we don’t have, what we wish we could have and how unfair it is that we don’t have it. Not only is this depressing, but it renders us powerless over our own lives. We forget that we have the ability to change what we don’t like – and that can be our circumstance or our attitude. Change is an active decision to empower ourselves.

All this philosophical mumbo-jumbo is spouting from my own recent experience, which is why I feel the need to share it here. During the past year and a half of my life, my personal life has been in the best place possible while my professional life has been pretty dismal. After a year in the most stressful, least rewarding job I could have ever dreamed, I began to see the true toll it had taken on me. I had changed in a bad way. I was negative, cynical, stressed, worn out and, worst of all, lacked any real confidence in myself. I decided to make a change. Fast forward to earlier this month, the first day of my new job, and I am happier than I’ve ever been – and would have never dreamed I’d have been had I not decided to face the unknown.

My point is simply this: we are in charge of our own happiness and we should constantly challenge ourselves to make the necessary changes to achieve happiness in our lives. All it takes is a little change in perspective, which I’ve been fortunate enough to find in the past few months.