"In these deep city lights, I could get lost tonight."

I am thankful to have a window in my hall that overlooks Downtown Los Angeles.













On Tuesday as I sat there enjoying the view of Downtown LA, I noticed a contrast between the image I saw and the reality of the city life. Within these deep city lights there stood violence, murder, death, homeless, depressed, and broken people, but from where I stood, I could see the overall picture and feel a surprising sense of security, peace, and tranquility. Somehow the beauty of entire city masked the filth within it.

I felt like this was an important idea in relation to life and how I need to sometimes step back and view the entire picture rather than focus on those small things that can go wrong within it. Everyday I wake up with the same general agenda of taking on what life gives me. I feel like the danger in this approach is that everyday there are events, people, and things, which I have no control of, which can easily make or break my day. Most of the time when something goes wrong that single event is all I can think about. I easily forget how miniscule this single event will seem in the grand scheme of things. I forget the faith I have in the future that everything will end up working out and things will somehow come together for a good reason and purpose. I need to remember to take a step back and view life more collectively.

I am thankful to have been reminded of this lesson a couple days before my 18th birthday because it helped my discretion when reflecting on the past year. Now that I take a step back and look over the year as a whole, I find it hard to remember many things that I wasn’t thankful for or thought were blessings. How amazing it is when looking at life in its entirety (or at least the past year) that I can truly see the beauty of how somehow things manage to come together and work out.