the beautiful!

These past two weeks have been incredibly positive and fun.  I am not sure that I have the word power to fully express all of the feelings that I have been experiencing, but I can talk about one that feels pretty amazing.

Since school has begun, I am feeling quite lucky about a lot of things.  I never think of myself as a lucky individual because I am not sure that an outside force contributes to my happiness.  I don't like to give "luck" any credit after my time here in Ukraine because when I think about my happiest and saddest moments, there was no luck involved.  Everything that happened to me was because of my own actions, or reactions, and I was never successful, or defeated, by chance.  I had clear control over my life choices and feelings.

Also, luck is one of the only Ukrainian values that I have a hard time accepting.  It has shown me that when a culture is so rooted in luck, it loses its steam for many other values that I find so important.  Luck lets us sit back and blame fortune on everything except ourselves.  Luck makes us feel weak and powerless.  Luck convinces us that change is holy and above man's capabilities.

But, I do feel lucky.  Like my whole body is being filled up with some bright light and is giving me a reason to move forward.  And that all the people around me appreciate me and love me.  And that my classes and projects are going so smoothly, and that even a slight scheduling change has been easy and not disheartening.  Almost like my luck is rooted in acceptance of life.  That I am finally realizing that luck is not about getting things by chance, but that luck is really accepting things for what they are and for being grateful for how they will be.

And that is pretty lucky.