A Welcoming Stream of Consciousness

Welcome to my first blog! I've finally decided that as a "wanna be writer" I should have something a bit better than a gazillion half filled journals around the house. I've been filling them up as halfheartedly as some of the photo albums I have and one of them is sooo nice that I'm worried no story will do it justice; I mean it's a leather-bound journal that was handmade in Italy, what on earth am I supposed to write in that?
Don't get me wrong, I love writing, it's just that I'm more likely to write an occasional poem than complete a whole book. I almost view it as an emergency form of self-expression despite how meditative I find the experience. For me, writing, like hiking, forces me to be introspective. These activities help me separate the essential and non-essential parts of my reality as well as allow me to alter my perspective of negative events. The latter is one of the most self-empowering things you can learn to do. Here's an example of what I mean:
One evening, I was admiring an incredible, awe-inspiring sunset that had numerous streaks of sunlight poking out from behind the clouds; I mean this was happening all along the western horizon and in this moment, I had the most extraordinary insight. I realized that evening that it's not the sun that makes a sunset beautiful, nor is it the clouds; it's the juxtaposition of light and dark, of sun and shadow that made it spectacular. This goes for our lives as well. Our lives aren't beautiful because they're perfect or easy and they're certainly not beautiful because they're entirely filled with gloom. Our lives are awe-inspiring because of both our struggles and triumphs.
Life is a journey and we need to learn to treat it as such. We're going to hit mountains and valleys, paved roads and marshes. If you're really struggling to find the light in your life, start creating your own. Find a dream worth striving for and do it; choose to turn you're life around now. It helps if you can remember a time when you were happy and then work on figuring out just what it was that made you feel that way. It could just be that you were so care free then, or maybe you found out that you were able to help those less fortunate. Whatever it was, find it and pursue it as though your life depended on it and don't let setbacks prevent you from reaching that dream of yours.