You know those days when you can’t believe it’s already morning? It’s already time to get dressed and fight through another day? A day you wished last night would never come?

Me too.

And when you lie in bed, staring at the ceiling or out your window as the sun slowly rises, breaking the night and reminding you that time doesn’t stop for you— it’s also reminding you that it’s a brand new day that you can make as wonderful or as terrible as you want.

I’m not sure if anybody’s told you this yet, but you have the power to make or break your days, weeks, months and eventually your years. You can make your life great, manageable, or intolerable.

You don’t have to go to bed at night wishing that the sun never rises because you have 3 essays and 2 exams due when it does. Or you work 2 part-time jobs and still have payments due that you can’t find the money for, a family that doesn’t speak to you, someone you love you wish you could talk to but can’t because you just buried them, your next president may hate you, you think you may have to quit school, you hate your job, and/or you hate where and how you live.

You shape your life in every moment you live in it. You shape it for goodness when you decide that you will not let the unknown scare you, when you decide that you’ll do your best on those essays and exams and the rest is not up to you, when you kick butt at both of your jobs and collect those checks to pay all your bills even if you don’t have money left over to try that new restaurant everyone is talking about. It’s when you decide your family is missing out on how amazing you are and you pray they find peace in their hearts. It’s when you remember everything exceptional about the person you loved and buried, and you let their memory live on by choosing to be the best you everyday. It’s when you decide that love always trumps hate and no matter how others choose to see or even treat you, you will repay hate with love, disrespect with kindness.

You see, it doesn’t matter what’s waiting for you when the sun rises. You can conquer it all.