After a few tears, a lot of frustration and hours of talking through my endless thoughts and feelings, I have come to yet another life changing realisation; hardships in life don’t just happen by chance, they happen for a reason.

Their goal is not to leave you bitter and cynical about the things that are missing in your life, but rather leave you appreciative of the things that you’ve been blessed with. They happen so that we can realise the bigger picture. So that we can learn to look past the fog on the windscreen and see the colours of the rainbow shine through.

We don’t fall down so that we can drown in self pity, we fall down so that we can see just who is there to pick us back up. We face challenges in life to make us stronger, and we struggle in order to become a better person.

The truth is, we all struggle. We all face our own daily challenges and we all go through our own hardships in life, but at the end of the day it’s not the struggle that defines you; it’s how you choose to handle that struggle. Just recently, I was reminded of all of this.

Whilst laying in bed, somewhat struggling with my current situation, it occured to me that somewhere along the way I had forgotten a few things.

I had forgotten just how lucky I was to have a family like mine. A family with not only endless amounts of support, but constant, unconditional love. I had forgotten just how lucky I was to have not just an amazing boyfriend, but a boyfriend who is so calm, so patient and so understanding, that even when I am being the most unreasonable girl in the world, he loves me anyway. I had forgotten just how lucky I was to have a handful of girls, who despite living under a rock for two years, are still just a phone call away anytime that I need them. I had forgotten all of those things that I had promised myself I would remember.

Just like that, I had forgotten the most important part.

It’s the people you still have next to you at the end of the struggle that matter. It’s the people that are still there after the countless storms, waiting to watch the rainbow shine through the clouds again. It’s about knowing that no matter what, the next time that storm rolls in those people will still be there holding you together, that’s what matters the most. And me, well I guess I just remembered that I have the best damn storm chasers a girl could find. Right here, I have everything I ever need.

Now based on statistics alone, it would be almost impossible for anyone to continuously choose amazing movies, right? Just as it would be equally impossible for every trip to the movie store to result in a terrible movie choice. Somewhere along the way, you’re bound to choose a bad one and eventually you’re bound to choose a good one, that’s just the way it works.

Wrong – that is the way that it should work.

For almost as long as I can remember, I’ve had this hidden talent when it comes to picking out movies. Don’t let the word ‘talent’ fool you though, it’s not exactly an award winning personality trait. The strange part about it though; it doesn’t matter how I come to choose the movie, the outcome is always the same; two hours of my life wasted on a movie that did not even make sense.

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Things I have come to realise from ‘not so hidden’ movie talent:

1. The ability to choose a good movie is in fact a talent – one that sadly, we are not all born with.

2. Dedication and perserverance will not improve this talent, no matter how hard you may try.

3. Pretty pictures on the front cover are just there to trick you. They do not in any way highlight the quality of the film, trust me.

4. In regards to the little blurb they have on the back of the cover, every word was written to suck people like you in. Just because the story line sounds impressive, does not in any way mean that it will be. It should come as no surprise that words often have a way of making something sound better than it really is.

5. Actors cannot be trusted. Choosing a movie simply because your favourite celebrity is on the cover is about as reliable as choosing one based on a sticker stating it has been nominated for 9839273274892563 Golden Globes. Neither of these reasons guarantee you a decent movie.

5. Majority of staff members have no idea what they are talking about, don’t let them fool you. Just because they work with movies every day does not mean they will be right in recommending you something worth watching.

6. It doesn’t matter how sure you may think you are, you can never be certain of the quality of a movie. At the end of the day, it’s all just basically one big giant lucky dip.

7. I have absolutely zero luck when it comes to lucky dips.

After countless years of trying to improve this ‘talent’ and countless failed attempts, I’ve come to the conclusion that decent movies just must not exist anymore. Well, either that or I just have the worlds worst luck when it comes to choosing them. Either way I’d say about 9989834732478164 epic failures compared to maybe 17 success stories is not exactly my most promising statistic.

With the exception of not having seen ‘Mamma Mia’ yet, I’d like you to meet five of my seventeen success stories.