Robert Baittie was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease on July 12, 2012; an event that, in fact, made him feel relieved to know what he was facing, rather than anxious about the unknown. In November 2013, Robert created his own blog, Tremors in the Universe, to serve as a therapeutic outlet for him to express his thoughts and feelings on life and living with PD. 

In his latest post, Robert writes about living optimistically, the pitfalls of labeling events or circumstances as "good" or "bad" and advice for living in the moment – whether you have PD or not. Robert writes: 

What I’ve come to realize since my diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease is that far too much of the emphasis in my life had been on trying to figure out what was right or what was wrong, what was good and what was bad, and somehow thinking I had control over that. What is the right path to be on in life, and what is the wrong. What and who are the good elements in our world, and what is the bad. What do I like, what don’t I like. When the truth of the matter is the majority of what comes into my life I have absolutely no control over. It doesn’t really matter whether I label it as “good” or “bad”.

It just is. It’s all exactly as it is supposed to be. It’s ordered chaos...I could have very easily labeled my Parkinson’s disease diagnosis as a bad thing.

But why should I?

...

I think to live a truly happy life we have to learn to honestly and sincerely embrace ALL of life just exactly the way it is, with the trust and belief that everything is as it should be: unpredictable, good, bad, indifferent and fantastic!

And that it really isn’t very important whether or not something is good or bad, but more importantly that we accept that life just is—it’s there for the living, it’s presenting us with experiences one after another, not for us to bog ourselves down with defining, but rather inviting us to relish in and enjoy.

Read the full blog post here.