This is Day 67 of the Positive 100, a countdown to Rare Disease Day 2014 and an exercise in being positive despite it all.

The notion of beginning is a romantic one. The idea of a fresh start or new life is filled with hope and possibility. It’s what drives us to create new year’s resolutions or that little bit of joy that a new notebook and its unmarked pages can give us.

It is important to remember that new beginnings don’t have to be moments of ceremony. The year doesn’t need to change. The sun doesn’t need to rise. You don’t need to be a year older. It doesn’t have to take major news. A beginning is simply a moment in which you decide to make a change or start something.

Any moment can be a new beginning, if you are ready to make it so.

I’ve started over countless times. I’ve reinvented myself when my life went sideways. And I have punished myself and maintained a spiral downwards because it wasn’t the right time for a beginning more times than I can count.

But when I really think about it, the times I just started, created a beginning because I needed one, not because it was there, were the moments where my beginnings were real turning points. The day I dropped out of fashion school? I had been unhappy and couldn’t do it for one more day. Without a backup plan, I dropped out of school, effective at the end of the semester. That bold move got me a fresh start, first at a community college and then at U of I.

More recently, there was the time I decided that I needed to move on in my career. Three weeks in to my job search, and fresh out of spinal cord stimulator placement surgery, I interviewed for (and got) what has been a dream job.

And then there was the day I decided that it was time to take the health I could control and make it a priority. It wasn’t a new year or a birthday. I hadn’t gotten bad news or good news. I just knew that I needed a new beginning. So, I made one.

The weight of the past doesn’t have to hold you down. And timing should never stop you from beginning.

How do you create new beginnings?  Share your answer on social media with the hashtag #100positive days on Twitter, Instagram and Google+. 

Also, you can sign up to be emailed a recap each week of the challenge.