"What one thing did you learn at Canyon Ranch?" my dad asked me the other day. We hadn't yet fully discussed my April trip to this Arizona health and healing destination and so he wanted to know what I had absorbed during my four days in the desert. I couldn't possibly name just one lesson I'd learned. But I could sum up all of my lessons in one broad category. This is what I told him: I learned how to change my lifestyle.

I learned how to change the way I live while at Canyon Ranch. I've since come to realize this is what most of us need to do to rid ourselves of our bad habits, our unhealthy ruts. There's nothing temporary about getting healthy. It's takes a lifetime commitment. I lacked commitment before Canyon Ranch. I have commitment now.

I'm committed to eating right, exercising, minimizing stress, processing my anxiety, focusing on family, prioritizing, and so much more -- all because of cancer and what I learned at Canyon Ranch.

What some special young women have learned throughout their breast cancer journey.

What cancer has taught me:

• To see beauty in what before I would have thought to be ugly.
• That there are total strangers that can lift your spirits.
• Who my true friends are.
• To forgive.
• To bring a sweater everywhere I go.
• Not to feel guilty about day-time naps.
• How to swallow five pills at a time.
• To ask every nurse, clerical person, lab tech, scan tech I encounter what their name is.
• To give more hugs and always tell the ones I love ..that I do love them..every time we speak.
• How to poop and throw up at the same time.
• To look at my kids more (when they are not looking).
• To realize that you can live with cancer.
• Meds are my friends.
• Hair grows really slowly.
• Some drugs make you fat.
• Life is really not fair, and bad things happen to really good people.
• To be more comfortable challenging authority, asking more questions and speaking my mind.
• That my husband absolutely adores me.
• To be more selfish and take time out for me.
• To go out and do the things that make me happy.
• Not to take life or people for granted.
• To see the little things in life that I never saw before.
• To love even more than before.
• Time is very valuable.
• Where to find a good wig in New York.
• That I'm not that afraid of needles.
• That I really am a 'glass half full' person.
• That I'm stronger than I ever expected.
• How nice it is to sit on the porch on a warm day.
• That being bald ain't so bad.
• That I can cope with more than I ever thought possible.
• That it is okay to need other people, okay to be vulnerable and okay to ask for help.

I ran on my treadmill today while listening to a song by the band Green Day. I have always liked the song -- Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life) -- but I like it more at this moment in my life than ever before because it speaks about looking back on the past in light of unexpected journeys -- and because my unexpected journey with breast cancer makes me look at everything differently. And when I look back at my life one day, I want to say that I had the time of my life. And that's why I like this song. And that's why I share it here today. Because I hope that in the end, we all can look back with the crystal clear knowledge that we had the time of our lives.

Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go
So make the best of this test, and don't ask why
It's not a question, but a lesson learned in time

It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

So take the photographs, and still frames in your mind
Hang it on a shelf in good health and good time
Tattoos of memories and dead skin on trial
For what it's worth it was worth all the while

It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

It may be possible to learn happiness -- like we might learn to cook or learn to dance -- by merely taking a class. Some refute this idea and believe you can't actually pursue happiness. You either have it or you don't. But some psychologists are embracing a whole new approach to psychology -- they call it positive psychology -- and they say it focuses on training the mind to focus on the past as very positive. It's completely different from traditional psychology where time is spent trying to determine why someone is so horribly sad. This movement, invented by University of Pennsylvania psychologist Martin Seligman in 1998 when he was president of the American Psychological Association, provides a scientific validated set of exercises -- known as interventions -- that lead happiness seekers to their ultimate destination.