Happiness at Christmas

I hope that you're enjoying Christmas Day with someone you love. This year I get a special treat, having Leslie and Gianna here. They made it in yesterday afternoon, and will be with us through New Year's.

Leslie has challenged me to take life as it comes, and not try to control it so much. This is difficult for me because I've always been a task-oriented kind of person. I've always been more comfortable and in my element with a plan in mind, or one formulating somewhere in the dark recesses of my head.

Earlier this month Leslie sent me a clipping from her local paper. It's one of those ads from a funeral service provider that try to send some sort of inspirational message. For those of you in Grand Junction, it's very similar to what Callahan-Edfast does.

This "thought for the week" was longer and more thought-provoking for me than most of the ones I've seen in the past. I should just shut up now and get it out there:

It's been said that life is a mirror. If you frown at it; it frowns back; if you smile, it returns the greeting...have you noticed that no matter how humble the circumstances, how difficult their tasks and work, some people seem to enjoy life immensely? Those who use happiness as a tool for living appreciate, enjoy, and find satisfaction now in everything they have in everything they do. Their condition in life may not be ideal, and need not represent the limit of their ambitions. But being content for the present, they can play with imagination and work with enthusiasm...(unlike) those who make happiness a goal, push it off into the future and make it something to struggle for, rather than something to know and enjoy. To make happiness a goal is never to know it...To make happiness a tool is never to lose it.

As I look forward to another year filled with change and opportunity, I'm trying against my own nature to embrace life as it comes, and approach it with a smile. For too many years I have seen my life through the glasses of my work, which is also an avocation. For many, including myself, cynicism and skepticism are survival mechanisms for dealing with the realities and unpleasantness of life that can be extraordinarily self-destructive if not dealt with. I know these lessons all too well. We saw some examples of this over the past year that made and continue to make for much media fodder and controversy, and from some accounts there may not be a letting up.

Best wishes to everyone for safe travels and happy times with family, friends, and loved ones. Remember those who have neither, and may also lack essentials such as proper food and shelter.

I hope that many of you will look toward the coming year with a sense of joy and possibility.

Enjoy the day.