Celebrate
I had the pleasure of attending several birthday parties recently. One was a joint party for a friend my age and his son. I gave both a card with the message "Celebrate". The message is appropriate for birthdays. A birthday marks the end of another year of life and the beginning of the next. We can celebrate successfully surmounting the inevitable problems and sadness, as well as the successes, of the previous year. We can celebrate being with our friends and families. And, perhaps most important, we can celebrate facing the challenges of the coming year, as well as the years after that. Enjoying a birthday means we lived to face another year, if nothing else.
It occurred to me that we don't need birthdays or other special occasions to celebrate. We can celebrate every day. There are things to celebrate in all of our lives. No matter how painful things are, no matter how much we must struggle sometimes, we can celebrate. We can celebrate the small things, the sunsets, the sunrises, the smiles of children, the small successes we all have every day, even in the face of the most difficult problems. We can celebrate the successes of others if we have none of our own. We can celebrate our ability to help others to reach their goals even if we don't reach our own. Most of all, we can celebrate our lives and the great gifts we enjoy simply because we're alive.
We all have moments of doubt, of worry, of fear, even of pain. If we can celebrate the good in those moments, if we can look forward, if we can look to solutions rather than dwelling on problems, those moments will be easier to bear and will be shorter in duration. Look for the good in the worst of times and you'll find some. If we can see that celebration, good cheer and optimism are our shields, we won't have so many problems. If we use these shields, we can eventually help others to build their own shields.
Celebrate the good times but also celebrate when times are bad. You'll feel better and others you know will feel better too.
12-8-03
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