Non Resolution Day
“Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.” Ralph Waldo Emerson Author, Essayist, Social Commentator
Once upon a time, when I was a teenaged wild woman, I stood shoulder to shoulder with the masses in New York’s Time Square, waiting for the New Year’s ball to fall. Soldiers and sailors, rich and poor, folks of all kinds, were crammed mitten to mitten around the words rolling high over our heads. A girl to my left was shivering; she kept saying “I’m freezing. How much longer is it?” A girl to my right said, “Oh George, look at all these people. Isn’t this exciting? Thanks for bringing me.” And the small army of policemen monitoring the crowds were smiling and freezing both. It’s all in how you see it.
My son was born on New Year’s Eve. Those who give him a neat gift on Christmas figure they did it and don’t have to go there again. Or, having given him something nice, they can now hand over new socks for his birthday gift. So, one day, with pity in my mother’s heart, I asked him how he felt having a birthday on New Years Eve. His 13-year-old answer surprised me. “I like it, Mom. Just think, when I’m older, New Year’s Eve will be the same day as my birthday. No girl will refuse to go out with me on New Years, ever!” It’s all in how you see it.
I know a mature woman who, while a teenager, was caught in the raucous celebration of the Japanese surrender during WWII. She was suddenly spun around and kissed on the mouth by a strange young sailor! Recently asked if she had been upset by the stranger’s kiss, she smiles and says, “I was only 14 and my mother would have skinned me alive for it usually but not that day. So I got my first kiss in a perfect place on a perfect day for a perfect reason. Our boys were coming home.” And her smile is a tiny bit wicked as she adds, “Besides, he was really good looking.” It’s all in how you see it.
Meditation for the Day
“Resolve to make at least one person happy every day, and then in ten years you may have made three thousand, six hundred and fifty persons happy, or brightened a small town by your contribution to the fund of general enjoyment.”
Sydney Smith, Essayist, 1800s
Action for the Day
On New Years Eve, I’ll be thankful for all the good things I’ve already had in 2008, be thankful I know how to laugh, be thankful for each new friend, be thankful for another day — and I’ll resolve to bloom wherever I am planted.
Happy New Year Everyone! Lane Brandon
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