Tag: life

Getting Into The Holiday Spirit – A Reminder

On By MaryIn Observations & MusingsLeave a comment

(I originally published this here on December 7, 2012)

Last year, during the Christmas holidays, I read a lot of posts from people disillusioned by all of the commercialism so prevalent during the holiday season. Please don’t despair!  Just because the holidays seem to have been co-opted by commercial interests doesn’t mean that the true spirit of the season has to be lost! It doesn’t matter what religion you practice or if you don’t practice any religion at all. There is still something beautiful to be shared and en-JOY-ed during this time of year.  Here are some points to ponder:

  1. We often get so caught up in our daily routines that every single day seems to be the same day & time just flies by without our noticing. During the holiday season, though, things start to look a lot different than on our “ordinary” days. Lights, colorful decorations and joyful music suddenly appear just about everywhere giving us the opportunity to be drawn out of the dream of our daily routines. Take advantage of this opportunity to truly “be there” and to reflect on your life.
  2. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I tend to develop a negative attitude towards the world and the people I encounter throughout the year.  Everyone seems so distant and self-centered and the news is always bad. But during the holiday season, a different spirit seems to permeate – not necessarily other people or the world in general, but within myself. I don’t know if it’s the pretty lights or the music or if it’s just the simple fact that I am now thinking about giving gifts to others instead of just thinking of myself as I do for most of the rest of the year. Whatever it is, I start to see people differently and my heart is filled with love instead of mistrust, disdain or indifference. Maybe I should reflect on this & ask myself if my life might be happier and more meaningful if  I looked at people through the lens of the Holiday Spirit all year long. In other words, maybe the problem is me and not them.
  3. The winter holidays are very interesting from a psychological perspective in that this is the time of the year when the days of sunlight are so short, everything is mostly grey and dead looking. And, yet, this is the time of year when humans choose to celebrate their most festive and extravagant holidays! If this doesn’t speak of a great spirit of Hope & Faith, I don’t know what does. Think about it:  If suddenly everything that supplied you with your life’s sustenance was suddenly dying and disappearing, wouldn’t the sane thing be to hoard as much as you could get your hands on? Instead, we prepare great feasts and give everything away. Think about this deeply.

So, don’t despair! Sure a lot of people are looking to make lots of money from the holidays – it only makes good business sense. But good business sense has nothing to do with the true Holiday Spirit. As stated in #3 above, the holiday season is really all about a glorious foolishness and madness wherein human beings choose Hope & Faith over Fear & Uncertainty! So, let’s all try to take advantage of the season to go a little crazy & to take a look around at the world and at each other and see if maybe there isn’t a little Love, Joy & Hope to be had.

Life is Truly Magical

On By MaryIn Observations & MusingsLeave a comment

You know what I think is really awesome?  Water.  The next time you pour yourself a glass of cool refreshing water think about this:  Water is made up of two combustible gas elements – Hydrogen and Oxygen – and yet water is what we use to put out fires.  This is because when the two elements combine to make water they lose themselves in each other – it’s like falling in love – and water is the offspring created by their union!

Another really awesome substance is Salt.  Salt is made up of Sodium and Chlorine.  One is a metal and the other is a toxic gas, yet when they “fall in love” they produce something edible and tasty!

I use Water and Salt in these examples because they are both things that I really love and use a lot of.  But when you really stop to think about it and look around at all of the things that we come into contact with on a daily basis you will be filled with awe and wonder at the miracle of the world around us.  Think of a tree:  It starts out as a little seed, add some dirt, some water and some sunshine and before you know it you have a big mass of woody matter!  Where did all the wood, bark and leaves come from?  It’s like a miracle!  Can you imagine a recipe like that – where you end up with way more “stuff” than you started out with?  When you make a cake and mix all of the ingredients into a bowl and then bake it, you pretty much end up with the same amount of cake as the batter you started out with (sure, it may rise some, but not much and that is just air anyway).  But take a tree, or a human being even, and you see that you get a lot more than what you started with – just add some sun, water & dirt in the case of the tree; or some food in the case of the human being.  Wow!

Take some time to look around you and see how amazing and wonderful and Truly Magical Life really is!

“M”

Work to Live, Don’t Live to Work

On By MaryIn Observations & MusingsLeave a comment

…or something like that. What I mean is this: I was thinking today about people who are passionate about something. Let’s take a sports fan – we’ll narrow it down to a Phillies Fan. They really love their team and take time out to watch every game, maybe even travel to see some away games. They eat, drink and breathe the Phillies. It’s what they talk about, it’s what they think about, it’s what they spend their time and money on. When this person goes to work every day they aren’t totally wrapped up in “making a living” – they are thinking “oh good, I just earned $100.00, now I can go to New York this weekend to see the Phils play.” Their life has meaning and purpose. They work and earn money to be able to pursue that meaning and purpose.

On the other hand, let’s look at a person who has no passion in life. This person’s life is ALL about survival. They just go to work to “earn a living” and “pay the bills”, not to pursue a dream. It’s kind of like being on life support. They go to work to earn money so that they can live another day to go to work to earn money so that they…etc., ad nauseum. It’s a terrible cycle to be trapped in, it’s like running in a hamster wheel. This is how I feel right now at this point in my life. I am consumed with thoughts of “how am I going to make a living” when I should really be consumed with thoughts of “why should I make a living – what is my life FOR?”

Life is so short. Life is a gift. It’s not something to be kept safely hidden away in a closet in order to avoid losing it. What good is it to be alive if you do nothing with it? Sometimes I like to think of life as “a day in an amusement park.” You get dropped off in the park and are given 10 hours to go play and ride the rides and eat the food and listen to the bands play, etc. If you stand around at the park entrance all day long fretting about the fact that you only have 10 hours in the park and how to best spend that 10 hours and how to avoid getting ripped off while you’re there, you will never get to play or enjoy the park and you’ll have to leave when the 10 hours are up just the same as if you had, joyfully and with reckless abandon, taken advantage of everything the amusement park had to offer.

Let’s go out and live a little!