New Year Happiness

I’d like to wish each of you who reads this a very happy new year!  Even if by the time you stumble upon this page, it is no longer anywhere near January, I’d like to wish you personally a very happy period ahead.


Of course that brings up the question of happiness, and how and were it is found.  It is pretty safe to say that we all want to be happy, and that real happiness is worth more than wealth or health.  But where is that elusive quantity to be found?  Some of the people who have struggled the hardest to have it seem to be pretty unhappy in their lives, and some who seem to have the most difficult lives seem to have the most internal peace and happiness.

Keeping Christmas

I'd like to share some Christmas sentiments from Henry Van Dyke:

 Keeping Christmas

It is a good thing to observe Christmas day. The mere marking of times and seasons, when men agree to stop work and make merry together, is a wise and wholesome custom. It helps one to feel the supremacy of the common life over the individual life. It reminds a man to set his own little watch, now and then, by the great clock of humanity which runs on sun time.


But there is a better thing than the observance of Christmas day, and that is, keeping Christmas.

What Everybody Wants and Needs

I’m taking a guess about human nature here, but I have met and made friends with lots of people, in quite a few different countries.   We human beings tend to work diligently for the things that matter to us—up to a point.  The problem is not that we are unwilling to work, but the problem is often that we aren’t really focused on what we want.

International Handshake

Introducing International Handshake



     Anyone who has traveled, particularly those who have spent some time living in a different culture knows that such an experience is very broadening.  It opens up new perspectives, helps you to understand the way others think, and it helps you to review your own culture and ideas from a much better perspective.

Looking at Life Through the Eyes of Death (It's not as weird as it sounds!)

One of our neighbors died recently. It was not totally unexpected, as he had pretty much terminal health issues. But the family was kind of surprised at how quickly he went from being apparently reasonably healthy (given his condition) to passing on. His death contributed to my starting this blog.

We humans tend to fear death, and the natural tendency given that basic fear is to pretty much ignore death, and pretend it doesn’t exist. It puts us in a pretty paradoxical position, of basically living in denial of the one event that is absolutely certain for every single one of us. Another part of the puzzle is that, although there are a lot of unhappy emotions connected with death, and in many cases quite some physical suffering, in a way, that event is very important to come to grips with in order to understand the meaning of our lives.