HAPPY MUSINGS

Happy Musings is a newspaper feature syndicated by King Features that I create each day to remind us all that “Life is wonderful!” I offer it here to brighten your day. Please share it with your friends.

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Friends are the Greatest
"Of all the treasures in the world a friend is the greatest."
I once asked my granddaughters, ages 7 and 9, what was the most important thing in their lives. And, without hesitation they both answered, “Friends!” As they talked further, I could see that making friends was their way of creating their own world and becoming independent. Friends were not only fun and an extension of their family, a friendship was something they valued highly. They treasured their friends.

My mother-in-law is at an age, 97, where there are no friends left, only a few family members to interact with, to check in on her, to make sure she is safe. She claims not to be lonely, but she is reluctant to let one of us leave when it is time to go. Older people value friends, as much as younger people, but their opportunities to create new ones are more limited.

My mother-in-law is lucky in that she lives in a senior apartment complex that is run by a most unusual woman. Betty is bright and bold and deals exclusively with older citizens. She does it with grace. The one thing we asked when my mother-in-law moved in was, “Are the residents friendly?” Betty assured us that if they weren't, she made sure they changed. No clicks on her watch. Betty is a friend to all who are within her world.

Between the young and the old there are masses of people reaching out to each more now than ever as times get tougher. The computer and the accompanying internet have isolated people in many ways, and yet they have found ways to find friends in that environment. Working situations are less personal, more mechanical than they used to be. That is why I think this large group of people treasures real friends above all else, just like the young people.

12/02/08 (Love)

Love Changes Everything
"Love changes everything!"
My husband of 32 years has an expression. It is: “Love changes everything.” He says it now and then when things look bleak or rough spots occur in a day.

And, it's true, love does change everything. It certainly changes our perception of things.

If you take whom or whatever is in front of you and simply love him, her or it, things do change. You change for sure because the love that is expressed must pass through you to get to its target. That feeling of love is nourishing to both the subject and the object.

When there is a particularly difficult customer who comes into my gallery or into my life during a day, I have my own rendition of this thought and it is this: “We are all the way we are for a lot of reasons and for all those reasons and more we are worthy of being loved.” This helps me stay on the right side of my heart, the higher region.

My husband is a grand person, big in nature and big in ideas. He is a larger than life person and sometimes it is hard to keep up. When those times occur and I feel a little overwhelmed, I remember that we all have our particular points of view. We all got here from somewhere and, of course, we are all worthy of being loved. Then, naturally I love him as he is – big, grand and mine! Yes, love does change everything.

11/24/08 (Life)

What's Up with Fear?
"Fear lacks support from those who trust life."
Let's get to the bottom of this statement:. Fear lacks support from those who trust life. I'm using here the word “life” for anything in your vocabulary that covers the same big, broad concept. It might be “God”, “Spirit”, “Source”, Divine Love”, “Infinite Intelligence,” etc. To me, it is just simpler for this purpose to say “life.”

Now to define “fear” – what is it? There are two kinds of fear. The first is that animal fear that we all have that protects us. If there is fire, we run from it. If someone tries to take something that is ours, we guard it, etc. But it's the psychological fear that does the damage in our lives. This fear is hard to define, because it is the lack of something -- the lack of knowledge or love or something else. And because it is something that is not, it does not exist. And this leaves us with the truth that there is really only life!

What is there not to trust, if there is only life? I'm sure if you looked back in your experiences you would find instances in which life, in the form of people or circumstances, came through in just the nick of time or solved a problem that there did not seem to be a solution to. Life's resources are way beyond our knowing, but not beyond our trusting. Life holds our hand as we move along.

To live fearlessly is to trust life. It is not to trust life to make things happen the way we want them to, but to trust life in letting things happen the way they are supposed to.

I solved fear at a certain point in my life by doing just that – trusting life. A tennis court is a microcosm of everyday life and practically everything can be explained by viewing what happens on a tennis court. When I was a young, competitive player I thought, acted and reacted like every young kid who played. I tried hard, but was fearful that I would lose, so I worried most of the match. Then the light dawned. I gave up the results. I pretended that the match was over when I walked on the court and that I had lost. Since I feared losing, I pretended I had lost already and this eliminated the fear. In doing so, I played fearlessly and in the process, played better tennis and enjoyed it immensely.

I remember reading that each time the great Samurai warriors went into battle they expected to die. In that way they had no fear of dying and performed at their best.

In a strange way that is really what we all want – to carry on our lives fearlessly. Yep, don't give fear another thought. Trust life and be done with it!

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