Celebrate Life!

This week this writer celebrates her birthday. Many lament turning another year older; others lie about their age, while others joyfully celebrate. This author chooses the last of these options. I recently was talking to a young woman who was one day before turning 30...she was mourning reaching this milestone year. I shared with her she should be grateful about reaching this achievement. The world is a very dangerous place--with wars everywhere, poverty growing by leaps and bounds, with the spread of dangerous illnesses such as AIDS and Avian Flu, she needed to be amazed that she reached the 30 year mark unscathed. This author herself has had her share of illness that nearly took her life. Each day is a new day to grow, to begin a new chapter of your life, to share, to breathe, to walk, to talk, to see, to hear, to taste, to feel, and to learn. During a down time in my life, someone asked me to point out 5 positive things that happened today. So, I said the usual 'I don't know.' He then queried me if i ate today--he reminded me that millions die each year from malnutrition; he then queried me if I breathed today, if I walked today, if I talked today, so on and so on. You get the idea. I took for granted very important positive things that can be snatched away faster than the blink of an eye. The greatest one of these is being alive in this body--moving all the joints, using them, and being able to think. Someone gave this suggestion that we all do all we possibly can physically before we are unable to do so and it is lost forever. There are two types of people: Survivors and Thrivers. I have a new combined category -- we are SurThrivors--we both survive the things that happen to us yet we consciously choose to thrive even in the midst of personal or worldly adversity. This is truly the stuff we are made of. We can be hearty people in face of negativity, and we can plod along the journey of life, knowing that pratfalls, difficulties, and failures will occur. Since I was little I have maintained that life is like a bouquet of roses and there are times we will be pricked by the thorns on the stems--it's unavoidable. Today encourage another to read this post; tell another how you cherish and love them; write someone who is a difficult person to get along with an e-card giving encouragement and love; Do whatever you can before they are gone. Celebrate your own life by celebrating everyone's diverse wonderful beautiful life. Do at least one act of kindness each day to someone. You and that other person will be blessed by doing so.