learning to be happy

Just a Little Thing

/ James Browning

boatLife has a way of knocking a person down so that better times can be appreciated more fully. Generally, I am one who practices gratitude more than most. Yet, I have the abundantly human trait of taking things for granted.

Five days ago I woke with a scratchy throat and runny nose believing I had a head cold. By mid-day I was home from work with what turned out to be the flu. Only today did I feel well enough to head to work for a while, however it will still be a day cut short. The worst is over, but the illness is not gone. Now’s the time to take care and not overdo it, else the flu settles into something else just as bad or worse like a pneumonia.

Adding credence to the thought “you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone”, is my attitude today. I am thankful for the portion of my health that has returned even though I am still dragging. What I have is temporary and all will be normal soon. The incident serves as a reminder to appreciate good health more while I have it, for without a doubt one day an illness will be far more serious.

Imagine you are standing on the 70th floor of the Empire State Building, gazing at the cityscape. Suddenly a rather large man brusquely pushes past you, wrenches the window open and announces his intention to jump.

You yell out, “Stop! Don’t do it!” The six-foot-five figure turns to you and menacingly says, “Try to stop me and I’ll take you with me!”

“Umm… No problem, sir. Have a safe trip. Any last words?”

“Let me tell you my troubles,” he says. “My wife left me, my kids won’t talk to me, I lost my job and my pet turtle died. So why should I go on living?”

Suddenly you have a flash of inspiration. “Sir, close your eyes for a minute and imagine that you are blind. No colors, no sights of children playing, no fields of flowers, no sunset. Now imagine that suddenly there’s a miracle. You open your eyes and your vision is restored! Are you going to jump? Or will you stick around for a week to enjoy the sights?”

“I’ll stay for a week.”

“But what happened to all the troubles?”

“I guess they’re not so bad. I can see!”

“Well your eyesight is worth at least five million dollars. You’re a rich man!”

If you really appreciate your eyesight, the other pains are insignificant. But if you take it all for granted, then nothing in life will ever truly give you joy. Rabbi Noah Weinberg

Perspective is the key to living a grateful life I have discovered, just like Rabbi Weinberg illustrated in his story. Paying attention to the good I possess along and realizing there’s a lot of “bad” I could have, but don’t, are key reference points for keeping my head straight. Being far from perfect, I can’t do it all the time. I fail and get down about things like anyone else, but I don’tstay there. Recovery from the dark side of lacking gratitude is usually relatively quick. That’s a far cry from my days of wallowing in what I saw as my miseries.

Just a small thing like the flu can carry a lesson if one is open to learn it. I am grateful for the little wake up call!

We tend to forget that happiness doesn’t come
as a result of getting something we don’t have,
but rather of recognizing and appreciating
what we do have.
Frederick Keonig

As Good As Any Moment In All Eternity

/ James Browning

Beautiful%20Wallpaper%2006Amazing things have begun happening in my life, so much so, at first I doubted what was occurring. How can it be a man could wish for so much and not recognize dreams coming true as they began arriving?

Since childhood I believed everything flowed from within me outward completely of my own volition; from my thoughts and hopes to be turned into reality by my own hands. It was out of my comprehension to believe my hopes could materialize without my active participation causing it.

Make no mistake, reservation and disbelief still race round and round me like marauders attacking a circled wagon train, but I am discovering believing in my dreams and that I deserve them is the strongest force toward manifesting them. When my hope becomes my certainty, what I have struggled to find for so very, very long has the opportunity to appear.

Logic and thought have been the enemy of my dreams. Hopes are not math problems to be solved. They are seeds planted and watered with patience and a faith in being deserving of the wish being granted. Some call it “manifesting your own destiny”. Others make reference to “the power of attraction”.

Religion would say my dreams appearing on the horizon is “God’s work”. And if that is true, it a Higher Power working through me, not for me. Simply I have passed the threshold of being able to use what has been within me all along; what “God” put in me to begin with. Great religions frequently mention this power inside. Few actually believe it exists and fewer still think they can find any harmony with it. No matter; inwardly it’s there just the same waiting for us all.

Label me a kook if you want, I don’t care. You can think I smoked too much pot in my youth and fried my brain, but it won’t matter one bit. And before you ask, I hardly drink, don’t do drugs and am not a mental patient. I’m just an ordinary person who has extraordinary things happening in his life from a source truly beyond my ability to fully comprehend. My life has not turned into some panacea; far from it. But mixed in with everyday trial and tribulation are authentic dreams, to my amazement, coming true. How does it happen? By believing in my hopes and that I deserve for them to come true, then letting go of trying to steer reality into bringing them to me. All I have to do is show up, live well and believe.

The scary part is dreams coming true require me to at times take action purely by instinct and feeling; doing things that I know I should do even though there is little to no logic to support my actions. It’s not easy and feels like jumping off a cliff uncertain if there’s a parachute on my back. When I believe, truly believe in my dreams, the chute is always there.

The universe does not shout at me to make dreams come true, it only nudges. I need only pay attention to that direction and follow through on what I am lead to do. (Even writing that I laugh out loud for I know how it sounds outlandish, but it’s TRUE!). It’s amazing what has begun happening for me now that I don’t try to control everything. I am deeply grateful to have discovered some of the greatest wisdom possible is “not knowing” and “not understanding” but doing anyway; it’s where dreams are found.

Every morning is a fresh beginning.
Every day is the world made new.
Today is a new day.
Today is my world made new.
I have lived all my life up to this moment,
to come to this day.
This moment, this day, is as good
as any moment in all eternity.
I shall make of this day
each moment of this day,
a heaven on earth.
This is my day of opportunity.
Dan Custer

Little Bit of Harmless Insanity

/ James Browning

DSCN0880Being blessed with a successful career allowed me to live a life filled with comfort and acquiring material things, the quantity of which go far beyond what I now consider ‘normal’. With the ability to “have” I overdid it to where the magnitude of my possessions have become something of a curse. It never occurred to me at the time of buying that one day I would have to do something with it all. So easy it came to convert money into things, but the conversion of things back into money is difficult and time-consuming.

When I was fifteen I met a boy a couple of years older who had more record albums than I had ever seen any place except a record store. I decided “he who has the most records wins” and from that thought I began a collection that is now well over 4000 LPs. Then there are the 45’s, cassettes and CD’s that come along with a healthy addiction to music. Without doubt it is wonderful to be able to listen to just about anything I want when I want to. What is not so great is that a hundred records weights about eighty pounds and my collection LPs weighs about two tons! Over time I have moved them from the Atlantic to the Pacific and lots of other places in between. There’s a little bit of harmless insanity within that somewhere.

My music collection is just the beginning. There’s all the DVD’s and Blueray’s (thankfully most of the VHS tapes are gone!). Don’t even get me started about a book collection that runs about 150 linear feet! And then all the antiques and collectables I have amassed. My home is about 3500 sq feet and while cluttered it is orderly and organized. But then there is the ten by 25 foot storage until full of stuff also. It blows my mind now that I managed to acquire all this “stuff”.

Moving into a different phase of my life now with wishes for more freedom, I have a sizeable task in front of me. Once I stop working at a regular job every day (soon) so I chase more of my dreams, one of my first tasks has to be scaling back on the sheer quantity of my material possessions. I am more than a little embarrassed that I mindlessly spent so many years building this mountain of stuff that is now a burden. Looking ahead I hope to adopt more of the attitude of William Henry Channing:

To live content with small means;
to seek elegance rather than luxury,
and refinement rather than fashion;
to be worthy, not respectable,
and wealthy, not, rich;
to listen to stars and birds,
babes and sages, with open heart;
to study hard;
to think quietly,
act frankly,
talk gently,
await occasions,
hurry never;
in a word, to let the spiritual,
unbidden and unconscious,
grow up through the common
…this is my symphony.

To not be too hard on myself, it is important to acknowledge that one can not see the next horizon past the one currently in view. When younger there was much satisfaction in enjoying my hobbies, shopping for antiques and showing off my treasures. Then it would have been impossible to know the wisdom that comes from living past my “acquiring years”. I am grateful for the clarity to see I spent a large part of my life climbing the ‘stuff mountain’. Now I am now on the other side where it is liberation from material things I wish to gain. For me, this is a VERY important nugget of wisdom!

Anything you cannot relinquish
when it has outlived its usefulness
possesses you,
and in this materialistic age
a great many of us
are possessed by our possessions.
Peace Pilgrim

My Treasury of Time

/ James Browning

hourglass EDITEverything is always changing no matter how much we wish for it not to. It is the way of the world. Nothing is permanent. At birth each life starts evaporating, accelerating more rapidly all the time. Even with a loving life made with another a day will come when they will likely depart this Earth one at a time. And likewise go friends, family and everyone we know. Everything is just for its time, and no more. My accumulation of years is not such that all in Saxe’s poem below belongs to me. However, a good bit of it does. Even more I can feel and see it on the horizon.

My days pass pleasantly away;
My nights are blest with sweetest sleep;
I feel no symptoms of decay;
I have no cause to mourn nor weep;
My foes are impotent and shy;
My friends are neither false nor cold,
And yet, of late, I often sigh–
I am growing old!

My growing talk of olden times,
My growing thirst for early news,
My growing apathy to rhymes,
My growing love of easy shoes,
My growing hate of crowds and noise,
My growing fear of taking cold,
All whisper, in the plainest voice,
I’m growing old!

I’m growing fonder of my staff;
I’m growing dimmer in the eyes;
I’m growing fainter in my laugh;
I’m growing deeper in my sighs;
I’m growing careless of my dress;
I’m growing frugal of my gold;
I’m growing wise; I’m growing–yes–
I’m growing old!

I see it in my changing taste;
I see it in my changing hair;
I see it in my growing waist;
I see it in my growing heir;
A thousand signs proclaim the truth,
As plain as truth was ever told,
That, even in my vaunted youth,
I’m growing old!

Ah me!–my very laurels breathe
The tale in my reluctant ears,
And every boon the Hours bequeath
But makes me debtor to the Years!
Even flattery’s honeyed words declare
The secret she would fain withhold,
And tells me in “How young you are!”
I’m growing old!

Thanks for the years!–whose rapid flight
My somber Muse too sadly sings;
Thanks for the gleams of golden light
That tint the darkness of their wings;
The light that beams from out the sky,
Those heavenly mansions to unfold
Where all are blest, and none may sigh,
“I’m growing old!”
By John Godfrey Saxe (1816-1887)

Gratitude thrives in me for every hour lived and resounds even more strongly for each one remaining. Today I strive to make better choices more true to the hopes and dreams I hold. With my treasury of time dropping like sand through an hour-glass I have little to spend on anything except being true to what contributes to happiness.

Real generosity towards the future
lies in giving all to the present.
Albert Camus

Hope For It All

/ James Browning

StonePathLight-629x340(11:10pm) It’s been a good while since good morning gratitude became good evening gratitude, but that is my circumstance tonight. To not break my steady string of 621 daily posts, I have about an hour and a half till midnight.

Without even having to think, it’s the combination of being alive and life having great possibility that I am grateful for near the end of this day. As long as I live any and all of my dreams may yet come true. All of them won’t, but many of them will.

I’m grateful:
For the impossible that becomes possible,
For the unlikely that presents itself again,
For what’s lost that gets found,
For dreams that don’t die,
For imaginings that come true,
For hope in what could be,
For faith beyond what I can prove,
For the good remembered,
For the bad forgotten,
For every forgiveness received,
For all pardon given,
For belief in my worth,
For knowing I deserve happiness,
For the trust I have in myself,
For principles I believe in,
For ideas that come true,
For the insights that teach me,
For rare chances at being happy,
For the inspiration I’m blessed with,
For the revelations that come quickly,
For the wisdom that comes slowly,
For grief that gives value to sorrow,
For all joy received and yet to be,
For a heart that sings its song boldly,
For my soul that sings harmony,
For old love that is lasting,
For new love that comes to stay,
For all the love I have ever received,
For all the love still to come to me,
For all the love I have given,
For all the love I still have to give.
Reach for the sky.
Dream bold dreams.
Risk everything.
Expect nothing.
And hope for it all.

Here you find only the late day ramblings of a tired man whose soul feels rich, whose heart is full, whose mind believes and whose spirit basks in gratitude.

We have to be fearless.
We have to take chances.
We can’t live life just
being afraid of what comes next.
That’s not what living is about.
Unknown

To Know Without Knowing How

/ James Browning

Country Valley with Storm CloudsWhile uncertain where the knowing comes from, my intuition is convinced 2013 will be a highly meaningful and eventful year for me; one filled with change, dreams moving closer and hopes coming true. One day in retrospect I will look back on this new year and realize what a pivotal time will have been.

How do I know that? Call it gut, hunch, sixth sense or whatever, I just know! After I faced the majority of my “childhood monsters” and gained dominion over them, I began with greater certainty to randomly know without knowing how I knew. This instinct is completely unpredictable and can’t be applied to any just subject or at any particular time. I have no control over the insights. They come when they come.

Being stubborn and bull-headed as I can be, simply believing my intuitive feelings was a struggle at first (and often still is). My mind will begin trying to figure out what it perceives my gut is telling me. Then my brain wants to think it has control of everything and puffs my ego up to try to take credit for what insight I am feeling. When logic makes no sense out of one of my “feelings” my mind then tries to label a hunch as fictional bull crap. Next comes denial that any sort of real intuition really exists. Then the sparring between thought and soul based feelings begins in earnest.

I have learned to tell my mind to “shut up” and it actually does what I ask sometimes. Once the noise in my head settles down a bit I can then begin to take in more clearly the intuitive feeling I am having. Personally I have discovered most of the time I am naturally pulled toward what I should do and repelled by what I shouldn’t do. All I have to do is get still enough to notice it.

It is my opinion we all have a sixth sense of sorts and if you ask me to explain it I can’t. Yet, my certainty is not harmed in the least by not knowing how it works. Science has no idea exactly how my brain really works either, but I know it exists. The same is true for the “knowings” that come to me.

The principle of my sixth sense was illustrated to me many times before I really began to believe in it. Hundreds of times I have gone to leave the house, picked something up to take with me and then put it down then repeated the up/down indecision several times. On occasions when I gave in to the hunch what I grabbed turned out to come in very useful. And when I refused to give in, often later I discovered why I should have brought it with me. And even when it didn’t, I have been left on frequently with the feeling that those few seconds of indecision may have kept me from a car accident or something of the sort.

Do I believe that everything is preordained destiny? No, I don’t. While at birth my path is set in motion to a degree by who my parents are, my physical attributes, nationality, level of intelligence and so on, my path is in majority that of my own choice. My belief is the moments of knowing without knowing spring up to help me make good choices and help me along the life as I choose it. Call it instinctive creativity, if you will, that can be applied to what I do and how I live. It’s no more mysterious than a moment of brilliance an artist has about the next piece of art they are going to create. Such impetus comes from the same inspirational well as my intuition.

Round and around in six paragraphs I have attempted to explain the inexplicable. To tell you how I know 2013 will personally be a remarkable year is beyond me, but my belief is unwavering. How in April 2011 I woke up to the certain knowing to begin and write this daily blog I can’t explain. To think I could be consistent enough to post every day for almost two years I would have argued to exhaustion was beyond me, but I have. From the same source comes my certainty about the coming year.

Sitting and waiting for things to happen is not how life works and certainly not how my intuition works. I have to do the work and heavy lifting. Choices must be made and decisions decided upon. Deep down I have a compass of guidance beyond rational thought. I won’t even bother to try to explain any further what I know with certainty. My gratitude overflows in knowing 2013 will be one of the best lived years of my life filled with abundant change, profound experiences and significant fulfillment beyond my current perceptions to grasp.

And above all, watch with glittering eyes
the whole world around you
because the greatest secrets are always hidden
in the most unlikely places.
Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.
Roald Dahl

One Step at a Time

/ James Browning

rear-view-mirrorIn a backwards look it is relatively easy to see how my life moved from one point to another even thought back then forward momentum seemed to be straight into fog. Everything ahead was obscured and I gave little thought to what I was doing or how my actions were shaping my future life. In a way I was like the fish who did not know he lived in water, except my pond was a lake of dysfunctional behavior.

I was dripping in pain, loneliness and self-induced delusion when I wrote “Alone”. It’s interesting that a man wrote it but the feelings are those of a child begging to be loved echoing within.

“ALONE”
I am alone now,
No one to talk to but myself.
All others have gone,
or else forsaken me long ago.
I look inward,
But only a hallow do I find,
Love inside,
But no one who wants it.
Why am I never good enough,
Why don’t I get loved more?
Why do those who say they care
Hurt me so much?
I cry alone…..

Over twenty years ago “Mistakes” was an partial and incomplete list of the mistakes I believed I had made to date.

I choose the wrong parents or else they choose me.
I grew up wanting love and getting little.
I give too much in my desire to be wanted and loved.
I married the wrong person.
I should have stayed single till much older.
I am too troubled to have a relationship with most people.
I am too good at my work and capable at little else.
I choose the wrong career.
I live in the wrong place.
I have driven away the love of my life.
I am sick because I did not take care of myself.
I managed money badly and had a car repossessed when young.
I was deceitful with women.
I have long loved someone outside marriage.
I have lied to have time with the one I love.
I have denied relations to my marriage partner because I love another.
I have stayed married.
I have a job I am good at but don’t like much.
I like more money than is healthy.
I am weak and need others for strength.
I need the one I love too much.
I express my love too openly to the one I love.
I should be stronger and more silent with love.
I stole a camera when I was 17.
I have not made a difference in this life.
I have been too self-centered.
I have expected too much of others.
I have been too selfish.
I have hurt others In business and messed up lives.
I failed the one I love.
I destroyed what the love of my life once felt for me.
I feel sorry for myself too much.
… Mistakes…
only a few of thousands…
oh, to have time to do it over again and right the wrongs…

These days I find myself wishing I had journaled or kept better notes of my thoughts and feelings of my 20s and 30s. However, am grateful for the random files I have found in the last few days that I wrote back in the early to mid 90’s. Seeing flashes of my old self mirrored through time illustrates how well recovery can work. “It works if you work it” is the saying often spoken at the end of 12 step meetings. As flimsy as that might initially sound to many, it’s true beyond what an uninvolved person can grasp. One step at a time, one day at a time: it works.

Happy trails to you,
until we meet again.
Some trails are happy ones,
Others are blue.
It’s the way you ride
the trail that counts,
Here’s a happy one for you.
From the song “Happy Trails” by Dale Evans

True Hope Is Made of This

/ James Browning

2570539380102335886S425x425Q85Writing yesterday about a great love of long ago and mentioning losing her was the beginning of my demise into dysfunction has turned out to be an interesting piece of serendipity. The spiral that began back then is illustrated by what I was writing in the early to mid 90s. Purely by chance while looking for an old file, I came across these last night

WHY?

Why do I love those incapable of loving me as much in return?
Why do those who profess love to me hurt me so easily?
Why do those I love have to say “I’m sorry” so much?
Why can’t they just do different instead?

Why do I care if I live,
Since I care the most if I do.
I yearn for someone to make me live,
and want to be,
and give me a future to believe in.
Life without hope,
Without possibility,
Is such nothing.

Then, WHY am I?

IS, WHERE AND ARE?

Is there a woman who can love me as much as I love her?
Is there a woman who can believe in me as I do her?
Is there a woman who can support me as much as I do her?
Is there a woman who can help me as much as I do her.

Where is the woman who could hold me when I need to be held?
Where is the woman who can make my trouble go away?
Where is the woman that can give me strength?
Where is the woman who won’t doubt me?

Where is the woman who can love without demand
and know I would give all if she did?
Where is the woman?
Are you her?

Reading these was a pleasant wake up call to how far I have come, how much more peace is in my soul and how much better I understand love between a man and a woman. I no longer look for value and esteem outside myself as I once did. What a miracle! Gratitude washes over me as I write. I am highly thankful!

Though our hearts are not together,
Sweet fondness dreams of this:
I long to hear her laughter,
I long for just a kiss.
Though her eyes are elsewhere shining,
And warm embraces do I miss,
Yet passion’s song is mellow still,
For true hope is made of this.
“Absence” by Danny Rowden

A Precious Privilege

/ James Browning

michael-yamashita-landscape-travel (1)

I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought,
and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder
is a quote by G.K. Chesterton I have personal proof of.

Gratefulness has a power to attract what I need and hope for; people from the past I lost but wanted to make contact with; money I needed arrived unexpectedly. With a grateful mind I sleep better; I am more productive; ALL my relationships are improved; life tastes better; I have more to look forward to. On and on to the point of near ad nauseam, beyond a doubt this has been proven to me in the last two years of writing here about gratitude every day.

Researchers in the field of gratitude, Psychologists Robert Emmons at the University of California at Davis, and Michael McCullough, at the University of Miami, have learned what I know without research: gratitude is really good for you.

In an experimental comparison Emmons and McCullough found people who take the time to keep a gratitude journal on a regular basis exercised more often, reported fewer physical issues, generally felt better about their lives, and were more optimistic about the upcoming week compared to those who kept track of hassles or neutral life events. Another benefit found was participants who kept gratitude lists were more likely to make progress toward important personal goals (academic, interpersonal and health-based).

Other Research has turned up physiological benefits of gratitude. It has been found when we think about someone or something we really appreciate and experience the feeling that goes with the thought, the parasympathetic – calming-branch of the autonomic nervous system – is triggered. This pattern when repeated brings a protective effect to the heart. The electromagnetic heart patterns of volunteers tested become more coherent and ordered when they activated feelings of appreciation.

There is evidence that when we practice bringing attention to what we appreciate in our lives, more positive emotions emerge. In a sort of positive pyramid effect, the more I pause to appreciate and show caring and compassion, the more order and coherence I experience internally.

Thank goodness research on gratitude has now challenged the idea of a “set point” for happiness. It was previously accepted that just as our body has a set point for weight, each person probably had a genetically determined level of happiness. Once upon a time I bought into that and believed since I suffered from moderate depression at times, I was doomed to have a set point of lowered happiness. Research on gratitude now suggests that people can move their set point upward to some degree, enough to have a measurable effect on both their outlook and their health. This works. My altered for the better state of mind is proof.

Emmons and McCullough said the following to their research subjects:
Cultivate a sense of gratitude’’ means that you make an effort to think about the many things in your life, both large and small, that you have to be grateful about. These might include particular supportive relationships, sacrifices or contributions that others have made for you, facts about your life such as your advantages and opportunities, or even gratitude for life itself, and the world that we live in. In all of these cases you are identifying previously unappreciated aspects of your life, for which you can be thankful.

Over a hundred and fifty years ago Ralph Waldo Emerson knew this when he wrote, the invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.

A metaphor for my experience of focusing on gratitude is comparing it to exercise and physically work out. If I had spent an hour or more EVERY day for over a year and a half working out and getting exercise, I would be in the best physical condition of my life. The level of happiness I have and the belief I have in the future good that will come to me are at “body-builder” levels. Gratitude is the magic “supplement” that has made it so.

When you arise in the morning,
think of what a precious privilege
it is to be alive, to breathe, to think,
to enjoy, to love; then make that day count!
From “Life, the Truth and Being Free: by Steve Maraboli

Peacefulness Within

/ James Browning

Christmas-Presents-dIt’s Christmas Eve and I feel genuinely happy for the second year in a row. Little outside of me has changed. I still have my share of issues, troubles and things to sort out. However, what is inside me has grown to be mostly mellow and calm. There is a peacefulness within that allows me to be more fully present in the moment than ever before. And that is the gift I am most grateful for.

Love Was Born at Christmas

It has been a lot of years since I can remember having the spirit of Christmas alive and frolicking within as I do this year. It could easily be true I have never been this happy at this time of year.  The little boy who lives inside me is enjoying reports of Santa’s progress in my direction.  The grownup within is dazzled by the feeling inside that sparkles and shines brightly like the lights of the season.  My eyes see Christmas. My ears hear the music.  My mouth tastes the food.  My nose smells the trees.  My touch feels bows and wrapping paper.  My heart is soft and childlike, yet touched deeply in mature ways.  Santa is coming.  Christ-mas is near.   

Eva K. Logue
A Christmas candle is a lovely thing;
It makes no noise at all,
But softly gives itself away;
While quite unselfish, it grows small.

Emily Matthews
From home to home, and heart to heart, from one place to another
The warmth and joy of Christmas, brings us closer to each other.

Christina Rossetti
Love came down at Christmas;
Love all lovely, love divine;
Love was born at Christmas,
Stars and angels gave the sign.

Phillips Brooks
The earth has grown old with its burden of care
But at Christmas it always is young,
The heart of the jewel burns lustrous and fair
And its soul full of music breaks the air,
When the song of angels is sung.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on Earth, good will to men!

Helen Lowrie Marshall
The merry family gatherings –
The old, the very young;
The strangely lovely way they
Harmonize in carols sung.
For Christmas is tradition time
Traditions that recall
The precious memories down the years,
The sameness of them all.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox
When Christmas bells are swinging above the fields of snow,
We hear sweet voices ringing from lands of long ago,
And etched on vacant places
Are half-forgotten faces
Of friends we used to cherish,
And loves we used to know. 

Calvin Coolidge
Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind.
To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas.

Augusta E. Rundel
Christmas… that magic blanket that wraps itself about us, that something so intangible that it is like a fragrance.
It may weave a spell of nostalgia. Christmas may be a day of feasting, or of prayer, but always it will be a day of remembrance — a day in which we think of everything we have ever loved.

If only for a day, the world will be just a little safer, a little more peaceful and life will arrive with a little more kindness.  Even the bad guys and criminals are not quite as busy on Christmas.  For every gift ever received I am grateful.  For every hardship and lack that taught to appreciate them I am even more thankful. Merry Christmas!

Were I a philosopher, I should write a philosophy of toys,
showing that no thing else in life need to be taken seriously,
and that Christmas Day in the company of children
is one of the few occasions on which men become entirely alive. 
Robert Lynd