As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.

John F. Kennedy

Those who never sacrificed a present to a future good, or a personal to a general one, can speak of happiness only as the blind do of colors.

Horace Mann

Eight Things to Enjoy at Any Age
Louise Morganti Kaelin

No matter how old we are, there are several things that we get to enjoy. It is this enjoyment that is the key to a happy life. If you can appreciate the following, you'll be set for life!

Each Sunrise
Whether its sunny, cloudy, rainy, snowy, extremely hot or extremely cold, every morning that we wake up and can be grateful for another day is a good day! These mornings become sweeter as we grow older, and therefore probably elicit more appreciation.

Beautiful weather
Over and beyond being grateful for waking up this morning, the weather outside is something to enjoy. Interestingly enough, it's not necessary for the day to be sunny, with blue skies and a nice little breeze to be beautiful. In fact, when everyday is sunny, it gets kind of boring. Having lived in New England for 30 years, I know the truth of "If you don't like the weather here, just wait 10 minutes and it will change". To me, that's the most perfect weather of all, when it changes frequently and I get to experience a ton of different atmospheric conditions.

Family
While we might not always enjoy our family when we are younger, most adults enjoy their family relationships. Whether it's our birth family or our own family, there are many experiences we can share only with those closest to us. To paraphrase an old proverb, "No man is a hero to his family". This is an added benefit as we can 'be ourselves' with family as we can't be with anyone else.

Good people/friends
Most of us have communities of varying sizes. Because it is a personal preference, it may be one or two very close friends up to large numbers of groups we surround ourselves with. It all depends on where we feel comfortable. The important thing is to enjoy whatever relationships we have. If we don't, the best gift we can give ourselves is to let go of non-productive or constantly negative relationships.

Sense of humor
A sense of humor is something we all have, although there is quite a range in exactly what that means to each of us. Again, the important thing is to have opportunities to laugh, chuckle, howl, grin or smile on a regular basis.

A deep relationship with God
Our spiritual life is an important piece of our daily enjoyment. Again, I don't believe there is a 'right' religion or spiritual practice, as long as you have some deep bond with a source bigger and/or greater than yourself.

The drama of life
Being able to take several steps back and look at life as an uninterested bystander has its perks. Seeing the big picture allows one to realize how human nature works and to notice repeatable patterns. It's another great way to stand back and enjoy the drama that we call life.

Good health
As many say, "without your health, you have nothing". Do what you need to do so that you can enjoy your life with the energy and vitality that keeps it that way!

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Copyright Louise Morganti Kaelin, all rights reserved.  Louise Morganti Kaelin is a Life Success Coach who partners with others to help them turn their dreams into reality.  Phone: 1-484-660-3143   Web: www.touchpointcoaching.com  Email: louise@touchpointcoaching.com

Fallow Ground

I've always admired farmers and their perspectives on life.  I've noticed that because they have to be very much in tune with the cycles of the seasons, they also tend to be in tune with the cycles of life, the ways that things change regularly and need to be accepted for what they are, when they are.  There are times in life when it's important to sow the seeds, or the growing season will be missed and the harvest will come too late, and possibly be destroyed by frost.  There are times when we have to be patient and let the crops grow, tending to them and giving them water and nutrients, but letting them do their thing without trying to force it.  And then there's time for harvest.  The crop is ready to be used, and it's important to gather it at the right time if it really is to be useful.  In the north, that usually happens in the fall, and then it's time to let winter take over, and move to tasks other than sowing and reaping.

One of the concepts that I find most fascinating about farming, though, is the idea of crop rotation, and even of letting land lie fallow for a season.  Inherent in this idea is the reality that the soil needs to work with different kinds of plants if it's to maintain its vigor and even its basic ability to supply nutrients to the plants that are growing in it.  A crop such as rice will drain the soil of certain nutrients during its growing season, and if the farmer plants rice there again next season, the plants will drain even more of those nutrients from the soil.

If, on the other hand, the farmer plants a crop such as cotton, the cotton will use different nutrients, while replacing the nutrients that had been drained by the rice.

And often, the farmer will let a certain patch of land lie fallow, or unused, for an entire season.  The farmer knows that the money that he or she could earn from that land isn't as valuable as allowing the land to regenerate itself, to build up nutrients without being drained further.

I've found in my life that it's important to stay dynamic if I want to keep growing and learning.  Many people are comfortable with staying at the same work for their entire lives, doing the same job each day, and to them I send my blessings--and in many ways I envy and admire them.  That kind of stability can bring a lot of good things to life.

On the other hand, I know that by changing what I do from time to time, I learn more about life and living and other people because I'm exposed to many more ideas of how things should be; I work with people who have taken different paths in life, and who see the world in very divergent ways.  When I was in the Army, for example, I worked with people who had very different ways of looking at the world than did the people with whom I taught at colleges.  Since I've been teaching at the high school level, I've been working with completely different groups of people, and learning from and about students who are much younger--but who have fascinating ideas about life and living--than did my students at college.

We don't have to change careers or move to new places in order to rotate what goes on in our lives.  Perhaps it's time to spend a season reading in the evenings instead of watching television.  Maybe it would do us good to join a club that focuses on something that's always interested us, but which we haven't explored yet.  We could even attend another church for a few weeks, to get a different set of views on how things are and how they could be.

I know that as a teacher, the summer break is invaluable because of the burnout that takes place over the course of the school year.  During that time, I leave behind teaching and try to focus entirely on other things.  The rejuvenates and re-energizes me, and allows me to begin again fairly fresh when school starts up again.  During the summer, the part of my brain that works on teaching lies fallow, and I don't try to make it do any work so that it can recover from the school year.  Then, when the new school year begins, it's ready to start all over again.

One of the most important things to remember, though, is that everything must have its season of growth, too.  A farmer isn't going to sow corn and then try to harvest it three days later.  Likewise, we can't just jump from thing to thing, place to place, and expect to get anything out of the experiences.  There are times when we must simply stay where we are, as we are, and allow ourselves to grow.  Our trials are our rainstorms and our winds and our frosts, our challenges are our times of drought, our obstacles are similar to the weeds and insects that like to feed on plants.  We, though, have much stronger defenses than plants do against the things that threaten us, and it's important to use those defenses wisely.

This principle illustrates why vacations are so important to us, but also why so many people don't benefit a bit from the time they take "off."  With the Internet and cell phones so dominant in our lives, many people these days take vacations in name only; they tend to bring their jobs with them and don't allow their minds to focus on other things.  They're still worried about earnings and contracts and other people's performances when they should be worried about what they want for dinner after they take the nice long walk on the beach or through the forest.

As a runner, I know that one of the best things I can do to improve my race times is to take a day off from running a few days before the race.  My body appreciates the rest, and the muscles recover and allow me to perform at the peak of my abilities later.

We're only going to help ourselves if we create fallow areas in our lives, places and times when we allow ourselves to escape from our normal tasks and challenges, when we can relax and let our bodies and minds and emotions recover.  We'll be much better in all ways, then, when we get back to work, and the work we do will be of much higher quality.  And that can be quite important to all of us.