This coming up year I am taking a see through, plastic OXO square container and making it my Happiness Jar.

Overtime, every happy, serendipitous, lucky, special or unexpected kindness or moment that happens to us will be documented and placed inside this space. 

I am cleansing and labeling it today. I will position it in the middle of our kitchen peninsula. I will have a small pad of paper and a pen next to it handy so we can record our gratitudes!

2017 – We are awaiting!

You might want to follow suit just to try it out with me and hop on the happy trail journey!

This year, I grieved.

I was outraged.

I held my tongue.

I spoke out.

I was confused.

I yelled.

I complained.

I criticized.

I judged.

I voted.

I cried.

BUT

ALSO

I realized and will continue in 2017 to know:

I am loved, all is well.

I am the best version of myself today.

I write.

I garden.

I cook.

I touch.

I enjoy.

I walk.

I counsel.

I shop.

I care.

I clean.

I play.

I listen.

I meditate.

I guide.

I harvest.

I create.

I paint.

I repurpose.

I compost.

I organize.

I recycle.

I read.

I encourage.

I love.

I decorate.

I post.

I understand.

I entertain.

I exercise.

I believe.

I observe.

I express joy and enthusiasm.

I am a gift to all that know me.

It’s a gift to have more than one choice available. We live in a world of a myriad of decisions and a multitude of options. You can change your mind or re-select anytime.

That is freedom.

There are war torn victims, refugees without shelter and starving stomachs all over the world. I find myself asking what is it I can do? I have had this concern since I conceptualized it as a young child. Perhaps that is why I am such a worry wart.

In my own luxurious world, I give, grieve and write what I can. It is a both a curse and a blessing to be sensitive, to find significance in the minutest, to have your soul touched by every wail. How does one stave off the haunting images of suffering? I refuse and cannot even if I willed it, put armor or ice around my heart.

My dream of interviewing, researching and annotating human stories via historical events has never gone away. Too late to become Christiane Amanpour. Too green to be Isabelle Allende. I just have to be true blue Cecilia Steger and return to the authentic me, over and over.

This coming year, in 2017, wherein the world is shaking up and down and all around, I will find my voice, I will seek answers, I will report back, I will do what I can to strike a chord in you too. A selfish act. I do not want to be alone in my anguish nor do I want to be isolated.

“This is my country too,” a woman screamed at the electoral college vote yesterday, while those around her chanted, “SHAME” in unison, responding to the outcome. You know how it went down. Right?

Mark Twain has been attributed to remarking,

” History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”

Forecasting the future is a bit like predicting the weather and I see the storm coming. What I do with that early information is prepare, share and warn others. It seems like the most decent thing to do. Doesn’t it?

In the Tibetan Buddhist practices there is a meditation named Tonglen. I know I have posted about it before but it is worth mentioning once again. You breathe in all the pain of the world, and you exhale love, solution and peace. You take in the dark, dusty truth and you send out light. 

There is a profound bliss in returning to your first stifled vocation. There is a certain release I feel in my shoulders.

“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”
 – Aldous Huxley