A Happy Life?

During this season of Graduations, transitions, and new beginnings, I find myself reflecting on what means the most to me.  As I look back, the thing that I most treasure is spending time with those I love. 

  It is those people, and those times that have formed me. It is my prayer that this  will continue to be true and when I forget what is really important God will place someone in my life to remind me. 

Anna Quindlen is a writer.  In 2000 she published a small book that are some of her reflections on
what it is to make a happy life.  I share the following thoughts.  Let her words remind us all today of what really matters to us. 

"Don't ever forget the words on a postcard that my father sent me last year: 'If you win the rat race, you're still a rat."

"Or what John Lennon wrote before he was gunned down in the driveway of the Dakota: 'LIfe is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."

"That's the only advice I can give,.  After all, when you look at the faces of a class of graduation seniors you realize that each student has only one thing that no one else has.  When you leave college, there are thousands of people out there with the same degree you have; when you get a job, there will be thousands of people doing what you want to do for a living."

"But you are the only person alive who has sole custody of your life,  Your particular life.  Your entire life.  Not just your life at a desk, or your life on a bus, or in the car, or at the computer.  Not just the life of your mind, but the life of your heart.  Not just your bank account, but your soul. "

"Turn off your cell phone.  Turn off your regular phone, for that matter.  Keep still.  Be present. "

"Get a life in which you are not alone.  Find people you love, and who love you.  And remember that love is not leisure, it is work.  Each time I look at my diploma, I remember that I am still a student, still learning every day how to be human.  Send an e-mail. Write a letter.  Kiss your mom.  Hug your dad. "

"Get a life in which you are generous.  Look around at the azaleas making fuchsia star bursts in spring; look at a full moon hanging silver in a black sky on a cold night.  And realize that life is glorious, and that you have no business taking it for granted.  Care so deeply about its goodness that you want to spread it around.  Take the money you would have spent on beers in a bar and give it to charity.  Work in a soup kitchen.  Tutor a seventh-grader. "

"All of us want to do well.  But if we do not do good, too, then doing well will never be enough." 

These are thoughts that remind me of the many blessings I have in my life.  The many lessons I continue to learn, and the loved ones that make it all matter.  What does it make you think of?