Finding joy

Monday, November 29, 2021 The more I feel pressure to Buy Buy Buy this time of year the more I want to retreat from it all. Read a good book, make soup, enjoy time with family, but the frenzied push to purchase really makes me a bit crazy.

These wise words are from one of my photography teachers Sebastian Micheals:

The holiday season should not collapse by default into the “shopping” season. Enjoying the holidays and cherishing those we love should not devolve into stressing out over the holidays, or endless shopping, or something we feel we have to “survive.”

Instead, this year, make it your goal to elicit JOY from the season and be the one person you know who is walking around smiling and happy and content.

This year, instead of obsessing over sales and shopping malls, decide rather to give 10X more thought to making time for those you love, to being more thoughtful and caring and gracious and kind.

Make it your ambition, not to contribute to the heap of junk no one will even care about six months from now, but rather to find ways to deepen your most important relationships and show those you love how MUCH you love them — not by buying them stuff, but by spending time with them, by really listening to them, by going places and doing meaningful things with them.

And as for yourself, sit down today or tomorrow and make a list of the ten most wonderful things you have already. They might be material possessions, sure (your camera, let’s say), but they might also be simple things … like your health, like a journal and a walk in your favorite park, like a stack of great library books you’re excited to start reading, like your recordings of Rachmaninoff’s piano concertos.

We have SO much to be grateful for already. And to repeat something I heard somewhere and find holds so true: “The best things in life aren’t just free … they aren’t even things.”

Photo of the Day: Artist unknown, but this photo sums up my feelings these days.