Yesterday I was awake only about eight hours of the 24. While awake, I was biking, sitting with the goats, reading, visiting Facebook, Upworthy and my email account, and editing two short projects. (Yeah, I know, I usually don’t write on weekends, but I hadn’t done any paid work for several days, so I had my “weekend” earlier in the week in that regard.) The rest of the time I napped/slept.

 

I didn’t expect to sleep as much or as long as I did each time, but I must have needed it because this morning I feel ten years younger and like a million dollars!  I don’t ever remember sleeping this much in the past several years.

 

I didn’t get much sleep this week (four to five hours per night usually), so that’s why I probably needed to crash and recover–although the prevailing wisdom is that you can’t recover lost sleep. This morning I’m prepared to argue the point, because it sure feels like I recovered something!

 

So here we are. It’s 6:23 Sunday morning and cool outside. It has been cooler for several days (much needed and appreciated). I feel like going for a walk, or wandering with my goats, or…just sitting still and enjoying how relaxed and peaceful life can be when I stop, take a deep breath, and just acknowledge and drink in the many blessings that life offers me moment to moment (whether I’m paying attention or not):

 

Good health

Good friends

Things to do that feel worthwhile and contributory

People to love

Ambulation

Stimulation

Concentration

Discernment

Positivity/Optimism

Can Do/Will Do Enthusiasm

…and soooo much more!

 

It’s oh so easy to join the Ain’t It Awful Club when we turn on the news or listen only to what’s going haywire in the world.

 

I much prefer belonging to the Why Not Club. You know the one:

 

“Some men see things as they are and say ‘Why?’  I dream things that never were and say ‘Why Not’?” – Robert F. Kennedy (quoting George Bernard Shaw)

 

Yeah. That’s the ticket.

 

Go forth and conquer hate, fear, ignorance and lies with love, faith, facts and decisive, compassionate, redemptive action. If humankind has done some things wrong (and boy howdy, have we ever!) we can set so many things right again. We just need to decide to do it and then commit to doing it…with love and as one.

 

Idealistic? You bet. As Don Quixote said in MAN OF LA MANCHA: “I have never had the courage to believe in nothing.”

 

He also said: “I have lived nearly fifty years, and I have seen life as it is. Pain, misery, hunger … cruelty beyond belief. I have heard the singing from taverns and the moans from bundles of filth on the streets. I have been a soldier and seen my comrades fall in battle … or die more slowly under the lash in Africa. I have held them in my arms at the final moment. These were men who saw life as it is, yet they died despairing. No glory, no gallant last words … only their eyes filled with confusion, whimpering the question, ‘Why?’
“I do not think they asked why they were dying, but why they had lived. When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams — this may be madness. To seek treasure where there is only trash. Too much sanity may be madness — and maddest of all: to see life as it is, and not as it should be!”

 

There you go.

 

My (adopted) motto: “Be kinder than you have to be. Everyone is facing some kind of battle you know nothing about.”