What do you truly want out of life?
When you were young, did you have dreams of growing up to be a “certain something”? Are you that something now?
If you could have anything… anything at all… what would you want it to be?
I’ve been thinking about these things, as you may have suspected from reading this intro.
So then, when I sat down to write… I reviewed “Today’s Date in History”. And, I learned…. that on September 21, in 1897, The New York Sun ran an editorial answering a question from an 8-year-old girl that included the line, “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.” How about that?
So, although it is very personal, I think tonight, I will give my answers to all three questions.
To the first… this has remained the same for me… for a long time. I want to be a good person. I want to be kind, and loving. I regret that I am not always successful at this ambition And if I were, I wonder if that is really good enough.
The second question. When I was a little girl, I was certain I would be the first “girl” baseball player on the Cincinnati Reds. I told this to my grandfather one day. He didn’t discourage me. He just smiled, real big, and said he would buy the very first ticket. I also wanted to win seven gold medals at the Olympics. Like Mark Spitz.
As it turned out… I didn’t do either one of those things.
The third. If I could have anything I wanted… it could be encompassed with one word. Guarantees. You may think less of me for saying so, but that is what I would wish for if the genie spewed out of the tea kettle tomorrow.
Yes. Guarantees. Assurances that everything would be all right. That the ice cream would stay frozen. That kittens would find their mittens. For the grass to stay green and for the birds to keep singing. An oath that the world would keep spinning on cue, and happiness would abound. I want that New York Times editorial to be right…. yes…. there really is a Santa Claus.
But the reality of the matter is…. there are no guarantees.
Clint Eastwood once said, “If you want a guarantee, buy a toaster.”
Maybe it would be wiser of me to give up this desire for guarantees, and trade it in for some “Faith In Possibilities.” Yep. Maybe trade it in for a little bit of Hope.
Undoubtedly….. I don’t need another toaster…. unless Santa Claus brings it.
“In all things it is better to hope than to despair”
– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Hope is the dream of a soul awake.”
– French Proverb
“Those who wish to sing always find a song.”
– Proverb
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