Life

"I believe that the purpose of life is to be happy." Dalai Lama

One of my favorite characters from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams is Marvin, the manic depressive robot. "Life, don't tell me about life," he would whine. He was so hysterically depressed about everything he was funny. "I'm not getting you down am I?" he would ask hopefully. It was such an over the top portrayal of those doom and gloomers we encounter in real life.

I am generally an upbeat person but I do occasionally have bouts of depression and when I do I know the medicine to take until my normal mood pattern reasserts itself. There is nothing wrong with taking antidepressants or seeking professional help if you need it. What is wrong is to ignore the problem and live your life in misery.

Granted there is a lot in life that is unpleasant and I am hardly a Pollyanna who refuses to see the bad in the world. There is a lot that we need to do to make our lives and the lives of others better. That is what we are here for after all to use what talents God gave us to make this world a better place.

I have little real patience with people who are always in a bad mood and can not laugh or enjoy the good things in life. My workplace is really tense at times as there is a lot of the usual politics you find in corporate life but you do hear a lot of laughter. We do know how to crack each other up. The coffee jokes going around now are really funny.

One of my favorite shows of all time was MASH. You would think that a show based on a hospital unit in the middle of war would have to be grime but it was one of the funniest shows ever made. It also had moments of heartbreak and sadness but the main thing it showed was the resilience of the human spirit. It showed that in spite of the horrors we have to face we have the ability to rise above them and still enjoy the fact that we are alive and can find the joy in our being.

There are times when I want to grab hold of a constant nay sayer and shake them. Wake up and embrace life I want to tell them. There is beauty in this world around us. Everything isn't all doom and gloom. Find something positive to talk about once in a while. That is especially true of the news reporting. One of the reasons I get Women's World every week is that they always have stories of people who have over come problems. Stories of people who have helped their fellow man out. They are a welcome relief from the constant barrage of news stories about the problems in the world. I want to see both sides of life. I'm doing my part to help those I can with problems but I want to see the happiness also.

Embrace life it is worth the living.

The picture is called I Spy and is taken from the children's game I spy with my little eye. I spy with my little eye the reason why the dog is never going to win the game of hide and seek with the cat.