The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate. ~ Oprah Winfrey

Remember to Celebrate!

Life is hard, bad things happen, too often things just don’t break your way. But sometimes they do. And exactly because life is hard, you should celebrate when you can. And I do mean whenever you can, celebrate the big things of course but celebrate the little things as well.

Did you just finish a project at work, celebrate, maybe it’s just a nice dessert that night or going out to lunch. But do something to recognize the accomplishment. Did your friend, partner, child attain some milestone or have something exciting happy to them, celebrate. Buy some flowers, make a special dinner, let your toddler, who just did their first day of pre-school, pick what’s for dinner tonight.

We do a pretty good job of celebrating things for our children but we often don’t celebrate things for ourselves. I really recommend getting into a habit of celebrating. Me, I’m a big celebrator, I celebrate my achievements at every level, I celebrate birthdays for weeks and birthdays that signify decades for entire years. When I turned forty I set up a list of forty people, and created ten events and invited all forty to all ten events. That was the first time I went to Burning Man and the year I traveled to Alaska as my fiftieth state that I visited.

This year I turned sixty, so as a year with a zero I’ve been celebrating all year. I returned to my favorite city to celebrate Mardi Gras in New Orleans. I’ve traveled to Baja to hang out and play with grey whales, I surprised my family in NY on Memorial Day. Friends came in for the Pizza, Beer and Bagel Festival in San Francisco. Other friends came in for a two-day eating and walking tour of San Francisco. I spent a week floating in a mineral spring pool and getting massage at an expensive resort in Calistoga. I’ll soon be heading east to visit with family and friends and spend a few days in Cape Cod.

The year isn’t over though and I’m still scheming how I’ll celebrate in October and November, and I’m already planning a return to the Valley of Fire for Christmas. And then next year I hit another milestone, I’m retiring at the end of January, so it’s time to celebrate that as well. And the biggest part of that will be returning to the Appalachian Trail to walk again, perhaps a thru-hike but at any case add to the thousand miles I’ve already done on that trail.

Celebrate my friends, life is a meal made up of tasty and not so tasty things, so celebrate and drown that meal in celebratory, tasty and happy gravy!

Some images from my celebratory sixtieth year. Have happy day my friends. ~ Rev Kane