Celebrate Good Times, COME ON!?!

Here's a philosophical post for you all. I think you'll like it.

In Matthew 19:14 Jesus said the Kingdom of Heaven is for children and you must be like a child to receive it (Matt 18:3). That's a weird one, I confess. I think at least some of it comes down to how we approach life. Are we filled with wonder? Are the things we don't know yet scary or is it a big adventure? Is life riddled with milestones and celebrations?

When I was a kid, I kept track of the half years. I was four and a half, five and a half, etc. Now I can't quite remember how old I am. I have to do the math when people ask me. I'm told that I will start tracking half years again when I turn 90. I'll proudly proclaim that I'm ninety and a half. The way I've lived, I should probably start that practice at 45.

Author Jack Canfield once pointed out, inside your heart is a little kid who must buy into your agenda or you can never hope to succeed. Learn to celebrate milestones or you'll quickly become two minded about your actions. (I'm paraphrasing).

The point is, that so many things in life that are good for us don't have a fast reward. Eat a cookie and it tastes good. Don't eat a cookie and you save some calories which helps you look and feel good--eventually. First you have to not eat the cookie again. In fact, every time you don't eat a cookie you still have to not eat that cookie. You don't get to bank the benefit of some positive actions for quite a while. Not just health, but financial decisions, and relationship decisions.

So how do we engage our childlike heart when we can't always reward every positive decision? A couple ways I can think of. 1) it not always torturous to make a good decision. I'm madly in love with my wife and it's pretty darn easy at this juncture to not hit on other women. I'm not concerned at all about getting caught, I'm simply not interested in anything that erodes my relationship. So I'm going to put forward the hypothesis that having your heart in the right place and keeping it there, plays a factor.

But as far as a quick technique to help your inner kid get behind drudgery, like TPS reports, or reading the next chapter in stats, or doing sit-ups. Break the project up into chunks and when you achieve each milestone celebrate your progress.

In fact, I'm going to propose that we start celebrating relatively small accomplishments in some small way, all of the time. As often as we need to. As often as we possibly can. The chances are that you haven't taken the time out to really celebrate something in weeks or even months. So try this. Tell me something you have done and let's celebrate it. I'll go first. This week, I crossed 66 things off my check list. That's pretty remarkable. So I'm taking 30 seconds off to close my eyes and listen to music, and feel rather satisfied with myself. Well I feel a lot better, how about you? Let me know what you're celebrating so I can be happy for you too.