I was picking out a shirt to wear on Christmas Day when my eyes came to rest on my favorite shirt. It’s a nice cotton button down in a light maroon I really like.

I thought, “Well, that’s my favorite shirt, so I should save it.”

Save it?  For when?  My birthday?  Halloween?

That was my dilemma.  Should I wear my favorite shirt on Christmas and wear it out sooner (pun intended), or should I leave it hanging in the closet so it would last longer?

I remembered the day long ago when I wore my best shirt to school with my new ballpoint pen in its pocket.  Unfortunately, I left the pen in the pocket, and my mother put them both into the washing machine. Bye bye favorite shirt.  Bye bye favorite pen.

So, my message for you on this day after Christmas is – use it all.  Eat every food gift you received, wear every scratchy wool sweater, and, as they say in basketball, leave your entire 2023 game on the court.

You’re going to have another opportunity.  Your reward for piloting yourself through 2023 is that you get another entire year to refine your game and your life.  Let’s call our new chance 2024.

I’d like to be the first to wish everyone a very Happy New Year!

Alan

A few days ago, I took this photo of towels stacked on a chair in my family room.

My father would say that a stack of towels does not belong in a family room, and they should be returned to the laundry closet immediately.  Unlike me, my dad was a fanatic about keeping everything neat at all times.  That is not to say he was wrong – just that he and I were different, especially on that point.

So, while that might be my father’s reaction, our children and grandchildren might look at the same photo and think, “Oboy!  Swimming today!”  They would look forward to lots of noise and fun, and not care one bit about keeping everything neat.

But I was thinking that the towels also were a tableau in memory of happy times from the past, a reminder of when the children were young, and the pool was often used.

It’s not just beauty that resides in the eye of the beholder, but also the story.  Our perspective shapes our reaction to everything we see, and that reveals more about us than it does about whatever we are reacting to.

There are movies and television shows that Daveen loved watching that put me to sleep.  And vice versa.  Once I walked out of a play, telling Daveen and my parents that they were welcome to enjoy it but that I would wait in the lobby.  Fifteen minutes later they joined me.  But we don’t always share the same opinions and taste.

Different points of view are what creates interest in the stock market, or in a horse race.

Let’s welcome our differences, and always remember that one person’s excitement may be another person’s boredom.  And vice versa.

Alan