Essentials

When I muse about a cheerful countenance, I wonder how to make my face look joyful when my insides just feel normal. Not joyful and absolutely not miserable. Just normal. I think we should all reflect the joy that we, deep down, feel just to be alive and part of this amazing world. But I think some of us, okay me, forget and are just lazy about the image that we present to our brothers and sisters on this earth. And we owe each other more than that. When we see joy we tend to feel joy. And around and around it goes.

So, my musings lead to this. Sleep. It's essential and when we're tired, it's very hard to radiate great happiness. We need our sleep. All of it, not just some of it. I have a hard time going to bed early at night. I don't know if I'm afraid I'll suffer some sleeplessness or if I'm afraid I'll miss something; but, I tend to stay up way too late every night. So the first thing I'll do is change that. I really believe that sleep changes everything. It changes how ambitious we feel each day and, most of all, it helps provide us with the self discipline we need to accomplish the things that are truly important to us, like a cheerful countenance.

So starting tonight, I'll be in bed by eleven p.m. This is a challenging week to start this new habit because I'm on vacation and not doing any traveling, but if I can do it, I know that my vacation will be much more rewarding and productive. And I'll be a lot more likely to wear that cheerful countenance that will be a blessing to my family and everybody else I encounter.

We'll see how that works out.