What is Christmas All About?
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...As we continue shopping and more shopping in our search for a Happy, Merry Christmas, here is a moving story of one man’s discovery of the Happy Christmas.
On and On How Fragile We Are...
Life is so full of unpredictable beauty and strange surprises
Will We Ever Learn to Realise What Life is all About? Will We Ever Learn What is Important, What is Valuable and precious in Life?
“The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.”
Tim Jonze’s Christmas Story: ‘A blood cancer diagnosis helped me find true happiness.’
‘I love her more than anything – but I find it hard to even be in the same room as her …’ Tim Jonze with his daughter, Romy.
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‘Suddenly, I could see my previous life – of pointless anxieties, petty rivalries and overthinking – for what it was.’
...‘That Christmas, for the first time since I can remember, I am truly happy; just living in the moment. The light seems brighter and more beautiful. I notice dew drops on plants and the smell of fresh air. I hug my wife and daughter even more tightly than usual.’...
‘Through all the gloom I see something with startling clarity. I realise that what I’m mourning is not so much my old life before all this started – a life of pointless anxieties, petty rivalries and overthinking – but rather the carefree, optimistic version of life I had briefly glimpsed over Christmas. And yet no sooner have I understood all this than the chance to enact it has been snatched away. I feel like an old professor who has finally unravelled the mysteries of the universe with his dying breath.’...
‘I am more “present” for my family these days, and less consumed with things I can’t control. I have returned to the volunteering role I thought I didn’t have time for; I have got fit; I don’t let work define my happiness; I am kinder to myself. I have bought lots more nice wine to replace the nice wine I drank with defrosted Quorn chilli.
Do I still get annoyed by delayed trains, lost keys or the fact my daughter is taking half an hour to put on a pink tutu, the only item of clothing in the house that she’ll wear? It would be a lie to say no. But the second I think: “But you’re not quite likely to die any more,” the problem disappears. I am, undeniably, a happier person.’...
‘I still have a malfunction inside me and I still have to think about it every day. It’s hard not to – my spleen, inflated with excess blood cells, gently nudges against my ribs like an annoying acquaintance who would hate me to forget that all is not quite right. At some point in the future – and not even the best doctors can predict exactly when – the disease might whirr into life and start scarring my bone marrow, turning it into a barren wasteland that can no longer produce enough blood to keep me alive. I’m hopeful that science will find a fix before that time comes. There are encouraging signs on the horizon. And if not? Well, these days I try not to dwell on the future. I am here, instead, for the present. I am alive. I am alive with the spirit of Christmas.’
Continue to read the whole story: A blood cancer diagnosis helped me find true happiness
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May you find joy in the simple pleasures of life and may the light of the holiday season fill your heart with the hope for a better world
“…there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live.” —Ecclesiastes 3:12
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