GOOD THINKING: LIFE IS! WHAT YOU MAKE IT

William James said it first in the year 1897: "Life is worth living, we can say, because it is what we make it." This saying has become a part of our daily living. Teachers teach it to their students. Preachers preach it to their parishioners. Motivational speakers promote it to their audiences. Parents quote it to their children. "Life is what you make it!"

Life! We're talking about living, not existing. There is a difference! Notice the trees. The leaves on the tree are green, alive. The leaves on the ground at the foot of the tree are brown, dead. The difference? Life-giving elements come up through the roots, through the trunk, out through the branches and into the leaves. As long as the leaves are attached to the Source of Life, they are alive. When a leaf becomes detached from the tree, it falls, turns brown and dies. There is no life flowing into it; it is merely existing. So it is with people.

Life is! Life happens! The world was here before we entered it; this world will still be here when we exit it. We have some control over some of what happens. We have no control over much of what happens in life. The sun rises and sets with no assistance from us. El Nino disrupts long-established patterns and routines and there is nothing we can do about it. Life is!

Life is what you make it! We are the key to what happens in our lives. Someone wrote: "Life is not what you make it; it's what you make out of what life brings you!" We cannot control what happens to us in life; we can control how we react to what happens. Life happens. Sometimes good happens; sometimes bad happens. Whatever happens, we choose how we will deal with it. We can choose to let life get us down, or we can choose to overcome the obstacles and win the victory. We are the key! Life is what you make it! The poet said it best:

To each is given a bag of tools,

A block of material, and a set of rules;

And each must make, e'er life is flown,

Either a stumbling block or a stepping-stone."

Let's choose to make life as good as we possibly can. Let's choose to make this life a "heaven-on-earth." We have the tools to do it. We have all the resources we need to make life "heavenly." We've been given a divine blueprint to follow. If life is what we choose to make it, let's make it good!