Happy Holidays: Taking it All In

Happy holidays to you, no matter what holiday you celebrate. Even if you don't celebrate any holiday at this time of year, this is a time to not only be thankful for what we have, but to consider how those around us influence who we are, and how what we have, want, and need can make all the difference in our lives, both positively and negatively (but hopefully not so much of the latter). Take every experience in. Every moment is one to be cherished, even if it doesn't go just the way you might have hoped. This is because these moments, each and every one of them, make us who we are. They make us able to identify with others and not only sympathize, but empathize. They make us able to seize new moments and remember others fondly or not-so-fondly. These experiences can be used for mere moments of recollection or for more developed thinking as we write new stories, poems, or other forms of the written word. They can be used to capitalize on reading we are doing. Don't let any moment be wasted at this special time of year - or any time of year for that matter. They all carry too much weight, even if that weight isn't realized at first.

Beth Rodgers is the author of Freshman Fourteen, a young adult novel available on Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.