What Do You Want… From your holidays?

This post first appeared on my other Substack, "What Do You Want?" so some of you may recognize it. Merry Christmas to all my tech friends and readers, and may you enjoy a happy & prosperous new year.

For some, the December holidays are a time to celebrate the birth of the son of God. For others, its time to commemorate the miracle of one day’s supply of oil lasting for eight. Some celebrate the arrival of the enlightenment of their spiritual and inspirational leader. Still others celebrate the harvest festival. When you say “Happy Holidays” you’re speaking to wide kaleidoscope of beliefs, hopes, and faiths.

Beyond that, there are literally hundreds of other special days in December and you can see a list on the Today Show website. There’s bound to be one or more just for you!

New Year’s Eve is a December Holiday Too

During November many years ago, a colleague explained to me that Thanksgiving began a period he called “Fool’s Paradise.” “Nothing happens during Fool’s Paradise,” he explained. “No one gets hired, no one gets fired, everything just moves along until the new year.” He then suggested that disasters waited for January.

More recently, though, it seems Fool’s Paradise has faded away. All too many people lose their employment as part of end-of-year budget reductions. People work harder during the holidays than ever before because they have to. For some, the times just don’t seem as joyous as they once did.

New Year’s Eve is a special December holiday, however, because it represents a time both of beginnings and ends. If the prior year was brutal, you wish it good riddance with hopes for better times ahead. If it was a good year, you hope to see it continue into the next and only get better. The skids of optimism are well-greased on New Year’s Eve.

Is What You Want Based on Where You Are?

Where you are can be seen in a few different contexts. Where you are in your life is something many think of all the time, but often with mixed emotions. Where you physically are is also important given that you may be far from home or far from loved ones. Where once you may have spent every holiday in the company of family and friends, perhaps you are now in a time of your life where family is now far-flung and can no longer gather in one place. Or perhaps you are estranged from family members for any of a million reasons.

Where you are in the course of your lifetime is also to be considered. You may have now reached an advanced age where many of your family and friends are no longer with us. If you’ve had the good fortune to outlive many of them, the holidays may turn that into poor fortune and bring sadness.

You may encounter the arrival of the new year as a time of great hope, a time filled with promise. Or you might see it as just more of the same old same old. Some see great new opportunities while others see just more of the same old challenges or the addition of new challenges. Or both.

Maybe… Just Maybe It’s Not About You

Just as at any other moment in your life, the holidays are a time to make choices. You can choose to be miserable. Misery is easy. Or you can choose to find the joy, or create the joy.

It’s a time of giving. Ask yourself what you’re giving to those around you. They may not be family. They may not even be friends. They may not even be people you know. But one of the great constant truths is that it is always better to give to receive and, this may surprise you, it always feels better to give.

Give Thanks

During the holidays, take the time to thank those who gave you the opportunity to give help to them during the year. They gave you the opportunity to feel wonderful about yourself, and that’s among the best gifts of all. Thank those who asked for your help or advice for giving you the opportunity to have been of some value to them.

Of course, you’ll want to thank those who did for you as well. They may simply be people who treated you with respect and dignity when you were shopping in their store, or dining in their restaurant. Or people whose homes you visited and felt welcome. People who treated you with grace. Grace has sadly been on the decline for many years, but there are still people who demonstrate how much they value graceful treatment by and for others.

Give What You Can and You May Find What You Want

At any moment in human history there have been those who are in need. There may be people you know who need the same things you do, or different things. There are certainly many animals who are in need, sometimes dire need. It is all too easy, in a comfortable life, to fail to register the abject misery and suffering of others. But when we do acknowledge it, and even moreso when we do something about it, we get the one thing everybody wants. We get to feel good.

Giving takes many forms. Make the decision to make the holidays a time of giving and don’t be surprised to find you’ve actually gotten what you wanted most.

Happy Holidays!