It’s a great time of year!  It’s a happy time of year – if you can see and count your blessings.

I am starting to receive Christmas cards from friends and relatives.  Like the greetings I will soon send, many of the notes I receive contain reflections on the year past.  Hearts are warmed by the love of friends and family. In light of the blessings experienced in those relationships, most worries fade into the shadows.  That’s what I see, and it’s what Angus Deaton, Ph.D., a renowned economist, and Daniel Kahneman, Ph.D., a Nobel prize-winning psychologist found in their research.  People who meet realistic life goals, who have enriching friendships, and who earn a “reasonable” income experience happiness.

Though life may not be all you hoped it would be – yet,  you can experience happiness if you manage to see that you have been blessed by what counts the most.  Contentment arrives wrapped in relationships – relationships with friends, family, and your creator.  That’s a gift available to all who care to open it.