A major theme here at SMART Living 365 is to grow, evolve and try new things. With that in mind, Thom and I have been wanting to try our hand at creating a Vlog—that’s a Video Blog in case you’ve never heard of such a thing. Obviously we are new at this, so it is definitely an experiment. But isn’t all life an experiment? And if we aren’t learning and exploring new options, then what are we doing with our one wild and precious life? From that perspective we have nothing to lose. Our intention is to post one of these every month in place of a traditional blog post, and to keep the Vlog to about the same length of time it would take you to read one of my blog posts. We’re going to do our best to make it fun as well as informative! So here goes.
As some of you know, tomorrow December 21st is officially the shortest daytime of 2019 and the longest night of the year–The Winter Solstice. Then Sunday Evening marks the beginning of Hanukkah, followed by Christmas Day on the 25th and Kwanzaa on the 26th. There are a few other holidays in there as well but I think you get the idea. No matter how any of us celebrate, I tend to believe that we, like Lawrence Kushner says in this quote, are awaiting hope, possibility and whatever we call “The Light” to grow stronger. May each of us find it inside and outside of ourselves in the days to come.
Several years ago I wrote a novel entitled 
The other day my husband Thom and I were having lunch with a friend. That’s when Susie (not her real name) asked the question, “How do you cope?” Sure we were talking about a couple of troubling current events, but the question still surprised me. Why? Because I tend to think that most of the ideas I write about here on SMART Living touch on ways to cope and move forward in a positive way. That’s certainly the way I handle stress in my life. But clearly that option wasn’t helping Susie. Then later, I happened to pick up a new book I’d been offered to review and the answer became clearer. What I’ve come to realize is that there isn’t just one right way to cope with stress or trauma. Instead, like with any “rightsized topic,” we each need to find what works best for us and then work to allow it to bring us the comfort we seek.
Unfortunately, the short answer to that question is, “Not always.” While I usually start out my posts a little more optimistically, this idea has me wondering. Why? Because as I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I’ve been listening to a bunch of lectures by a man named 
This last week I happened to find and listen to an online interview of a woman named Karen Sands who calls herself a positive aging futurist. While I’ve never really thought of myself as a one, and I’m guessing you haven’t either, she made a convincing argument for why we should all at least think about it. Why? Because as I’ve written about before, and she confirmed in her own way, if we want to know where we are headed in life, having a clear destination is critical. That doesn’t mean you can’t adjust or change as life unfolds. But it does offer a target that will likely include a future we want to experience.