From the Sidelines – Bringing in the New Year with nothing but optimism

It was right back to work for me on Friday, Jan. 2, and I could not have been any happier.

In fact, I was down right grateful to have a job to get to. With all the talk of financial crisis going on in the news and people losing their jobs to layoffs and budget cuts due to the current economic meltdown, I was simply glad to be employed.

Too many good folks lost

almost everything they had in 2008. Many lost everything they had accumulated through the years and some even lost the house they kept all their stuff in, eventually.

Thank God my family and I have not had to sacrifice too many of our creature comforts.

My family and I still have our home. We still have our own transportation. We are lucky enough to be able to pay our bills and most importantly, we have not lost faith in our ability to adapt to any and all situations.

“This too shall pass,” says the Good Book and all we have to do is hang on tight to our faith in God. (I know there may be some out there who do not believe in God, if so disregard this message and continue believing what you believe and feel free to worship as you wish. This message is intended to create optimism and nothing else. I am not evangelizing or recruiting souls for the army of God. I am simply trying to give hope to folks who may be in need of a bit of encouragement. Please accept my apology and…ahh…may the force be with you.)

Where was I? Oh, holding on to our faith in God or anything greater than our mere mortal selves. Yeah, that was it.

Anyway, what I was trying to say was, we need to believe that things will get better. Sure, we have to pray a bit harder and perhaps hustle a little more than we did before, but more than anything else, we need to stay positive. We need to keep looking forward and stay strong. We need to maintain a healthy, optimistic view of our world and keep faith in the good people around us and ourselves.

All we really need to do is choose to be happy. The state of the economy will continue to fluctuate regardless of our attempts to control it. We can only control our own finances and in this financial climate, it would benefit us greatly to be thrifty. Some may benefit more if they attempted to be frugal, but it is entirely up to the individual.
I don’t have any advice on how to manage other people’s money. I can only share my personal philosophy and if it works for others, great. What I do is simple. If I have the money on hand to get what I need or think I need, I buy it. If I don’t have enough money to afford what I think I need, I don’t get it. It is that simple.

What I do feel confident about sharing with others is how a positive attitude, an enthusiastic approach to life in general and an overall optimistic outlook is worth more than anything which can be purchased and it is free!
Being happy is a choice. You cannot buy happiness. You can only buy things. Your state of mind is not to be bought or sold. It is up to you to decide how you will live the next three hundred and sixty-something days remaining in this New Year.

I chose to be happy in 2009 and it is costing me absolutely nothing.

agarza@post-register.com