What has happened to me has been the very reverse of what appears to be the experience of most of my friends. Instead of dwindling to a point, Santa Claus has grown larger and larger in my life until he fills almost the whole of it. It happened this way. As a child I was faced with a phenomenon requiring explanation. I hung up at the end of my bed an empty stocking, which in the morning became a full stocking. I had done nothing to produce the things that filled it. I had not worked for them, or made them or helped to make them. I had not even been good-far from it. And the explanation was that a certain being whom people called Santa Claus was benevolently disposed toward me. What we believed was that a certain benevolent agency did give us those toys for nothing. And, as I say, I believe it still. I have merely extended the idea. Then I only wondered who put the toys in the stocking; now I wonder who put the stocking by the bed, and the bed in the room, and the room in the house, and the house on the planet, and the great planet in the void. Once I only thanked Santa Claus for a few dolls and crackers; now I thank him for stars and street faces and wine and the great sea. Once I thought it delightful and astonishing to find a present so big that it only went halfway into the stocking. Now I am delighted and astonished every morning to find a present so big that it takes two stockings to hold it and then leaves a great deal outside; it is the large and preposterous present of myself, as to the origin of which I can offer no suggestion except that Santa Claus gave it to me in a fit of peculiarly fantastic goodwill.

G. K. Chesterton

This is a long remembered quotation that I spent most of the month looking for and found only now.

So, the New Year not yet arrived, I’ve begun incorporating my resolutions into life a little early. Overcoming fear and doubt are perhaps rather ambiguous goals, but if living with a generalized anxiety of failure is possible, I assume the opposite, living with a generalized sense of purpose and accomplishment, is also possible. Yes, anything and everything is possible!

Michael Rost suffered a brain injury in a car crash. These days, he's adopted the motto "everything is possible," and is preparing to set out on a cross-country trip to raise money for brain injury research. This message of support on the CoTradeCo web site pretty much summarizes my attitude, too. It's a delicate balance though; I sometimes think I see too much attention paid to physical activity. I wish more people could understand and appreciate that just choosing to survive is sometimes a heroic act.