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Veil Your Lollipop Part 2.
I don’t know who Marion Howard is. But long ago, I read what he said about life and it changed me forever. He said, “Life is like a blanket too short. You pull it up and your toes rebel, you yank it down and shivers meander about your shoulder; but cheerful folks manage to draw their knees up and pass a very comfortable night.”
To pass a comfortable night, Marion Howard said, you have to draw your knees up. That is what cheerful folks do. Now, you know that cheerful folk are not just those luck bastards who life dealt with better cards than you. They are not those that were blessed while you only got cursed. Cheerful folks are not those whose bread is buttered at both sides. Like you, those cheerful folks will also have their toes out in the cold if they want to cover their heads without bending their knees. They will equally have their shoulders in the cold if they are fanatical about covering their toes without bending their knees. What makes cheerful folks different from you is simply that they choose to draw their knees up. You have to make that choice. When you make that choice, you have to work on it to make it happen. Marion Howard said the cheerful folks “managed to.” You make the choice and work hard to make that happen. It is not easy to draw knees up after a long tiring day when all you wish to do is to straighten out and sleep.
The shrimp, a proverb says, is bent because of certain conditions. There is a wide assumption that we all want to be cheerful most of the time. After all, it has been noted that while it takes three muscles to smile, it takes over seventy-two muscles to frown. The more you frown the more wrinkles you have at old age. The reasons why we are not cheerful is because we do not know what it takes to be cheerful.
Irrespective of your station in life, the primary challenge is to squeeze out of this life more days when you were cheerful. It begins with a realization that it is a struggle everyone is engaged in – from the prince to the puppet, and the queen to the quarterback. Irrespective of one’s wealth, wisdom and willpower, everyone starts from the same baseline.
Though it may look like they have all things, you can be sure that Bill Gates, Queen Elizabeth 11, Brittney Spears all have to draw their knees up to pass a comfortable night. When they do not, they all have miserable nights just like you and me.
…. (to be continued )
