The Concept of Celebration

There was a friend I had.

We started out as friends in seventh grade. We were both artists and a little different from the usual crowd. We found connection through our art and being rather social pariahs.

Years passed and we changed. I moved. A lot. She stayed home. I struggled through college, 3-4 jobs at a time, marriage, more moves and lack of time to focus on the things I was passionate about.

She struggled to help out home and work on her art.

I envied her. So much. I wanted that kind of time. I wanted to have so much security to be provided for me that all I really needed to do was focus on my love- art.

More years have tempered those feelings. We are no longer what I'd call friends. Not by my choice, but hers.

I still get to see her art. She can still see mine. In some ways, she is ahead of me. In others, I am ahead of her.

What I've discovered is thus- celebrate.

Look at the people around you not as your competition, but as your family. In the LDS church, there is the concept that we are all God's children, ere go, we are all spiritual brothers and sisters.

I know when people in my family succeed, I celebrate with them. I celebrated my brother and his sobriety. My sister and her going to college for the first time. The jobs they acquire. The families they have. I congratulated and helped where I could. There were no feelings of envy, even if sometimes they were doing things I really wished I was. It was celebrating that they got to do it. Through the connection we had as family, their victory was mine as well.

We are all connected. No matter how tenuous we may feel it is, its there.

I say celebrate what others are doing! Let it drive us to do better in our own lives if we need to improve and if it is something we've conquered, remember the time we had when were at that place in our lives.

So, I celebrate this artist. He does work in a size I want to get to. I love that he is able to do what wants, I hope you enjoy looking at his work and that he may always be supported in it.

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Thank you Iroel, for sharing your soul.