A Christmas Carol

No, it's not turning into Lorena's Favorite Christmas Movies Week (although ACC ranks there--especially the George C. Scott verions, which I've been known to watch multiple times in one season, taking breaks only to see Patrick Stewart in the role). Or favorite novels, either, although I do feel obligated to point out this factoid which I saw on the news the other night: A Christmas Carol took all of six weeks to write.

I am officially jealous of Charles Dickens. The more so, because it's freezing here (it's last winter all over again!), and so I can really relate to the whole London in winter general ickiness.

But really, it's not about that. The theme for the week seems to be shaping itself into choices--intentional or accidental--and how they shape our (and others') lives.

Which is what A Christmas Carol is about. Sure, it looks like it's about friendship and love and generosity (hmm, similar themes in It's a Wonderful Life...), but it's really about living life to the best of our ability, doing what we need to do to protect ourselves, and when we have the chance to see what it might be if we hadn't done it that way (George, looking at what would have happened if he hadn't been born)...or what it might be if we keep going the way we are (Scrooge), and CHOOSING to do things differently--or from a different perspective--than we've been in the past.

Later this week or early next, I'll post the article I just finished writing for the company newsletter on New Year's resolutions. There's just one question I want to leave you with, that forms--I think--the base from which we can make these kinds of decisions. It's the question George and Ebenezer both ask through these two movies: what would I do differently?

This question isn't necessarily a look back and saying I should have done everything differently: it may be a simple jumping off point for the next path, or the next year's projects / plans: I had a great year, what would I do differently this year to take it higher and deeper. That's what we want our lives to be about, right--higher and deeper and bigger and braver?