Celebrate – Appreciation Magic

Appreciating what’s going right is really like a celebration. If you want to amp up your vibe and mood everyday, look for things to celebrate. No matter how small, celebrations are good for you! Don’t spend too much time looking at what’s going wrong or you’ll get stuck there, leaving you in a negative mood or even depressed.

This week, I’ve seen some things worth celebrating that I’ll share with you here.

1. More than 150 labs are working worldwide to develop a vaccine for COVID-19. While still far from a solution, 23 of them are using human trials, including the news from Moderna involving a small human trial. I appreciate all these researchers working on a solution for this worldwide pandemic and the people who are participating in the human trials for the greater good of mankind!

2. I appreciate hearing about Phase 3 of a study on a new drug called REGN-COV2 at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. This new drug blocks the COVID-19 virus from infecting a person’s cells, which can slow the disease and protect its severity. I appreciate all these researchers around the world working on various solutions to lessen the effect of this public health crisis and the volunteers who are testing everything! They’re heroes in my book!

3. Ruth Bader Ginsberg was released from the hospital. She’s a strong, resilient and inspiring woman and I’m so happy she’s out of the hospital. My country needs her!

4. The Trump administration dropped its restriction for international students and online learning, allowing them to take online courses for the fall, and saving them from having to leave the country or transfer to someplace where there’ll be face-to-face learning. I so appreciate MIT and Harvard for bringing the lawsuit forward and the international education community who expressed outrage to the proposed new policy, as well as various states and cities who joined in. The backlash forced the administration to drop the policy altogether! International students bring so much enrichment to US campuses and I appreciate that they can stay.

5. Some people have been fortunate enough to see Comet NEOWISE across the skies. I personally haven’t seen it but I’ve always loved looking at the sky and seeing the marvels of space. There’s so much beauty up there!

6. Walmart, Sam’s Club, Kroger, Kohl’s, Best Buy, Apple, Costco, Starbucks and others require customers to wear masks in their stores. The number of businesses growing with this trend is good for everyone. While I’d prefer to see people voluntarily wear masks in public and more leadership to require it, I applaud the businesses who are trying to help make our society healthier.

7. Speaking of wearing masks, did you see this display of 300 drones in South Korea to thank frontline workers and remind people of the importance of wearing masks and maintaining social distancing? What a beautiful display!

8. I bought my cats a new toy yesterday and it is providing hours of entertainment. This one is an interactive one, so I play with them. I appreciate it when I can get something they like and actually use (unlike the several “beds” I’ve bought that they don’t use. They prefer boxes!) Ha!

9. I saw this morning a report that Rice University will conduct some classes outside, using tents and social distancing with students bringing their own chairs. I do appreciate the creativity that’s coming forth from these times and wish them all the best. Let’s hope it doesn’t storm much!

10. Today is “Iowa Day” on the Big Ten Network. That’s always something I celebrate! Go Hawkeyes!

The Powerball lottery jackpot is expected to reach around 1.3 billion dollars this week, the highest in all the world’s history of lotteries. When you talk to people, there’s excitement in the air with people dreaming and sharing what they’d do with their winnings. You also hear the nay-sayers, too, who point out the odds of winning. Those nay-sayers are my unwanted contrast and a reminder that I love to bask in the feeling of fun, excitement and celebration of winning. Feelings of excitement for what is to come and for the possibilities of realizing dreams is what makes playing the lottery fun for me. It unites strangers in conversations that otherwise wouldn’t have happened. I see clerks smiling and laughing as they give out tickets, too. Everyone is talking about it, so people are more engaged with each other. That’s such a good thing to see and feel. I appreciate how the possibility of winning a lottery jackpot brings people together in a vibe of excitement, joy and fun.

When I turn on my TV or am on the internet, I hear and see stories of past lottery winners who either lost it all or are in debt. I’m really tired of hearing these negative stories! Aren’t you? Wouldn’t it be nice to focus on stories of all those people who have won the lottery that are doing quite well? Wouldn’t it be nice to hear their stories of how they paid off their debts, set their families up in an abundance of financial security, took their dream vacations of a lifetime, bought a house, gave generously to causes they care about and other success stories?

Pointing out the odds and focusing on the people for whom handling all that financial abundance didn’t go so well is taking away from the good vibes of excitement, fun, and the joy of winning. It creates doubts, fears or a let-down, frankly, if you allow others to influence you about your chances of realizing any of your dreams, whether it’s winning the lottery or going for that dream job, for example.

Instead, let’s celebrate the winners! Let’s celebrate that we are in it to win it! After all, you have to play in order to win. Let’s celebrate that we have the finances to play and be happy if we win or not! Let’s not judge who wins or wish for a group to win it, as opposed to an individual. In law of attraction terms, that’s splitting up your energy of being happy only for certain people, so you can’t possibly attract pure joy in that. Let’s be happy for whoever wins! Let’s celebrate the joys we’ve had in the journey of playing the lottery and be happy, no matter the result.

We’ll all be happier when we quit casting doubts and fears about our chances in life, when we quit feeling jealous of what others have and we find a way to celebrate the little things in our lives and exercise our imagination about what is possible. Appreciation is our best friend for happiness. I celebrate whenever I find money, even a penny I find on the ground. I celebrate I have the funds to pay my bills, too.

So celebrate and appreciate where you’re at right now. With the lottery jackpot being so high, I celebrate that I can stretch my imagination of what I’d do with all that money and stretching my imagination is something to celebrate! I’m appreciating and savoring the fun in all of this, just as I do when I find a penny on the ground. And if you can’t feel excitement for finding a penny, I suggest you start a daily habit of appreciating. When you appreciate daily, you may just find more pennies or a dime. Or maybe that lottery jackpot! Can you imagine? I can!

So let’s have fun and celebrate the lottery winners, no matter what!