Children don’t like to be mistreated by their parents. Parents, being people, don’t like being mistreated, either. Your new Parent is still very new. Treat it with courtesy and respect and with acceptance and love, and you will be treated the same. Your life will be richer, your liberty more extensive, your success and happiness greater.

As you continue to become more integrated and whole, each part of you will need positive reinforcement. You will need opportunities for joy and laughter as well as intellectual challenges that will stretch your mind. You will need friends who are fun and thoughtful and nourishing and sometimes you will need to celebrate with them.

Although life contains inevitable suffering, it can also be like a movable feast where each day you discover something large or small that calls for celebration. The causes are innumerable: sunrises and sunsets, moonlight and stars, the first spring flowers or first fall of snow, the call of the wild geese, the sound of the surf, the smell of the prairie, the crackle of a fire on the hearth, the touch of soft wind on the skin, the sweet taste of melon in your mouth. This sensory delights cost little—only awareness and the decision to enjoy them.

There are other causes for celebration that are interpersonal and include a more complex and satisfying response than the mere celebration of the senses: the snap of a fish on the line, the welcoming bark of a dog, the loving smile from a child, the unexpected letter from a friend.

There are moments when you may spontaneously celebrate alone. Finding your glasses or date book that had been lost for a week is something to cheer about. So is finding yourself and your uniqueness.

Celebrating may be a simple, brief moment and cost nothing, like hugging yourself or phoning a friend. It may be experienced as a high moment of delight or as a short prayer of relief and thanksgiving. You may choose to celebrate with a party or a vacation.

Whatever the cause of your happiness, time and space will be irrelevant when the moments occur. The past and future will be felt in the present. So, if you consider your life as a whole, and the liberty you have to enjoy it as being like a movable feast, your moments of happiness will increase and so will your reasons to celebrate.

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