'Tis the season of giving.

Yet, what have I given? In recent years I have acquiesced to the idea of actually giving things in the spirit of the holiday, having been somewhat oddly opposed to the idea of setting a time apart specifically for giving from the rest of the year for as long as I can remember, but I am not entirely sure how much I have really embraced it. I consider myself a fairly poor fellow, financially speaking, but have certainly the means to dig quite a bit deeper into my pockets at this time of year. Doing so would definitely represent the greater sacrifice expressed in the season's deeper meanings. In any case, I definitely feel like I am given much more than I give. I love my family and friends and I offer them my time as often as I can(which, while also on the somewhat sparse side these days, might be the truest form of gift-giving love) but that is not enough. There is always more to be given. And, to whomever takes a moment to read this, whether I know you well or not, I hope you have a great holiday season! You are all basically anonymous to me as I write this(and perhaps forever) but I do write this with the idea that what I write could be somehow beneficial to anybody who might read it. Some of it in the hope that it will reach my(hopefully) future children, wife and family... but I am aware that I might have friends poke in along the way and I take the opportunity of sharing a little piece of myself, a little piece of my life's experience, also bearing a similar hope that by doing so I have somehow given a few beneficial words to the cause of creating a better life. We all connect through communication in one way or another and this is one of my consistently self-disciplined ways of doing it... one paragraph-a-day at a time.