I was sitting at a stop light the other day after having been in the hospital for a CT scan. It was a long boring day with a little pain and horrible hospital food for lunch…But there was a bright light in the morning, having gotten stuck in the snow on the corner of a busy street.

Normally, I wouldn’t consider this a good thing especially since I had an appointment to get to. But two men got out of their cars and pushed me out of the snow, sending me on my way to the hospital for my appointment. Others, including a dressed up couple in their 60’s who were also getting out of their vehicles to help if needed.

I waved to them all and went on my way, having gotten enough traction to continue my journey.

As I sat at the stop light on my way home, thought about the nice people I ran into when I got stuck in the snow earlier in the morning…And I looked around at the passing cars and the faces on the other side of the windows. We often don’t think of these drivers as people. We think of them as the “idiot” in the white Kia who cut us off or the “moron” in the red Jeep who was driving too fast. I notice the dogs in the vehicles since I love dogs but I don’t usually look at the faces of the drivers.

I started thinking about different things that are going on in my life and the heath challenges that come with old age that are causing my head to spin as I look into the abyss of me and my husband getting older. I thought about all of the small things and bigger things our little family of me, my husband, my cat and my dog are dealing with. I thought about friends and family who are going through health and other issues.

As I looked a the faces of the people driving by, I realized that there is a circus going on with each and every one of us. We are all trying to juggle things in our lives and take on the incoming arrows of life – health stuff, financial things, work issues, relationship issues, emotional problems and more.

Then add to that, things going on in our communities, states and the federal government, adding on even more stress. We have tax increases, crime and other issues to deal with BECAUSE of the government – because they certainly doesn’t ever do anything to make our lives easier or better. That’s for sure.

I thought about my own circus and as I looked around at the faces passing me by, I realized that every face that I saw has about 100 things going on in their lives just like I do. 100 worries, challenges, opportunities, etc. But a few of those faces took five minutes out of their lives to help push me out of the snow regardless of their morning plans.

That’s why we have to give each other love and patience when we can. And help each other out so we can move on with our day. Maybe just give someone a smile if that’s all we can muster. Help others, be kind, support our inner circle (and our outer circle), educate ourselves, eat better, exercise a little, lean on God…All the stuff we learned in kindergarten.

So as one of my best friends likes to say, “Be happy on purpose” – because life is short so we have to make the best of it and hold onto happiness where we can find it. And make it ourselves if we can’t.

Because there’s a whole lotta sh*t going on. And our own circus is just one of many.