Pennies from heaven

See a penny; pick it up. All that day you'll have good luck.

I am an incorrigible penny-picker-upper. It makes me smile to find money on the ground, even in that smallest denomination, because I view it as a good luck symbol. It's part of my optimist nature, but it's even more than that: I choose to look for signs that life is good and to indulge myself in a smile when I see them.

A year or so ago, I decided I needed another harbinger of good luck and settled on stray bobby pins. I refrain from picking them up, but spying one on the floor of a parking garage or sidewalk or in a locker room shower at the gym gives me the same little lift as a found penny. "It's going to be a good day," I promise myself.

Not finding a penny or not seeing a forgotten bobby pin on the ground doesn't make it a bad day. It's the expectation of good fortune that sets my outlook. I try to start out every day fully intending to experience God's blessings in my life. Lucky charms that cross my path are just my personal reminders that life is good.

Rallying the troops

The farther each day carries me from my surgery last February, the harder it is to remember my ordeal with Cancer 2.0. It is a wonderful blessing, but I really don't want to forget what I went through, and I especially don't want to let down my guard against a recurrence.

That is why I like to take time every day to focus inward to keep my defenses strong and ready. I lay quietly with my hands on my abdomen, directing energy to the area where the tumor sprouted and grew in the fall of 2008. Then I picture myself standing tall as an army general, Patton-like, calling my troops to battle. My mantra goes something like this:

"Attention: Anti-cancer cells! Cancer-fighting crusaders! Pick-axing angels! Your assignment, now and forever, is to seek out and destroy any and all cancer cells in my body.

"Do not let them multiply! Do not let them establish a foothold or gain any ground. Find them wherever they may be, and kill them on contact. Take no prisoners, but destroy them immediately!

"Is that clear? Alright. Now go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go!"

Some people believe there really is power and healing in how we direct our thoughts. I don't need scientific proof to know this regular reveille helps maintain my outlook that the cancer won't return.

Resolved

I think we've got this New Year's resolutions thing backwards. By making resolutions at the beginning of the year, it's like we slap our worst flaws on a neon sign and then announce to the world what we are likely to fail at in the coming year.

If you are really committed to doing whatever it is that you "resolve" to do in the new year, wouldn't you have done it already? And if something really is a resolution, doesn't that word mean a problem has already been fixed?

Instead, as one year winds down and we plow toward the next, we continue the bad behaviors and problem habits that we swear we're going to address as we flip the calendar over.

My New Year's Day thoughts played with this notion yesterday. What if we instead celebrate the fresh new calendar by acknowledging our successes of the previous year? Wouldn't that give us extra momentum to deal with our shortcomings throughout the year so that we really will have new victories to hail with the new year?

For me, 2010 begins with a celebration of the challenge from 2008 and 2009 that has been resolved -- my Cancer 2.0. With that behind me, the possibilities of this coming year are endless.