It seems to me that a lot of folks are asking each other an oft-asked question, but with a new, genuine sincerity. “How ya doin’?” has become “How are you doing?”  I think it is a sign of the times, stressful and crazy as they are. In the 1950s, Eddie Lawrence had a comedy routine called “The Old Philosopher” that presented a litany of improbable calamities followed by motivational encouragement. People of today can relate, though the challenges are on a grander, and more realistic, scale.  Troubles have always been, and always will be, part of life; how we look at them is critical.

I remember my dad’s response when people asked him how things were going. “Life is grand.” To the best of my recollection, he almost always acted as if he believed the statement to be true. He wasn’t naïve about challenges and disappointments; those things aside, life was grand.

Dad grew up poor; he and mom married during the Great Depression; he went through several jobs before landing on his lifelong profession as an accountant; he and mom lost their first daughter to leukemia when she was five; dad battled alcohol, sometimes victorious and sometimes vanquished; he survived throat cancer when the treatments were fairly primitive compared to today’s methods; he survived a heart attack. Dad’s life was not easy. Anyone who asked would not hear about the list I cited but would hear “Life is grand.”

How we respond to life’s challenges has a lot to do with how those challenges affect our mindset and happiness. How we respond also affects how others respond to the challenges they face. We owe it to ourselves to take a positive view, and we are a blessing to others when we do.