Are you willing to forget what you have done for other people, and to remember what other people have done for you;
to ignore what the world owes you, and to think what you owe the world;
to put your rights in the background, and your duties in the middle distance, and your chances to do a little more than your duty in the foreground;
to see that your fellow-men are just as real as you are, and try to look behind their faces to their hearts, hungry for joy;
to own that probably the only good reason for your existence is not what you are going to get out of life, but what you are going to give to life;
to close your book of complaints against the management of the universe, and look around you for a place where you can sow a few seeds of happiness
–are you willing to do these things even for a day?
Then you can keep Christmas.
– Henry Van Dyke
Merry Christmas!
