The Glad Game

Ever heard of Pollyanna? Seen the movie? Read the book? I promise this extraordinary 11 year old girl will bring a smile to your face. She is a gem and I think her character has changed my life. Not even kidding. Sometimes we can get caught up in our grown up world and forget and lose sight of the things that are important and make us happy. I know more often than not I tend to let little things ruin my day or I'll get grouchy over something that I could have easily ignored. Well, miss Pollyanna lives her life in such a way that I think everyone could learn from. Pollyanna plays a game. She calls it the glad game. It's where she adapts a optimistic outlook on everything in life. Pollyanna tells how this game was invented by her father after her parents who were super poor had requested that one of their supporting churches send a doll for their daughter. When the package arrives however, it was not a doll but instead a set of crutches. Pollyanna is first disappointed but her father decided that they must look for something to be glad about for the crutches - and they had decided that they were glad they didn't need to use them. After that it became a regular game for them, and even after her parents die, Pollyanna continues to look for something to be glad about in everything that comes her way. When she moves in with her snobby aunt Polly she shares this game with her and the whole town. Her attitude becomes contagious and she practically saves the town. She is one happy little gal and even when the worst comes her way and she is put in bad situations she chooses to be glad and find the good. It's such a simple way for her to live her life, but it makes a huge impact not only in her own life but in those around her.

(Quote from "Pollyanna" by Eleanor H. Porter)

"Oh, but Aunt Polly, Aunt Polly, you haven't left me any time at all just to—to live."
"To live, child! What do you mean? As if you weren't living all the time!"
"Oh, of course I'd be BREATHING all the time I was doing those things, Aunt Polly, but I wouldn't be living. You breathe all the time you're asleep, but you aren't living. I mean living—doing the things you want to do: playing outdoors, reading (to myself, of course), climbing hills, talking to Mr. Tom in the garden, and Nancy, and finding out all about the houses and the people and everything everywhere all through the perfectly lovely streets I came through yesterday. That's what I call living, Aunt Polly. Just breathing isn't living!"


So this week I've been thinking a lot about this "glad game" and realized I could use this philosophy in my own life. It has been lingering in the back of my mind all week and for some reason I have been really happy this week. I think I've been a little more kind, outgoing, confident and less grouchy. Just more glad all the time for the life I have been blessed with. It's not always perfect and there are things I dont like.. (aka my family moving to Texas) but this glad game has helped me come to peace with it and I've been able to look for the good in it.

So anyways, I guess my point I'm trying to get across is that maybe we should all have a little Pollyanna in us.