In Her Book, Celebrate Joy! Velma Seawell ...

In her book, Celebrate Joy! Velma Seawell Daniels gives a striking new meaning to this familiar phrase. She tells of interviewing a man who had made a trip to Alaska to visit people who live above the Arctic Circle. "Never ask an Eskimo how old he is," the man said. "If you do, he will say, "I don’t know and I don’t care." And he doesn’t. One of them told me that, and I pressed him a bit further. When I asked him the second time, he said, "Almost - that’s all." That still wasn’t good enough for me, so I asked him "Almost what?" and he said, "Almost one day." Mrs. Daniels asked him if he could figure out what the Eskimo meant. He answered that he did but only after talking to another man who had lived in the Arctic Circle for about twenty years. "He was a newspaperman who had written a book about the Eskimos and their customs and beliefs. He said the Eskimos believe that when they go to sleep at night they die - that they are dead to the world. Then, when they wake up in the morning, they have been resurrected and are living a new life. Therefore, no Eskimo is more than one day old. So, that is what the Eskimo meant when he said he was `almost’ a day old. The day wasn’t over yet." "Life above the Arctic Circle is harsh and cruel, and mere survival becomes a major accomplishment," he explained. "But, you never see an Eskimo who seems worried or anxious. They have learned to face one day at a time." Have you learned how to put worry and anxiety aside and live one day at a time? Today is the first day of the rest of your life.