Every Christmas I am gifted a Hickory Farms summer sausage and cheese sampler (you know, the kind with the little mustards and strawberry candies inside?). Every New Years Eve, I devour a summer sausage and cheese sampler. It’s a tradition.

I like to sit on my comfortable couch in my nice home with my beautiful family in front of my big tv in my comfortable pajamas and enjoy an oversized plate of summer sausage and cheese. It is during this time I like to reflect on the year that I have had and appreciate everything that I have been given. I liken this event to the last meal given to an inmate on death row just before they flip the switch, only in reverse.

It is all too rare that I appreciate that all of my needs are met one-hundred percent of the time. It is almost never that I get completely quiet and think about all of the meals I haven’t missed, all of the family who has not fallen ill, all of the electric bills that have somehow been paid, and all of the vehicles that have managed to start to get me to the jobs that I have somehow managed to find to allow me to raise a family who allows me to be a part of their life and makes me so proud every single day.

Do I get a little overly sentimental when it comes to my sausage and cheese sampler?

Perhaps, yes.

Do I think that getting still and experiencing an overwhelming sense of gratitude for the good that is in my life has been a practice that has been detrimental to myself or those around me?

Not even a little bit.

I should find more reasons to pause, reflect, celebrate, and appreciate all of the good, interesting, challenging, rewarding, and difficult things in my life. I should find more opportunities to give thanks. I can’t think of anything healthier than taking the time to get still and express gratitude. There is no reason for me to reserve a satisfied and appreciative spirit for one meal out of the year when I can do it whenever I choose.

The solution is simple:

If I want to be emotionally healthy and spiritually fit, I should probably spend more time eating sausage and cheese samplers.

Peace, Love, and all things Beef related,

Beefcake