Trick or Treating: A life long lesson

I know it is December, not the time to be thinking about Halloween, but I am. I'm not thinking about Halloween itself but what it teaches us. I realized the other day that trick or treating is actually a life lesson disguised behind tradition and a mask. When we are young we go around knocking on strangers doors asking them for candy. We bounce on the balls of our feet while our parents make sure there isn't a needle or anything in our candy, which always seemed like a random acts of violence that never made much sense. If you are going to hurt someone, don't you want to see them in pain? Not the point though. After we get the all clear and binge on that sugary goodness we get sick. Our stomachs get very angry with us and we spend the next day rather sad. We still going tick or treating the next year though, but maybe this year we don't eat as much candy. Each year we get better and better about it until we eat a few pieces and then forget about the rest of the candy for most of the year.

How is this a lesson? We learn moderation. We learn that sometimes being a glutton is probably a really bad idea. How does this translate into our adult lives making it a life long lesson? It doesn't translate perfectly, but we have learned our limits for sugar. Later in life we turn 21 and drink for the first time. Some people remember this lesson from candy and drink heavily one or two times learning our limit for alcohol and then we are good. Or we don't even try to find our limit, we just enjoy a light drink here and there and are happy with that.

Moderation in everything, including moderation. The Greeks were hedonists, but they knew when the time was right to be a hedonist. They enjoyed life. That's the whole point. Being upset all the time does not make a good life, you need to enjoy the little things (in the words of Tallahassee) because someday that's all you may have. Are those moments of shear abandonment of our inhibitions when we just enjoy what is going on around us in that very moment. "Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. But today is a gift. That's why it's called the present"

So we enjoy those pieces of candy (or glasses of wine) because life isn't meant to be taken sitting down. Stand up and shout for joy! Play in the rain (even if you break out in hives *sweatdrop*) Because that moment may be your last of smiling. Life is a wheel and you never know when you'll be on the bottom.