It is so cute how much my 7-year-old daughter wants to believe in Santa Claus. This year she is flat out picking her gift from a catalog, she has heard from friends that the man in the red suit isn't real, and, honestly, she is getting to be old enough to know better. One day she asked me: "Mom, is he real?" Not wanting to break her little heart I answered with the getaway-from-a-straight-answer: "What do YOU think?" and she said: "I think he is real" and then went on to writing her annual letter to Santa, making sure she enclosed the cutout from a Target catalog. That made me wonder how we all, kids and adults alike, sometimes desperately want to believe in things we know are not true. We all tell ourselves things to soothe the heart when the mind long knows it's impossible. It got me thinking about faith and both sides of being able to believe in what we can't fully understand. There's the obvious, blind faith that some religions and fake gurus prey on. Those desperately wanting to believe something so hard, lose sight of themselves in the process. People who deposit their souls, their trust, their money on others only to get abused by power and greed. But there's also the good side, those who regardless of any proof, believe that they can accomplish amazing things and end up doing so. Without seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, enter it anyway, only to come out stronger on the other side.
I'm a hopeless optimistic so I'm prone to have the kind of faith that wishes good will always prevail. I believe in affirmations and the power of positivity and prayer. I don't believe in Santa but I believe that each of us has the power to create a better ending to our own stories. I don't believe in Santa but I believe in people and their amazing strength and kindness. I don't believe in Santa but I believe in YOU. Namaste, Joana
