From the pages of
The Sublette County Journal
Volume 5, Number 13 - 11/22/00
brought to you online by Pinedale Online


Mold Your Clay

by Mary Lankford

Everyone is given one life to live. A Good Life comes from the ability to mold that life into one that you want to live. Life's experiences and challenges, whether they are good or bad, are the clay for molding a Good Life.

A Good Life is not a perfect life. I would expect a perfect life to include all the money, time, talent, people, material objects, and love that a person could ever desire. A Good Life might not include many of these things. It will include death, separation, indecision, failure, poverty, and sorrow. Experiencing pain and loss makes you appreciate the good things in your life. It provides the wisdom to face adversity with greater strength.

A Good Life should have excitement, adventure, success, friends, and joy. A Good Life does not require fame or fortune, but satisfaction and happiness. Satisfaction is striving to attain your goals. Happiness comes from satisfaction and appreciation of the things that you have acquired and goals that you have attained. Happiness comes from doing things for others.

A Good Life is working hard, so that you can play hard. It is forging an existence in a place where you want to live, having a family, raising your family, and living a healthy life. You just can't flap in the wind. You have to take risks and make commitments. It includes a mortgage, a car payment, concerns about your health and your family's, and flowers on your birthday.

Playing hard. You have to play hard to have a Good Life. Playing soft is cheating yourself. Playing hard is a great day of snowmachining, or a week in the Wind Rivers on a pack trip with your family, or New Year's Day in Pasadena watching 500+ kids from Wyoming, including your son and god-daughter, marching in the 2000 Rose Parade. It's skiing all day and going to movies all night.


What is my Good Life? It is living in Pinedale and in Wyoming, and working for the people of Sublette County. It is being married to a solid, kind, and gentle man, who unconditionally supports my wild ideas and me, and I him. It is being a mother, my toughest challenge in life. It is a teenaged son who was a true gift from God, who each day makes me very proud. It is having friends and pets, and toys and talents.

What would I do to improve my Good Life? I can be selfish and arrogant. I can be ungrateful. I need to continue to work on my Good Life. I need to be supportive, thankful, and humble. It is my responsibility to continue to mold my Good Life. Like clay, if it just sits, it will dry out and lose its shape.

A Good Life is the life you would love to live. It's there, so just go get it. Take responsiblity, take risks, make commitments, work and play hard, and mold your Good Life. Why would you live a life that you didn't love, when you have the ability to mold it into your Good Life?

Photo credits:  Sue Sommers, Sue Sommers

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The Sublette County Journal, PO Box 3010, Pinedale, WY 82941   Phone 307-367-3713
Publisher/Editor: Rob Shaul   editor@scjonline.com