The great gift season has arrived when we all try to determine what brings happiness. Most people seem to believe that the amount of money we have makes a great deal of difference in our happiness. I think money can enhance happiness, but it cannot provide happiness. The old saying goes, "I've been rich and I've been poor, rich is better." Being rich is better, compared to being poor, in and of itself. That's all. Some of my happiest days came when I was very poor.

During college days, I lived hand to mouth, working to make ends meet in the final years, yet I knew joy, pure joy. I found joy in learning, standing in line for an early morning English class where a professor named Gadjusek inspired me to write my heart out; joy in sitting up half the night with roommates, discovering how interrelated history and literature and economics are; joy in friendships, still in place today. I fell in love with the city, our nation's capital; with the University - George Washington, just 4 blocks from the White House; with my sorority and a fraternity; with a few boys becoming men; and with my own potential.

One gift stands out in my mind from those years. A friend handed me ten dollars and said, "Merry Christmas." She was a casual friend and not one I planned to exchange gifts with, let alone cash. My puzzled look prompted her to say, "Just because I have it and you don't." Ten dollars was a lot more then than it is today and I was able to buy several gifts for others with her one gift to me. How much that money meant to me when I had none! As I've grown less poor over the years, my greatest happiness has been in sharing with others as she did with me.

After college and early career years, I found joy in making a home as a full time wife and mother. I found it in everyday tasks - making floors sparkle, creating meals, planting a very small vegetable garden. There was joy in pushing a baby carriage, in picking out a puppy, and in feeding ducks. There was joy in conversations into the wee hours, planning a future, growing a business. It is not the destination that spells success, it is in our everyday lives when we keep on a track that has meaning to us.

During these years, it was another kind of gift I remember receiving - the gift of time. Young mothers have little time to themselves just to shop or read a book or do absolutely nothing alone! My mother-in-law used to lend me her car and babysit while I went out - a wonderful destination.

As we journey through life, we often find our road maps change. That's just life. I've lived the saying that life is what happens while we're making another plan. Some road maps change because marriage becomes divorce, sometimes even remarriage. Some change when a parent, spouse, or child dies. Sometimes careers take an unexpected turn. Downsizing corporations have created many an entrepreneurial business, changing lives from what seemed a lifetime of security to total dependency on one's own business.

My life has taken some turns that were difficult for me. While I was trying to find the new roads, great gifts were offered to me by those who loved me enough to give me encouragement and believe in me. Some of those people were my beloved family and dear friends, some barely knew me.

How very much kind words meant to me in my darkest hours. I strive now to be for others what those people were for me when I needed them. I always want to hear some-one's real pain, respond to real need, encourage real growth. That takes paying attention. In this very busiest season of the year is often when others need pieces of our lives that, if we are careless, we don't realize we have time to give. When we bring our brightly wrapped boxes, let us be attuned to giving what is really needed as well.

Are there those among us whose lives have gone pretty much according to plan? If so, I suppose some are quite content, while others may wish there had been an-other plan! Here is good news. It's never too late to make a new plan, even if it is just to look at life in a more positive light.

I believe that most of us who are happy have simply chosen to be so. It is my experience that everyone experiences both joy and sorrow. Those whose lives look picture perfect and free of any trouble just haven't confided their struggles to us. They have chosen to be happy. And there are others who complain regularly, but not about the things most of us would find burdensome.

Those who really love me, love me enough to call it to my attention when I slip off the yellow brick road. They give me the greatest gift of all, honesty of relationship. Those nearest and dearest to my heart are those who have cared enough to ask me to be my highest self. When I'm right with the world, I ask the same of them, as gently as I know how. Let's ask it of one another. That's really what these holidays are about, are they not?

May your holidays, and your lives be blessed.

Jean Loxley-Barnard has been a writer all her life and studied both sociology and psychology at George Washington University where she earned a B.A. Her company, The Shopper, Inc., encompasses all the Loxley-Barnard family publications - The Shopper Magazines and Doctor to Doctor Magazine. She has been in the advertising, consulting and publishing business for 39 years.