by guest poster, Tom Tuohy<\/em><\/p>\n My friend Quincy has an infectious enthusiasm. I love the way he just puts his head back and yells, \u201cYeah!\u201d He doesn\u2019t need a reason to do it, he just does it. He is happy. He loves life. He loves people. <\/p>\n The Illinois Center for Rehabilitation and Education, (ICRE), is a state facility for young people with physical and or developmental challenges. Quincy, who was born with cerebral palsy, lives there.<\/p>\n On a recent visit, Kristen, one of our volunteers, asked Quincy why he was always so happy. Quincy thought for a minute and said, \u201cWhy wouldn\u2019t I be happy?\u201d<\/p>\n We all have the choice to be unconditionally happy. Often we forget how. More importantly we lose sight of the way of being that brings us our greatest joy \u2013 being generous. <\/p>\n Everyone has something to give. Life gets in the way sometimes. We are fooled into thinking we don\u2019t have the time, we don\u2019t have the money, we have too many responsibilities……. These things may be true but we always have a choice. It begins with saying ‘Hi’ to the guy who takes our money at the toll booth, the lady standing next to us in line, or the kid who looking at us, hoping we are the hero they dream about. <\/p>\n I wish everyone knew Quincy. They would know that he gets it. \u201cYeah,\u201d Quincy, if we all realized how you looked at life, we could do it, too.<\/p>\n Every conscious act of engagement and generosity gives us great joy in return. When we DON’T make that choice we are really cheating ourselves. If we all remembered to know this, what we would choose? Why wouldn’t we choose to be happy?<\/p>\n ## Every conscious act of engagement and generosity gives us great joy in return. Why wouldn’t we choose to be happy?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,8],"tags":[120,453,472],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-1418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fun-inspiration","category-special-topics","tag-dreams-for-kids","tag-role-model","tag-self-esteem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1418\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1418"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=1418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nAdapted from an article by Tom Tuohy, Founder and President of Dreams for Kids. For more information on DFK, click here www.dreamsforkids.or<\/em>g<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"