It's true: Happiness is contagious
The kids are either back in school or headed that way, with Brain Campaign 2015-16 commencing for most K-12 students throughout Kootenai County on Tuesday.
When we say kids, we include the bigger ones. The ones we should be every bit as grateful for and proud of as the tiny, wide-eyed cuties who will soon be heading to school for the very first time.
Sometimes it takes a fresh perspective to set us straight in our thinking. By a show of hands, how many of you have muttered about how self-absorbed our teenagers are? How lacking in motivation or work ethic they can be? How entitled they might seem? (We're having trouble seeing your hand because ours is in the way.)
For a little attitude adjustment - ours, not the teens' - listen to these perspectives.
One appears as a letter to the editor on this page from a woman moving to the Fort Grounds neighborhood. Beth Jensen is irked and thrilled; irked at the moving company that brought her things to Coeur d'Alene from Connecticut, but thrilled with the young people who helped save moving day for her.
The other perspective comes compliments of Rita Case. Rita is half of one of the country's most successful car sales companies - Rick Case Automotive Group - with Rick, her husband, comprising the other half.
In the October issue of North Idaho Business Journal, you'll be introduced to the Cases, who now live in Coeur d'Alene from mid-May to mid-October before working through the winter in Florida. During their NIBJ interview, the Cases were asked about pleasant surprises they've had here. Rita didn't hesitate.
"Your youth," she said.
Addressing the 15- to 20-year-old crowd specifically, she referred to our big kids as "happy people, happy with life, and that's not the way it is in many other parts of the country. In other places they're upset or they feel entitled or they feel like they don't have a chance. They're angry. Here, your youth are absolutely pleasant, and they're appreciative of the smallest recognition. In a lot of places it's never enough."
Why are we so different, especially when, as Beth Jensen notes, some of these older kids are from somewhere else? We know this sounds corny, but our theory is that in such a beautiful part of the country populated mostly by happy, positive people leading good, productive lives, maybe it's easier for youth to be happy, too. Maybe what's good about this place rubs off.
And maybe some of us codgers should complain less and compliment more.