HappyWeen Movement: a call to embrace the positive side of Halloween

I realize that Fall can be a gloomy time of year, with winter just around the corner.  Perhaps that is why many traditional cultures reflected on death and sorrow at this time of year, in events like Samhain (pronounced sow-ween--it's Gaelic), or Dia de los Muertos.  Yet even those festivals were not a time to give in to despair, but rather, a time to find new hope for the living while honoring the memory of those no longer here.

It is with that in mind that I say, I would prefer to emphasize and embrace the happier, more positive side of Halloween, where people do not transform themselves into scary, demonic looking beings, but rather transform into radiant, heroic, better versions of themselves. Halloween can be a time where we shed our limitations and aspire to more, instead of gazing into the pit of impending demise and forsaking hope.  I choose not to live my life with the dread of death circling my head like a bird of carrion.  I choose to be a happy person in general, and even at a dark time of year with winter nipping at our heels, I make my own sunlight.  Therefore, I recommend that people look for ways to be more positive this Halloween and choose not to consume the gloom.  Tell those around you that you would rather celebrate the life and vitality that you still have, precisely because it will not last forever.