Curious about Exuberance and Exhilaration: Do You Know What They Feel Like? If So, Have You Experienced Them?

Definitions first:

• Exuberance : The state of being exuberant; an overflowing quantity; a copious or excessive production or supply; superabundance; richness; as, an exuberance of joy, of fancy, or of foliage.
• Exhilaration: The act of enlivening the spirits; the act of making glad or cheerful; a gladdening. The state of being enlivened or cheerful.

Yesterday, when planning today’s blog, I was experiencing both exuberance and exhilaration because of feeling great physically and the two new programs I am working on. The first is a great marketing class given by my favorite marketing guru, Robert Middleton. The second presents the life-changing Happy, Healthy and Wealthy Game.

Both motivate and inspire me to produce. I experience an exuberance of joy and the exhilaration that enlivens.

Who would have thought that this state could have been multiplied to extreme by a mere machine? Today it happened.

When I started up my computer, it achieved a block before it finished coming to life. Nothing would work. If I clicked on an icon, it would disappear. When I clicked to launch my browser, nothing happened. I shut it down with the switch and started over, and it seemed even worse. I tried everything I could think of to no avail.

I approached panic. I will not bore you with the technological details. After close to two hours of trying everything I could imagine, I celebrated exhilaration and exuberance - big time. The computer and its programs had come to life and returned to normalcy. I kissed and hugged it, and here I am!

Instead of writing what I learned as a techie, I am now going to return to our topic. It is time to celebrate by sharing some meaningful quotations:

• “The riches of life, the love and joy and exhilaration of life can be found only with an upward look. This is an exciting world. It's cram-packed with opportunity. Great moments wait around every corner.” - Richard M. DeVos
• “Exuberance is better than taste.” - Gustave Flaubert
• “Accept the challenges so that you can feel the exhilaration of victory.” - George S. Patton
• “You can have anything you want if you want it desperately enough. You must want it with an inner exuberance that erupts through the skin and joins the energy that created the world.” - Sheilah Graham

A few more with an interesting twist:

• "Saints have no moderation, nor do poets, just exuberance." - Anne Sexton
• "Silence is exhilarating at first - as noise is - but there is a sweetness to silence outlasting exhilaration, akin to the sweetness of listening and the velvet of sleep." - Edward Hoagland
• "Caution, not exuberance, should be our fiscal motto." - John Chafee
• "I had an opportunity to watch a liftoff. I remember just feeling this sense of exhilaration when the shuttle went off." - Christa McAuliffe
• "I have no objection to a little exuberance in the young learner." - Quintilian

Two for you to chew on during the week:

• “Spring passes and one remembers one's innocence. Summer passes and one remembers one's exuberance. Autumn passes and one remembers one's reverence. Winter passes and one remembers one's perseverance.” - Yoko Ono
• “Time has been transformed, and we have changed; it has advanced and set us in motion; it has unveiled its face, inspiring us with bewilderment and exhilaration.” - Kahlil Gibran

May you have a week filled with exuberance and exhilaration and no computer problems!