According to HalloweenSurvey.com a lot of Americans love Halloween: 72% celebrate it, 50% of adults wear a costume for the holiday, and over 8 billion dollars is spent every year to prepare for it. That’s a whole lot of scary love. The reverse statistics mean that 28% of the population either don’t care about it or don’t like Halloween. But whether you love dressing up and giving yourself over to the role of your favorite other self, or think the whole thing is silly, or believe that Halloween’s roots in evil practices are cause to shun the holiday, there are a few things we can probably all agree on:

1.  Everyone wears a mask sometimes. How many people do we show our real selves to? Probably only a few that we truly trust. And even if we are the upfront, this-is-who-I-am kind of people, we still have a tendency to hide our feelings. Anger and cheerfulness can both mask deeply felt pain. Remembering that everyone is wounded and scarred to some degree can make us more compassionate to those around us.

2.  Each day is what we make of it. Whether you believe that Halloween is loads of fun or just plain evil, the day is ours to take from it or give to it what we will. Just like every other day. Our days are good or bad because of the choices we make and how we decide to perceive life. No matter our circumstances, we are each responsible for our part in the making of every day we’re given.

3.  Life is sometimes tricky and sometimes a treat, but more often it’s something in between. We have great days and we have awful days. But life is lived mostly in the ones that fall between those extremes. These are the normal “okay” days that often seem to just creep along, filled with unremarkable hours – unless we take the time to really look for the remarkable in the mundane. Finding contentment right where we are – fun-size chocolate bars, anyone? – is something worth striving for.

How did you measure up to the Halloween statistics this year?