Emerson said that the purpose of life is not to be happy, it is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and loved well.

I woke up this morning thinking I need to practice what I preach.

So I drove to the Good Will Thrift Store in Bennington, Vt. – it is a big one – and bought $60 worth of scarves, sweaters and jackets to distribute to the refugees for my winter clothing fund drive and my continuing work with the residents of the Mansion, a Medicaid Assisted Care Facility in Cambridge, N.Y.

At most clothing stores, $60 wouldn’t buy a good sweater. At Good Will, it fills a basket.

I am hoping other people will do the same and send winter clothing – new, used, child adult sweaters, snow pants, winter socks and boots and jackets – to RISSE, the refugee and immigrant center in Albany, N.Y., at 715 Morris Street, Albany, N.Y., 12208

I am new to Thrift Stores – Maria came with me – and was happy to find warm jackets and sweaters and beautiful scarves for shockingly little money.

Maria’s clothes all come from Thrift shops, this is not new for her. I am into it now.

I got a lot of good stuff, a few of the Mansion residents could use some sweaters (please don’t send any there now, thanks) and all of the refugees, especially the kids, can use warm winter clothing (please do send new or used winter clothes there, thanks.)

Most of the Mansion residents have the clothes they need, just a few need some assistance, I am noticing. I’ll take care of it. My trip to Good Will, the first of many I think, helped me to see again the selfishness of giving. It felt good.

Earlier, I was reading an ancient sermon by a religious mystic who said that the purpose of life is spiritual transformation from a reactive being to a proactive being.

It struck home with me, that is what this year is all about for me. These are disturbing times for all of us, no matter what our beliefs, and I decided this year to not live a reactive life – other people’s anger and opinions and tweets and posts are not going to define my life, that is a reactive life.

A proactive life is to set my own agenda for being useful and, in my own way, righteous. When I allow outside forces to influence and shape my feelings, positive or negative, left or right, then I have surrendered control of my own peace of mind and soul. I have built a wall around the angry and the cruel, they can make me sad, but they cannot define me or the reason for my existence.

When I argue and scold and judge, I am not sharing my values but just feeding my ego, which is large enough.

I don’t wish to be an effect and not a cause, I don’t wish to be reactive, but proactive. To live my life well and meaningfully, I set out to create new spiritual levels of existence for myself, not to wallow or stew in the values and beliefs and anger of other people.

Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I fail, and there are mobs of people out there waiting to jeer and taunt, to be hurtful and angry. They have to make their own decisions about life, but they will not make mine.

So I began the Mansion and refugee work in earnest. And the people we call The Army Of Good, rose up like ghosts in the ether and decided to be proactive also.

Walking down the aisles in Bennington at the vast Good Will store, filling my cart,  grabbing sweaters and jackets off the racks for the Mansion residents, and scarves and sweaters and jackets for the RISSE refugees, listening to the Christmas music, watching the poor and the threadbare and the working class families struggle to pay for $15 of clothing for the winter,  I remembered Anne Frank’s observation that nobody has ever become poor by giving.

Charles Dickens: “No one feels useless in the world who lightens the burden of another.”

I will go back to the Good Will as soon as I can to focus my basket on the refugee children, many of whom have only flip-flops and sneakers for the winter. It makes me feel happy and useful, it helps me to feel honorable and compassionate, as if it makes a difference that I have lived in the world.