Life Lessons from Snoopy and the Peanuts Gang

The following is a song by the Peanuts gang aptly titled Keep on Trying and is from the TV special It's Your 20th Television Anniversary, Charlie Brown. If you're a longtime reader of the Peanuts series, you'll have noticed that Charlie Brown is often portrayed to be a failure. The great thing about him though is that he never stops trying. He doesn't give up -- whether he's attempting a marvelous football kick or planning a chat with the object of his affection, the mysterious little red-haired girl.

This is exactly what we should keep in mind when faced with a stubborn dilemma -- it never hurts to keep trying because eventually, persistence will pay off.

The following song, entitled Clouds is from Snoopy: The Musical. In this scene, the Peanuts gang is shown gazing at the blue sky. The song opens with "You know, if you use your imagination, you can see all sorts of things in the clouds" and as it progresses, everyone proceeds to tell each other what they see: "Caesar at the Rubicon!" "The landing of the pilgrims!" "The pyramid of Kufu." "The fall of Rome!"

To unlock our creativity, we must look at things from a fresh, new perspective.

Don't Be Anything Less Than Everything You Can Be is a wonderful, catchy tune by The Peanuts Gang, again from Snoopy: The Musical, that talks about pushing yourself to your limits:

Don't be a leaf if you can be the tree,
don't be a raindrop if you can be the sea
`Cause a leaf may fall but the tree remains
It may never rain at all but the sea remains
Better to be the tree and the sea, see?

Simply put, be all that you can be.

Just One Person is a strong, uplifting song from Snoopy: The Musical and it talks about the magic of having friends and the importance of their validation. Having one, yes even just one, person believe in you can be enough to encourage you to believe in yourself too.

More, and more. And when all those people believe in you,
deep enough and strong enough believe in you,
hard enough and long enough it stands to reason you,
yourself will start to see what everybody sees in you.
And maybe even you, can believe in you, too.

Sometimes it will have to take someone else's validation to show you how good you are.

My Blanket and Me is a song from You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown which illustrates the now iconic pairing of Linus and his blanket (in fact, the term "security blanket" was coined because of Linus and his fondness for his blanket). In this song, Lucy and Sally egg Linus about being a baby because he won't let go of his blanket. Linus attempts independence from it then realizes that he can't, but admits that he may outgrow it someday. And indeed he does, as we have seen in the later strips.

It's foolish, I know it
I'll try to outgrow it
But meanwhile
It's my blanket...and me.

Letting go takes strength, determination and lots of time.

The most well-known of Peanuts anthems, Happiness is a beautiful song from the musical You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown and talks about finding happiness in any small thing, however mundane or ordinary, that makes you smile. Things like "Pizza with sausage", "learning to whistle", "knowing a secret" and ultimately, as the Peanuts cast realizes,

Happiness is anything or anyone at all that's loved by you.