It happened quite accidentally. Early in September, my youngest daughter asked me to drive her and a couple of neighbor kids to a high school football game, where they would perform in the pep band. Fine, I said, secretly hoping a carpool arrangement would materialize and that I wouldn't find myself perched on bleachers for the next several Friday nights.

Fans were already filing in when we arrived at the football field. A backdrop of cornfields helped define the playing field. Young children ran wildly behind the bleachers, sweaty and laughing. As the pep band played spirited tunes, the cheer squad performed their acrobatics with practiced precision. A harvest moon rose in the sky; the evening air was clean and crisp. And then from a distance, I heard a low-level roar. It grew gradually louder until the source of the roar - the entire team of football players - ran onto the field, packed tightly into a bunch, and when they reached their end of the field, they began jumping up and down en mass. Then the backslapping began, and the high-fiving, low-fiving, and boisterous verbal support for each other.

I watched in amazement at the sheer enthusiasm of the team. Random thoughts crossed my mind, like "Where does enthusiasm like that come from?" and "How and why do most of us lose it?" and "How can we get some of it back?"

Entranced by what I saw on the field, I left the game somehow inspired. I volunteered to drive the kids the next Friday night. In fact, I have to admit I attended most of the home football games this year. I can't quite explain it; other than I found the enthusiasm mesmerizing and contagious.

The word "enthusiasm" has a Greek origin: "en" meaning in and "theos" meaning deity or spirit. Taken literally, an enthusiastic person carries a spirit within. I couldn't have described the phenomenon more succinctly.

I can think of no other characteristic that adds more to life than enthusiasm. We can't buy it for ourselves or buy it from people that work for us or with us.

It is contagious, however. I've made a pact with myself to continue to search it out, and immerse myself in situations and with people who are "carriers." I want to catch it, again and again. I want to be a carrier myself.

Today it's football. Tomorrow, who knows?