Giving Thanks

Thursday, November 28, 2024

I’m up early this morning. My plan was to get up at 4:00 am, put the turkey in brine and then go back to bed for a few hours. But as my mind is prone to do, I began pondering all the things in my life I’m thankful for.

So I thought I’d share some of them.

The greatest thing that ever happened in my life is my spouse and life partner.

Our meeting was totally by chance thanks to circumstances that aligned perfectly and a single photograph. Had one of them been just a little bit different, we would have never crossed paths.

We married after a nine-month courtship–and not for the reason you may be thinking. We were young and foolish and rushed into the permanence of marriage. A lot of people said we wouldn’t make it past three years, and there were challenges that took hard work, but after more than 31 years, I can’t imagine having spent them with anyone else.

She’s the rock that keeps me grounded and my inspiration to keep moving forward.

I’m grateful for my kids and the impact they’ve had in my life.

When my wife and I met, she had two young children from a prior marriage. I took them on as my own since their father chose not to be part of the picture. Then we had a child of our own together.

Raising children humbles a man–especially when raising step-children.

I won’t lie; there were hard times and challenges with them over the last three decades, but all three turned out to be level-headed moral adults.

I’m proud of the individual each of them have become and am humbled to see a tiny reflection of me in them.

I’m thankful I was given a chance to recover my health.

This year was a wake up call. It’s been nearly ten months since “the episode” and it still rattles me that it could have been the end of it all.

I see life differently now and am grateful for every morning I open my eyes, even when I don’t seem like it.

I appreciate that someone who is now a very close friend took the time to mentor me in my darkest hour and when my outlook of the future was grim.

He listened to me bitch about a lot of stupid stuff for almost ten years, but always challenged me to look at it from a different angle. I’m a completely different person thanks to his wisdom.

I’ll forever be in his debt for the change he made in me.

I’m glad for my job and the career path I landed in totally by mistake.

I may gripe about the grind of it sometimes, but I love that I’m challenged by the work. It allows me to be creative and bring something to life that makes the lives of others a little better.

I’m blessed to enjoy doing what I do for a living.

Then, I’m thankful for the little things.

Life is magical when you take the time to step back and look at it. Every moment in your life, good or bad, has lead to this moment, whether it’s good or bad. This good or bad moment will lead to other good and bad moments.

It’s a godsend to be able to look back and see how it’s unfolded over a lifetime.

I’m truly a very lucky man.

Of course, I’m thankful for you and the fact you took the time to read what I’ve just written.

I’m fortunate to have connected with some awesome people online. Though you and I may never meet IRL, I’m glad you share the insight into your life by what you write, and that you care enough about my own life to engage back with me.

Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate…

No to Everything Else

Tuesday, November 26, 2024

I took some time off work during the Thanksgiving holiday after grinding on a work project for a really long time. I’ve found myself at a point over the last six months where I just don’t feel effective and needed to figure out why.

During my quiet time this morning, I picked up "Hell Yeah or No" by Derek Sivers again. I bought the physical book a couple months ago with a plan to finish it quickly. But, as I tend to do, I read about 10 pages and then set it aside, telling myself I’ll get back to it eventually.

As I was powering through the book’s anecdotes, one jumped off the page and grabbed my attention.

“Hell yeah or no” is a filter you can use to decide what’s worth doing. But this is simpler and more serious. This is a decision to stop deciding. It’s one decision, in advance, that the answer to all future distractions is “no” until you finish what you started. It’s saying yes to one thing, and no to absolutely everything else.

I struck me that I’ve been saying yes far too often again. I’ll get a great idea for a project and dive head first into it, while having a half-dozen similar projects already in the works.

There are also commitments to others I’ve said yes to that I don’t want to show up for anymore. I have a bad habit of volunteering for something without thinking it through and it eventually becomes a drain on my energy.

What I need to do is focus on the “one big thing for now,” and only that thing until it’s finished. Everything else new is a hard no. There are still those commitments I have to show up for, but I don’t have to put 100% effort into them until the one big thing is done.

The challenge now is to figure out what that one big thing is.