Gratitude

Gratitude may be a big word with big implications but gratitude doesn't have to be just about the big things. A life borne of gratitude for the small things paves the way for lives full of the big things to be grateful for.

In other words, the more you are grateful for the small things the more big things will come into your life to be grateful.

Yes, I'm saying that being grateful for the shoes you wear could potentially bring about being grateful for the yacht you own in the future.

How can this be?

Being grateful for everything regardless of its size or status fills your life with gratitude and it reflects outward and pulls things to you. They say that you aren't dealt anything bigger than you can handle so if you keep handling these small things with gratitude then you'll continue to reel in the big things and the rewards will continue to come because you can handle it.

Exercise

I was out walking the other day and had an epiphany. Oh yes, a REAL ONE.

Exercise isn't as solitary as you think it is. Sure, you may go for a walk on your own with nothing but your iPod but when you see someone else walking, running, or riding their bike they are right there beside you and supporting your efforts.

Even if they don't say a word to you.

Every person who is out doing something for their health at the time you are is part of your team.

We may have different motivations for being out there on the road but the final result is our health and well-being.

Next time you see someone walk, run, or bike past you, realize they are all rooting for you to succeed.

Fortune Favors the Aware

I think the Universe speaks to us in ways we may not realize. Or simply may not notice because we are wrapped in layers of worry, guilt, fear and stress.

If we go to the Chinese restaurant and our fortune cookie is empty* our minds leap to the negative that we have no fortune or luck. The flip side is that our future is undetermined and open for our interpretation.

It's more fun to bemoan our bad luck so that is what we do. It's even funny and something we pout about it and tell every new person we see. It's acceptable to us to speak of our negatives as though they are good.

It often takes a Universal slap upside the head to make us see something different.

Today I was driving to work and quickly descending into a pit of worry and stress about the day and what tomorrow would bring. I let it take over my thoughts and create a day for me that I hadn't started out with.

I was stopped behind a plumbing truck and they had a few quotes on the truck including this gem:

Relax. We'll take care of it.

It made me stop mid-freakout and smile. That's exactly what I needed to to do, relax and let the Universe resolve these issues for me.

So I took the advice and said thank you and continued on my way. Is it coincidence that every light was green after that? That I had a good parking spot? Or the last seat in my preferred section on the train was free? Maybe. But I choose to believe that the Universe was taking care of me because I was aware of its message.


*This happened to me yesterday and I did exactly what I wrote about.

2008 Redux

2008 was easily the most challenging and difficult year I’ve had in my life. That’s not to say that there weren’t high points but overall the bad seemed to outweigh the good.

Things that I learned over the course of the year:

• You can do everything perfectly and still lose
• Who you choose to be is infinitely better than trying to be someone else’s definition of right
• Constant and never-ending improvement may not be enough to fix a bad situation
• It’s OK to leave a bad situation
• Leaving doesn’t mean you’ve failed
• Sometimes dreams are best lived in your head
• There is no excuse to do something hurtful
• Family holds you together when everything else falls
• Trust is something earned
• Things you never thought you’d be able to do, you are when its right
• There is no limit to what the universe feels you are capable of handling
• You can’t be friends with your subordinates at work
• Betrayal cuts deep
• Doing what your boss tells you is right, isn’t always right

Each one of these things has a story to tell but I don’t believe telling the story is going to make the outcome any different or the lessons I learned more important.

The year started off on a high note and then crept very slowly down to the depths of low. It oscillated between high and low throughout the year, making the year feel manic depressive.

It was in October that things went truly sideways. I had major surgery (which, believe it or not, was a high point) and returned to work and was told that the position I’d held before was no longer available to me. My entire team had been moved to other teams and I would just have to deal with it. Three weeks after returning to work I was laid off.

The upside of being laid off is that I have the opportunity to find a new place, a happier place. I have some time now to continue recovering from surgery and figure out what I want to do with my life.

I can’t begrudge them for letting me go. I was pretty miserable there and it was in all honesty, a pretty miserable place to work (at least in the past year). But at the same time, it’s difficult not to feel that all my hard work did nothing for me in the end (except how it made ME feel).

I’ve had lessons aplenty and now it’s time to put them into action and continue to learn and grow.

Book Reading

I have come across several posts that discuss the author's favorite books or recommended reading. The books are usually fiction - though one list is non-fiction.

I must admit that I haven't read many of them (I'll post the links below). In some ways I feel the urge to run out and get all the books and read them, a compulsion if you must.

I admire those who read passionately of the classics and modern fiction. It amazes me when people say they've read The Great Gatsby and The Catcher in the Rye and found them to be life altering. Frankly they bored me and I didn't get it. Maybe I was too young, maybe I didn't read into it enough, or maybe it just didn't "work" for me. I tend to question myself and think it's an inadequacy on my part when I don't get the same thing that others have gotten. Books are an eternal failing of mine it seems.

I have much more affinity for non-fiction books than fiction. Perhaps it's because I prefer dealing in the details and straight-forwardness of real things, versus imaginary places.

Oddly enough, I want to be a Librarian and I write fiction. Go figure.

On to the lists ...

50 Amazing and Essential Novels to Enrich Your Life
20 Amazing and Essential Non-fiction Books to Enrich Your Library
100 Must-Read Books: The Essential Man’s Library
30 Books Everyone Should Read Before Their 30th Birthday
TIME magazine’s All-Time Greatest 100 Novel


These lists are largely repeats of each other. Everyone has to wax poetic in their own way about how these books changed their life.

I just may have to post a list of books that may not have changed my life but were influential to me or at least memorable (the good kind of memories).