Quick Gratitude List

1. For starters, work is going great.  I am really happy that I have given up any pretensions about getting really rich.  I just love my  simple job and am enjoying  life.

2. June was nice and cool overall, not stinkin’ hot like other years.

3. I am amazingly healthy.  Who knows what is going to happen tomorrow, but today I am feeling good!

4. My little red-haired just-born niece is incredibly beautiful and her mom, my sister, is doing great.

5. I had lunch with a few friends yesterday, and it was a great Sunday overall.

Enjoy these 24 hours of TODAY to all!

Man Alive

Small world

The inner critic say:

“Don’t be so lame in being thankful for things like shoes and sock, toothpicks, a spoonful of ice cream, the struggling little plants in my office.  Have higher ambitions, get a big boat and large car, various doctorates, powerful positions, and whopping bank account.”

The healthy part of me knows that this rancid  part of me has to be silenced.  It is a recipe for misery.   So, I count my blessings, the small things of the day, and allow my heart to expand with gratitude for them.  For these things then I give a shout of public thanks:

1. The handful of cherries I ate at breakfast

2. My water bottle at the office

3. Friends’ photographs

4. My new niece, healthy and redheaded!

5. My constantly growing conviction that God is with me, cares for me, watches out for me, and has given me all that I need to be cheerful in this moment

Happy wonderful 24 hours of SATURDAY to all!

Man Alive

Unusual Goal

I have a goal, a rather unusual goal when I come to think of it, that has taken shape in my mind over the past year or so, and I am going to try to express it here. 

What I want, what I am kind of striving for, is to be able to stay at my death something other than: “Curse it all!    How unfair!    What a horror!   What a cheat all of this is!”  And other complaints of this very unpleasant nature.

My goals do not include retire wealthy beyond my dreams, well respected and well rewarded for major contributions in arts, science, politics, etc.  I don’t think I have any of  that in me.  But what I can do is live cheerfully, make a modest contribution to the world around me, do the best I can, and when the end comes, BE GRATEFUL FOR THE TIME THAT I HAVE HAD. 

This spirit of thanksgiving  seems like a small thing, but I am coming to believe it is in fact of the greatest importance.  But my focus is not only that one moment, but on how that one future moment might help me to live gratefully NOW, pleased and delighted with the weather, the foods, the loves, the goodness that I have experienced everyday, overwhelmed with gratitude for the chance to be here, to be here now, to have had the time I have had and to have been able to lend a helping hand along the way to others.

So I hope to fulfill this goal, assuming I have the time and the presence of mind to do it, by offering my prayers of thanksgiving to God for what I have enjoyed in this life, what I have loved in this life, how I have had the chance to grow up a bit to see the big picture, etc.

Unusual, I know.  But  I work towards it every day as I am able and find that the consideration of that one moment at the end is making all my now moments richer.

Take a breath, give thanks, enjoy the 24 hours ahead of you!

Man Alive