Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Thanks and Giving

I wanted to take a moment and expand on what I posted on both my Facebook page and my NEW Google+ page this morning.  This is the season that we pause to reflect on what we are thankful for and hopefully give gifts to others that honor that gratitude.  If you follow this blog at all you know that this has been a very hard year for me personally.  Despite all that, this morning I am struck with how much I have to be thankful for.  My family is safe and healthy for the most part.  We are meeting our financial goals (even if it has taken much longer than planned).  And we have the privilege of living in a country where we have the opportunity to live our dreams.  If there is one theme that keeps recurring this year it's that the one thing that no one can take away from you is how you choose to feel or react about something.  Viktor Frankl, a holocaust survivor, really did say it best: "Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." 


It is easy to get caught up in all the things we don't have or wished we had and even easier to blame others for what has happened to us.  But it is hard to learn to be content with what we do have and work around the obstacles of life.  And so this season, find something you are thankful for and give yourself the gift of contentedness.

Quotations of the Month September & October

"A life lived with integrity- even if it lacks the trappings of fame and fortune is a shinning star in whose light others may follow in the years to come." Denis Waitley

"Success means having the courage, the determination and the will to become the person you believe you were meant to be."George Sheehan

"When life knocks you down, you have two choices- stay down or get up." Tom Krause

"Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort." John Ruskin