Being Thankful

I have a confession.  I kind of hate Facebook in November.  I hate the whole "Today I'm thankful for...."  Perhaps hate is too strong a word, more like strongly dislike.  It's always felt so... cliche? to me.  Too expected.  Too part of the season.  Too following the herd.  Too much for too little of a time.  Like there's one month that is set aside for being thankful and the rest of the time we can all go back to correcting grammar and ranting about politics.

Now, I realize that it is not November right now.  And that this is not Facebook.  But for some reason I'm still not sure about, I chose Gratitude as my word this year.  When I chose it, it felt right.  I was hoping that the focus on gratitude would help me see the good around me.  That it would help me focus on the positive and not get so distracted by the negative.  And I admit, it seemed a bit of an easy one for me.  After all, when I chose it I was in a good mood and life was just grand.  I deserved a bit of an easy goal for this year right?

So what happened to me?  Well it got hard!  Things were going rather well for those first few days and then?  Then I let someone get to me and actually flipped them off!  With THE finger!  I don't think I've done that since high school, ya know when it was oh so attractive and all.  I apologized for it but my day was thrown off.  My expectations were not even close to being met and I had tried so very hard.  Someone or something had thrown off my groove!  And what went through my head that night as I thought about what I should be thankful for?  I'll tell ya.  "Gratitude schmatitude, what a craptastic day and a stupid word.  There's nothing to be thankful for today, it stunk! grumble grumble grumble."

Which means, that perhaps this little word of the year for me is not such a bad idea after all.  It is something that I really will have to work at.  It's not a free ride.

So I will be adding a page to this here blog.  A page of Gratitude.  A list, added to daily (I hope) of thinks that I truly am thankful for, no matter how terrible the day turned out.  A whole year of November.  Finding things to be thankful for because there really is always something, even if it's plumbing!