Giving Thanks

It's too bad the holidays only come around once a year, although the older I get the less time there is every year between packing up the Christmas decorations to digging out the platter and electric knife to carve up the Thanksgiving turkey.  I love Christmas for all of the nostalgia and memories of my childhood and now living vicariously through my children, although the days of being overjoyed by the magic of all that the Holiday means has waned a bit as they have become teenagers.  I can more clearly see the days when I will be looking forward to welcoming my kids home for Christmas than the times we have shared with them as little ones, which is a little sad I suppose but it certainly makes me value each and every holiday season that much more.

The one thing that I don't like about Christmas is the (over) commercialization and bombardment by retailers trying to eek out their end of year sales on a high note.  As someone directly tied to the retail industry I completely understand it but wish it wasn't so "in your face."  The over development of retail space and retail stores, brick and mortar, or more increasingly online, is another subject for another day.  The other thing I don't like about Christmas is that it seems like Thanksgiving has become almost an afterthought.  Well, I hope I can change your way of thinking here, as I have changed mine in recent years.

There is nothing better than Thanksgiving day and Thanksgiving weekend.  The food, the family, the friends and the day for us all to create a little space to disengage from our hectic schedules.  If there is anything better than a Thanksgiving nap after lunch or dinner in this world, I haven't found it yet.  Those who know me well know my passion for football and Thanksgiving Day my whole life has meant Dallas Cowboys football.  I cannot imagine a last Thursday in November without a Cowboys game.  Each of us have our own things that make the day, the weekend and the season special.  Whatever those things are, I say we embrace them for all their worth this year. 

Life is a funny and precious thing.  We never know what lies around the next corner or stage of life and all we have is right now.  So instead of worrying about yesterday and fretting about tomorrow I say we give enormously grateful thanks for TODAY - which is all any of us are guaranteed.  I am only two years removed from spending Thanksgiving week and the week after in the hospital, unable to eat or drink anything.  It was amongst the lowest points in my life but out of that difficulty was born my intense gratitude for what I am about to enjoy this week.

I am thankful for way too many things to even attempt to list them within this post.  I tell my friends all the time and it is really true - I am the luckiest guy in the world.  My hope for all of us is that we will relish every moment of the day tomorrow - and no, I'm not talking about more cranberry sauce!  Really live in each and every moment and take time to reflect and review how blessed and how fortunate we are to be able to be alive in exciting and challenging times like these.  To be able to create our futures and determine the paths we will follow.  I could go on and on but you get the point.

I could close this post in so many ways but I have chosen to recite a couple of quotes that I think say what I am feeling more eloquently than I ever could.  One is a German philosopher who lived several centuries ago and one is one of the most well known U.S. presidents of the 20th century.

"If the only prayer you said in your whole life was 'Thank You,' that would suffice." -Meister Eckhardt

"As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them." - John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Happy Thanksgiving - and "Thank You" for following my posts.

Up and Down

It's easy to focus on all of the negativity around us right now.  In case you feel slighted just turn on the television, pick up a newspaper or surf the Internet.  Apparently you can make a lot of money by telling everyone how terrible they should feel and how horrible the world around them is.  Being a realist I can say that I understand these people have had plenty of ammunition the last few years from which they could load their weapons.  The optimistic side of me hopes to get out of the mire and the muck and to rise above it all and find ways to make myself and everyone around me feel fabulous each and every day.  It may take a little more work these days to stay up than it does to keep the status quo but it also makes you in to a person that more people will want to associate with, be friends with and most importantly do business with. 

I have a friend that I don't do business with directly but whom I get to see and talk with on a fairly regular basis.  I'll call her Mary.  Mary is the type of person that everyone loves to be around.  Ask Mary a rote question such as "how are you," "how are things" or "what's going on" and you're going to get back a list of (very enthusiastic) adjectives such as "FANTASTIC!"  "AMAZING!" "INCREDIBLE!" or "AWESOME!"  I can be in the midst of a downer of a day and have a 2 minute chat with Mary and walk away with a smile on my face and a determination and dedication to, as Zig Ziglar says, be a "Good Finder."  Don't you just love people like Mary? 

So, I wonder, has Mary always acted this way, no matter what?  More importantly, how does she stay up even when everyone and everything else seems to be down?  Finally, what things can I learn and emulate from her?  So in a recent conversation I asked.  In a nutshell she told me "I just decided to be light in a world of darkness."  Sure, she has bad days.  Sure, she gets disappointed, let down and all the other bad stuff we all deal with.  She just has a way of responding to life and not reacting to it.  She also told me "it takes no more effort to be up than it does to stay down and so my focus is on helping others stay up no matter what is going on around them."  I love that. 

Think about that for a few minutes.  Really.  What if, instead of reacting every time we got upset, disappointed, lied to, cut off in traffic, whatever we decided to respond in a way that was different than most people react?  How much better and more productive would your day be?  How much better would it be for the people you work with, work for, interact with and (gulp) live with?  I have to think it would be noticeable, to say the least.  I have to think that like Mary people would be positively impacted and that their positive attitudes towards you would be reflected back in a way that would create a feeling of positive momentum inside yourself that would be hard to contain.  Why, it almost sounds easy, doesn't it?!  It sure sounds like more fun than living on the edge and reacting to all the negativity in our world.  Then why don't we (I) do it? 

This is not a question of ability or skill.  It's a question of intentions.  You can decide you don't want to do it and remain status quo like most of the other people around you OR you can decide that you are going to be different in a way that no matter how those around you respond makes you feel better, act better and perform better.  Indeed these are the people that are making things happen and not sitting still just because of what is happening in Washington, Wall Street or Main Street.  You could say they march to a different beat.  And they are having a lot more fun doing it.

So my challenge to myself and to you is to make a decision.  Will you stay up and respond to life from a mindset of making yourself and your world a better place?  Or will you continue to react to the (mostly) negative things going on around you?  I hope after you make your decision I can shake your hand and share your happiness from the top of the hill!