Today I am Thankful
Today was typical. I went to work, grumbled about back-to-back meetings, returned some phone calls, and tried to catch up on the pile of stuff on my desk. After work, I had another meeting, but this one was voluntary and based on my civic duty and sincere desire to serve the community in which I live. Whatever. Civic duty, Schmivic duty. I’m tired, I didn’t get to go for a run today, and I didn’t feel like cooking dinner.
When I got home, and before I could groan about my day, my daughter started to complain. How she had scheduling conflicts and was upset because she couldn’t decide if she wanted to go to a social event with her soccer team or her dance team; how her hair wouldn’t cooperate and how she needed to stop online shopping.
My first inclination was to tell the little millennial that she didn’t have any real issues. Social conflicts aren’t problems, and neither is having the ability to online shop and bad hair days- well those are a part of life. At any rate, before I rammed her with my philosophy about being grateful for the little things, I had to check myself.
Yes, I was tired from work and no, I didn’t feel like cooking. Work, meetings, more work, being nice to people when I didn’t feel like it, and then I had to come home and feed the hungry? No Bueno. But I do it, and when I think about it, I am happy to do it. Wait, that’s not true…I’m not happy to do it, but I do it willingly for my family because above everything else, I love them I’m very thankful for them.
The moral of the story? Happiness is a choice. I gave you examples of only one day in my life realizing there is a gamut of issues real-world issues that include things like finances, health, relationships, and family. I get it, but I also understand that we have to take each day as it comes. Some days will be good days, some will be not so good, and some will be tore-up awful. But even on the most dreadful days, we have a choice to choose happiness. Let’s not wallow guys. Let’s make each day an opportunity to be thankful for something.
That being said, go ahead and be thankful for every little thing that happened today, both good and bad. And if you can’t think of anything to be grateful for, just be grateful things aren’t worse.