Gratltude Month?

Labeling November Gratitude month makes some sense because in it resides Thanksgiving the most grateful of all holidays. It is the beginning of the whole holiday season, where we need to remember the things that we are truly grateful for. The main reason we need to remember is because we get so caught up in the dynamics - what we want, what we have to give,  the preparing of the holiday meals, spending time with family, traveling, etc. When I am doing what I am supposed to do I don't need a gratitude month, for every day shall be full of appreciation and thanks. All I need to do is look at two things: the journey I have taken and where I currently stand. Even on the crappy days where I haven't gotten enough sleep, I have to bike to work in the rain, I screw up a couple orders, Minda tells me I forgot to do a couple things, I cut my finger, and Freyja is particularly fussy, I still need to remember that it's not that bad. Life is ok today. And if it really sucks today, tomorrow it can get a little better. My friend likes to say gratitude is an action - it's not according to Merriam-Webster, but I get the point, when you have gratitude what are you doing to show it. One synonym for gratitude is indebtedness, allow me to continue to owe so I may continue to seek ways to give back.

A need to document

I was blown away when I found out my brother had a blog. It has a cool name, vitia.org/wordpress/ , which is Latin for sins, faults, abuses. I never think of myself as a writer, Michael is the writer, Minda is the writer. I'm the doer. So when my friend Terry Breschi recommended that I start blogging I thought of it as a compliment, "this guy thinks I have something to say." This was a year and a half ago and since then it has just been sitting in the back of my head. I battle with the doubts of my abilities, the ranking of my priority list (yesterday I determined that NBA2k14 was way too high), and most of all the fear. What will I say? How will I sound? Who is going to read it? When will I have time to write anything?

Then I grab the dry eraser and I erase all of those questions, and I write my response - It doesn't matter, I'm a doer. I can be calculating, but I tend to rely on my instincts quite a bit. I like to shift the question from: "doesn't this suck?" to "how can we change this," or "why am I letting this affect me?" So I change, I decide to not permit the fear paralyze me and I begin to write.

People write for a lot of personal reasons, my blog hopes to be a personal treasure map where I chart the route. The route to what? Self awareness? Contentedness? It doesn't matter, I don't write for destination, I write to help plot my course.