I recently read something that has made me reevaluate how I view my life. It was a challenge really, about happiness. "Do you want to be truly happy? Then take the time to write someone who has had a profound influence on your life and thank them. Let them know what their time and effort meant to you and how it has shaped the person you have become. Then do it again, and after that encourage someone who is younger than yourself to be the best they can be." I took that challenge and wrote to someone who had a profound impact on my life. She literally saved me from a real tragedy, and I can't even hardly put into words what that has meant to me. The thought of not being here and being my daughter's mom shakes me to my very core. I am more than grateful to this woman. Over the years she has become a dear friend and although we don't speak to each other as often as we'd like we still remain connected through gratitude.
I know that my card touched her heart and I loved sharing my "attitude of gratitude" with her. She came along side me at a very difficult time in my life and helped me through to the other side.
That little act got me thinking about what else I was grateful for and I think the answer might seem a little surprising. What I've discovered is that I am grateful for some of the more difficult times in my life. They shaped the person that I became. I remember when I got fired from a job for the first time. It was hard because it was a job I was passionate about. Someone I respected sat me down and told me that it wouldn't be the last time I would get fired, but that it might just be the hardest. She was right. It took me a couple of months to find another job, but the gifts that the experience gave me outweighed the adversity of it by a mile. Fortunately it was years before I became a parent so I was only responsible for my dog and myself. It forced me to look at where my life was going at the time and not only was I able to find a good job, I was also able to make a firm decision to go back to school to become a nurse. A decision I have NEVER regretted. It also gave me the opportunity to live and work in our Nation's Capital - an experience that was so worth getting fired over. The other difficult time that I'm grateful for was just after 9-11 in 2001. This time I was a parent. I hadn't lived in Portland very long and I was a new single mom, figuring out the directions to a child that were written in Chinese (my daughter is adopted from China). She would cry for hours on end, and you couldn't touch her or hold her or pick her up to try and soothe her. It was awful. I remember one particularly rainy Sunday when she was having a cry-a-thon, I sat right down next to her and did the same thing. There we were just the two of us sitting in the floor crying. I still am not certain why she was crying, but I was crying out of frustration and fear over so MANY things. Shortly after that day her cry-a-thons came to an end, and she became the sweet, loving child that lives in my house today. That experience taught me patience. It taught me that sometimes you just have to sit down and cry it all out. There are times even now, that I wish I could cry it all out. Shortly after that I developed some serious health issues and I have always been grateful for those first hard experiences as a parent. They helped me to develop the patience to over come a serious illness and the long time it took to totally recover.
I think the thing that I am the most grateful for are all of my friends. I recently attended my 30th High School Reunion and I had the privilege of spending time with some of the best people I know. We talked and talked and talked some more. We got all caught up, and I've decided that the "Diner Crew" plus a few others are some of the best, most down to earth people I know. I hope that we will always be friends and that when we need each other we can do what we can to be supportive in the hard times.
Ask yourself what you are grateful for. Send a note to someone who has had a profound influence on your life, encourage a young person - just like someone encouraged you when you were young. Start a gratitude journal and see where it takes you. You might just surprise yourself! Cheers!
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