an attitude of gratitude

     I recently purchased a journal in hopes of recording things that I find I am grateful for as I experience life's every day events.  I like to call it my gratitude journal.  Clever, I know.  As I thought today about what I have been blessed with, family was the first thing that came to mind.  This particular time of year often brings families together and reminds us how lucky we are to have each other.  It is during the other months of the year, however, that I need to improve on appreciating my family more and taking them for granted less.  I have been blessed with a family that I wouldn't trade for anything.  I value their love, acceptance and the haven they offer me from the merciless world.  They say you never know what you have until it's gone but that doesn't mean we can't appreciate what we have now.  We should recognize and be grateful for the people who are in our lives today.  That way, if we are ever to lose any of them, we won't regret taking them for granted.  In times of argument or disagreement, my father often says, "life is too short", implying that what we are upset about is not worth the trouble we are making it out to be.  Life is too short to be anything but grateful for what and who we have in our lives.  It is the people around us who make life complete.  Without them, we are nothing.  As we approach the coming year, I encourage you to make a special effort to appreciate the people around you, especially family, because if nothing else in this life lasts, families are forever.

"you're going to be a better person"

     I recently finished reading Don't Leave Me This Way: Or When I Get Back on My Feet You'll Be Sorry.  Yes, that is the full title of the book and I recommend reading every page of it. In this book, Julia Fox Garrison relives her story as a survivor of a cerebrovascular accident and her struggle to recover to her maximum capacity.  Although deemed the title "in denial" by just about everyone she comes in contact with, the 37 year old woman proves through her amazing optimism that determined, positive, and hopeful are very different than being in denial.  She learns through her experience and teaches through her understanding that things happen for reasons, and sometimes we get to know why and sometimes we don't.  But God has a plan.  God put us here to do something.  And if for no other reason, it is to become a better person.

     This Thanksgiving season has been very different for me this year in the sense of things that I am grateful for.  I am beginning to appreciate, simply by learning of others' experiences, the most basic things that most of us, including myself, have taken for granted over the course of our lives.  Things like the ability to see, or to communicate, or to sit up, or to stand, or to walk, or to drive, or to have a functioning circulatory system, or to spend time with family.  I appreciate being independent.  As I sat talking with my grandfather after dinner on Thanksgiving, he taught me the importance of appreciating what God has blessed us with.  He described to me the challenges of growing old and the difficulty he has had with accepting that death is indeed inevitable.  But he taught me that giving up is never the answer.  He taught by example that getting down on our knees each day to thank God for what He has given us can make all the difference, especially for the things we need every single day but tend to forget are a privilege to have.

     God has a plan for each and every one of us and a mission for each of us to fulfill and He has given us what we need to do so.  "We all have been given the power within us to overcome any situation.  It's our choice as to whether we tap into that strength." Julia says, "It's better to find some area in your life where you can grow than it is to find some area where you can complain."  And we should all try to move forward even if it means sometimes we have to fall backward because there is a power in positive thinking and attitude and there is joy in seeing challenge and opportunity in adversity, which makes a victory more worthwhile.

pursuit of happiness

     I have an ongoing love-hate relationship with school.  The constant stress of assignments and tests make me want to scream.  But on days like today, I remember how truly grateful I am to be doing what I am doing.  Once I get past the anxiety of the overload of information needing to be learned, remembered and recited, I remember how truly amazing the field of occupational therapy is.

     Today we had the privilege of listening to two guest speakers inform our class about their personal experiences having undergone a stroke.  Rob, one of the speakers, said, "I can be sad or I can be happy, but I choose to be happy.  I see the good things in life now rather than the bad."  Unfortunately for him, it took the occurrence of a life threatening disorder to make this man realize what really matters in life.  But for most of us, it doesn't have to take a near death experience to make us see the good in life rather than the bad.  It is a conscious choice whether or not we want to be happy and in my opinion, we all have reason to be happy so why waste time being pessimistic and feeling sorry for ourselves?

     As a student in the OTA Program, I get to see an array of people with disabilities ranging from mild to moderate to severe.  But even a mild disability is a disability nonetheless and even the smallest challenge can make life so much more difficult than a person deserves for it to be.  How many of us are fortunate enough to act independently?  And how many of us take that for granted?  Maybe it is a hasty generalization to say, but I would guess that most of us in that category still feel sorry for ourselves the majority of the time something unfortunate happens to us.  Seeing so many people with challenges far greater than mine gives me a better appreciation for the life I have and reminds me of how many things there are to be happy about.  Happiness isn't determined by what happens to us, it is determined by how we respond to what happens to us.  Though at times it may feel impossible to find, there is always something positive that can come from a negative situation.  However, it is up to us to find it.  It is up to us to look for the good and to choose to be happy.  And it shouldn't be hard, because after all, we all have something to be happy about.

did you think to pray?

     As I sat at the kitchen table studying tonight, I couldn't help but feel extremely stressed and overwhelmed thinking about what lies ahead of me in this program.  I glanced up only to find a plaque with a simple, yet powerful word on it: Pray.  Below the word was printed, "Did you think to pray?"

     Philippians 4:13 says, "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me."  Christ is the help; prayer is the means by which we ask for help.

time

     As I lay here on my unmade bed amidst endless piles of clothing, I can't help but feel overwhelmed by this disaster of a room.  It's ironic, however, that I have let my room get so disorganized because those who know me best would most likely describe me as someone with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.  It's a problem, really, and it has taken over many areas of my life.  I'm a perfectionist but as of late, I have started to question why.  As Amy and I shared one of our typical "I called you to tell you one simple piece of information, but 50 minutes and 48 seconds later we are still talking about who knows what" phone calls this evening, we joked about how tonight was the first night either one of us had spent an evening at home in the past two months.  We joked about how neither one of us make good use of our time and that if we were actually to prioritize the things in our lives, our rooms might not look like the Tasmanian Devil just paid each one of us a visit.  But rather than taking a simple 45 minutes to clean my room, here I am writing about it instead.  After all, the title of  my blog is "a thought for today, an action tomorrow." So I'll think about doing it today and maybe tomorrow I'll actually get around to cleaning it.

     *Side note: That is not AT ALL what the title of my blog implies that you should do with your life.  I just can't help but be a smart aleck sometimes, even if it is in response to myself.

     But I am writing about it because despite the stress of the unorganized piles of clothing and the misplaced shoes, I relate this mess to my life.  As I stated earlier, I have begun to question why I feel the need to strive to be perfect in every aspect of my life when in reality I know that no one is perfect, save it be the Lord, Jesus Christ.  What I am learning is that finding time to spend with close friends and family is much more important than making sure that the clothes in my closet are color coordinated.  I spend so much time wishing that I was older, more accomplished and closer to getting on with my life than I am right now.  But I am starting to realize that getting on with my life doesn't start when I graduate from college, or get married, or have a family.  Getting on with my life starts right now.  Getting on with my life starts by spending time with the people I love and care about.  Getting on with my life starts by taking chances and deciding to find the good in whatever the outcomes may be.

     Rex W. Allred said, "The challenge to better utilize our time grows larger and larger as we take on more of life's responsibilities and leadership roles.  By seeking to master the separate skills that relate to our personal effectiveness, we will be able to meet this challenge.  We will be able to strengthen our contribution to the Lord's work, our impact as leaders, and our faithfulness in managing carefully one of the most important resources given to us by the Lord in this mortal life - time."  So I challenge you today to begin "getting on with your lives" and remember that it isn't about how much time you have, it's about what you do with the time you are given that makes all the difference.

no one is as deaf as the man who will not listen

     Because I completed all of the prerequisite courses for the Occupational Therapy Assistant Program last semester, I am currently taking Communications which is the last class needing to be completed before I begin the program in August.  Though it is not the most challenging or thought provoking class that I have ever taken, if there is one thing I have learned and will take away from this course, it is how to be a better listener.

     Most of us would argue that we almost always aim to understand what others are saying but more often than not, we become distracted by other things and forget to pay full attention to the person who is communicating a message to us.  We need to listen to understand, not to respond.  Though there are many things a person can do to avoid becoming distracted, my textbook listed two things that I personally believe are most important when listening to someone.  First, withhold judgment and second, demonstrate an attitude of equality.

     In my opinion, nothing positive comes from judging someone.  It's a game of comparison.  You compare yourself to them only to find that you think, for whatever reason, that you are superior to them.  Or, in the opposite situation, you find yourself belittling who you are as a person because you feel that you aren't as competent in one area or another as they are.  So, stop judging.  There is always someone who has it worse than you do.  On the other hand, there will always be someone who has it better than you.  But if you truly listen to someone, listen to what they are saying and try to understand how they are feeling, you no longer have that sick need to place yourself above or below them because by understanding them, you eliminate that all-natural human judgment that comes from ignorance.  And by eliminating judgment, you begin to demonstrate an attitude of equality.

     For those of you who watch Modern Family, you may remember when Mitchell said, "People can surprise you.  You get used to thinking of them one way... stuck in their roles, they are what they are... and then they do something that shows you there's all this depth and dimension that you never knew existed."  If we withhold judgment and demonstrate an attitude of equality, we may just find that not everyone is who we thought they were.  We may find that we have more respect for people than we thought we did.  And most importantly, we may find that people will be more willing to confide in us because they trust that we will listen to understand them, not just to respond to them.

make new friends but keep the old

     Lately, I have been feeling a large amount of gratitude for the many influential people in my life: friends.  For me, they are the people I turn to in good times and in bad.  It is difficult to put into words how much I appreciate them and all that they have done for me.

     Unfortunately, in the past, there have been several times when I have lost touch with good friends due to various reasons.  But more often than not, those reasons should not have had the power to disconnect me from people who made a lasting, positive impact on my life.  There are many factors that can affect and have a negative impact on a friendship but most of the time it is how we respond to those factors that determines whether or not we will be able to forgive and forget.  Sometimes we expect too much of each other, sometimes we make promises that we cannot keep, and sometimes we say things that should have been left unsaid.  But in the end, we need to remember that everyone makes mistakes and most of the time, people want to be forgiven.  Most of the time, people want to be trusted and most of the time, people deserve to be trusted.

     James L. Fredericks said, "Much of the vitality in a friendship lies in the honouring of differences, not simply in the enjoyment of similarities."  We all come from different backgrounds, have different thoughts and different opinions, but we all have the potential to affect one another in a positive way.  It is up to us whether or not we will allow people to get to know us and allow ourselves to get to know them, whether or not we will choose to look past flaws and forgive mistakes and whether or not we will find the good in people and let it rule out the bad.  And if we choose to do these things, we might just find someone we call a friend.