It’s Called Currency

It’s Thanksgiving Day in the United States, and in homes throughout the country, families and friends will gather to feast on turkey and ham and all the glorious “fixin’s” that are traditionally served on this day. They will enjoy food and companionship in groups small and large, some quietly, others in chaos. And many will take the time to reflect on what they are thankful for.

What are you thankful for? Not just in terms of money and stuff, but in your life? Since you’re reading this, you can be thankful for the education that taught you to read and for the access to the internet that brought this blog to you. Can you also be thankful for some level of health and mental stability as well as financial stability?

This is a good time for looking back over the past year and noting your accomplishments. Are you thankful for a promotion, raise or bonus associated with your job? Higher sales in your business? The project that saved time and/or money for you, your employer or your business? Was there a leap of logic that was key to solving a problem? Have created and funded your emergency fund? Have you cut your spending enough to be significant in your budget for the year? Did you start school or finish it? Have you begun writing that book you always talked about, or perhaps finished it? Did you talk with someone when they were in crisis, helping them to find the way out? Have you given your smile to others as you’ve passed them in the store or at the office? Did you remember someone’s birthday?

Even small things that you do can be great accomplishments to be thankful for, if not on your part, then on someone else’s. When you manage to remember a birthday, or share your smile, you create something someone else can be thankful for. And when others are thankful for you, they will tell and show you their gratitude in many ways, thereby giving you more to be thankful for.

One of the greatest things about gratitude is that it grows as it is shared. When someone thanks you for the job you did or the time you spent with them, you will often be grateful that you knew what to do or had the time to spare. When others praise you for your talents, you will be thankful for those people and those talents, and you will want to improve them and use and share them more.

Take the time today to be thankful for all that you have, especially those things that cannot be tallied in dollars and cents. Write them down. Write in your journal or just make a list that you can review again later. One year, I wrote a list of the 26 letters of the alphabet and assigned something that I was thankful for to each letter. In the years since then, I’ve pulled that list out when times were tough and remembered all that I was and am thankful for.

If you find yourself focusing on the things that didn’t get done or what you’re worrying about instead, write those things down on another piece of paper and set them aside for the end of December, when you start making up your mind about New Year’s resolutions.

Time invested in focusing on the good in your life, all that’s positive and makes you happy, is well spent. Give yourself the gift of a thankful heart, and share that gratitude with everyone you see today.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Tags: current events, giving, Thursday Task // 1 Comment »