The Gratitude Journal

I Am Thankful for Friends

I am thankful for friends.  Perhaps, this sounds particularly banal.  Sometimes we need to take a step back and look at the treasures that surround us.  Today, I am thankful for friends, just plain old everyday friends.

Certainly, in today’s world it would be easy enough to feel alone and stressed if one would allow that.  However, as I watch the stock market continue its rather bumpy decline, see my dollars shrink between the time I leave home and arrive at the market I find that friends are the greatest wealth I possess.

As I have written time and again, our neighborhood is a real community that feels a sense of closeness that comes from interactive support of and for one another.  It has come to my attention that many neighborhoods are not quite like the one where I live.  Some people don’t even know the names of their next door neighbors.  Perhaps, that’s because times have changed so much over the past few decades.  Everyone seemed to drift from the idea of community and helping one another to a sense of being the only one of importance… ego.

There have been times in my life when work was my life.  There have been times when one thing or another defined who I was.  It’s that obsessive nature of over achievement that leads us to isolation and alone-ness.  That is nothing more than ego.  We all need to seek to rise to our abilities, but all too often it seems to me that we isolate ourselves while rising.  If our fortunes should change, and so often they do, as we begin a slow descent we find that our self-imposed isolation becomes a negative in our lives that creates a feeling of helplessness and aloneness, if not sheer loneliness.

I am thankful for friends because times have changed.  Perhaps, within the last month many of us are faced with challenges that we never imagined.  I suggest that now is not the time to wallow in isolation.  Rather it is time to extend a hand and a smile to others.  I’m not suggesting that we all run out and play Paris Hilton seeking a new best friend.  I’m only suggesting that while each of us feels somewhat alone as the economic crisis digs into our pocketbooks, it is the best time ever to embrace our friends and seek out new ones. 

One of the things I learned many years ago is that no matter how insecure I felt at times, there were others wearing the same pair of shoes.  A word of caution:  Don’t seek friends to activate a pity party.  Seek friends who are willing to take action to change things.  Maybe now is the time to think about creating a mastermind alliance.  Find a few like minded people and rather than hashing out the problems we all face, work toward common ground where you can help one another.  We all know the problems.  There is no need to try to further define them.  It’s time to work for a solution.

So, today I am thankful for friends.  One of the neighbors offered to take Mrs. Hildebrand to the bank.  Another called me early this morning and offered to come over and help Happy and me in the greenhouse.  Yet, another friend called and said she was in the mood to cook today… it’s rainy outside.  She’s making dinner for the five families.  Happy and I are going to freeze peaches this afternoon for ourselves and some of the neighbors.

Friends are the greatest treasure we have.  And, you see, what is the best part of friendship is that true friends don’t wait for you to ask for help.  They sense your needs and offer to help.  There’s no better place to start that with oneself.  When I am feeling a little down and out, I force myself… and I did say “force”… to think about a neighbor or a friend who may need a little help during the day and I call him or her and say that I’m available to do whatever he or she needs.  It’s funny.  Once I get out of the doldrums and help someone else, they suddenly appear when I need a little kick start.

Again, friendship is the treasure of life.  So, today I am thankful for friends.  Perhaps, today is the day to introduce yourself to your next door neighbor.  Who knows?  You may have a lot more in common than you thought.

I Am Thankful that I Am Hard to Offend

Human nature being what it is, each of us has a tendency to “let it fly” sometimes.  I heard from one of my acquaintances last evening.  She only calls when she’s on a rant. 

Please note that I didn’t qualify her as a friend.  I know her, but we share very little.  And she wouldn’t meet Warren Buffet’s definition of a friend.  I believe I heard him say on the Charlie Rose program one night that a friend is a person who would hide you when you need to be hidden.  Of course, Mr. Buffet was using his definition in the context of Anne Frank, the young girl who hid during the German holocaust.  So, don’t go off thinking I’m using it any differently.  A friend is someone you can count on, that person who will defend you when you need to be defended, and will put value on your existence.

The lady who rang me up last evening wouldn’t qualify, either way.  To be honest, I wouldn’t hide her and I’m sure she wouldn’t hide me.  She uses her dialing finger to dial me up only when she feels the need to rant and rave about something or someone that has offended her.

So, that brings me to a point I want to make.  Each of us have said at some point in time that we were offended by one thing or another.  Oh, please.  Let’s think about that for a minute.  If someone says something about you that is to your dislike, you are offended.  But, in truth why should you be offended or even care?  I have found that I have felt offended only when in my heart and mind I knew that there was a bit of truth to the statement.  Perhaps, we shouldn’t be as offended as embarrassed that our flaws have reached the surface. 

But, on occasion and most often we are offended when we feel that someone has misunderstood us, has heard something and assumed its truth, or have seen or heard something that goes against our personal values.  We are offended only when we take ourselves too seriously, when our egos rear up… or as the woman who looked after me during my childhood once said, when we let people rent space in our heads.

And, that’s about the sum of it.  Being offended is often the springboard to anger.  By the time this acquaintance rang me up, she had spent some time allowing her “offended” state to fester into anger.  What a waste of time!  And, please… what is the point?

Okay, so I am human just like everyone else.  There are times when my blood boils although I try very hard not to let it heat up beyond a simmer.  However, I will say definitively that I have learned to take a step back from the situation and determine if it really matters to me or not.  And, 99.99% of the time it just doesn’t matter.

So, during this conversation… monologue… last night, I listened for about five minutes.  That’s a long time for someone to speak increasingly louder and faster without taking a breath.  Finally, I could feel that this little lady had almost reached the point of exhaustion so I interrrupted the tirade. 

“What is it that you want me to do or say?”

“Well, there’s nothing you can do.”  Blah, blah, blah.  “I just want you to know that _______ is not a friend of mine and you better beware of her.”

Now, let me just say this.  There are few people in this world that I feel I need to “beware of.”  And, in all honesty, the person the lady was talking about had been a bit abrupt with me on one occasion.  However, in hindsight I realized that the problem wasn’t mine, it was hers.  So, folks, I have to tell you I am not about to assume something that isn’t mine.  And, no, I don’t dislike this other woman.  She was expressing what she thought.  I am not compelled to agree with her.  And, I’m certainly not going to take my precious time to be offended by her.

The point of all this is that from time to time we find ourselves on one side or the other of being offended or offending.  When we are offended, it is our choice to be offended.  When we offend, it is our choice to offend.  We are trying to stir the pot.  We are allowing our egos to control our heads.  And, to be quite honest, there is absolutely no benefit to the offender or the offended in such a situation. 

We cannot control what other people say or do.  (And, I certainly would not want to try.)  But, we can control ourselves.  We can weigh a situation and then make a decision.  If the only point of what we think we want to say is to hurt the other person, what purpose will it serve?  Why would any of us want to hurt another?  If we are on the “being offended” end of the exchange, why in the world would we allow someone to rent that space in our heads?

May I suggest that we all practice thinking before we speak and that we always try to check our egos at the door?  And, when you know that a specific person is determined to get a reaction from you, why reat?  Why play into his or her hands.  Act.  Do not react.  And, please above all else, weigh the content and purpose of a statement or action that offends.  Will it have an importance to your life, besides a few moments of high blood pressure?  If not… and most often it is the NOT, then don’t shoot negative arrows back at the person.  One person spewing negativity is sufficient for one day.  There is no need to surround oneself with it.  One person spewing negativity or offending will evaporate.  But, if you respond in kind the negativity will compound.

Each of us has the right to be selfish with ourselves and our environments to the point that we will not allow someone to invade us and charge us with negativity, when we have the right to live with positive energy surrounding us.  But, that is a choice that is up to us.  I choose not to rent my space.

I Am Thankful for Quiet Meditation

The air was so crisp this morning when I went outside to my favorite spot for meditation.  Taking that first deep breath was like cleansing the soul.  The air warmed as it entered my lungs.  It cleansed the impurities from my body and expelled the negatives into nothingness.

My thoughts this morning as I took my lotus position were on pure gratitude.  There is so much to be thankful for… the sun, the trees, the leaves, the browning of flowers that now create seeds.  In today’s world of constant turmoil it would be so easy to see only the downside of life.  But, a few minutes alone with nature reminded me that our problems are man made.  They have nothing to do with the constant flow of life and death, ebb and flow of nature. 

I realized as I sat on the mat that all our personal problems are created by man, but when we reach out to touch the universe and meld into Oneness, daily ups and downs are insignificant in the overall scheme of things.  Meditation was particularly wonderful this morning.  I let go of everything that was contained in me.  I dissolved into the Oneness that is perfect harmony.  It was beautiful.

For anyone who has not tried meditation, I suggest that at the very least you spend some time alone in quiet, learning to embrace the silence, considering the wonders of the world.  While I find that years of meditation have brought an inner peace to my life, I dare not suggest that my way is the only way to find true joy in life.  I only suggest that each of us would probably benefit from putting the our daily lives in perspective, realizing that those things that drag us down are of our own creation and that we can shed those thoughts and worries by reaching beyond ourselves, by spending time focusing on the gratitude we feel for all that is beautiful in the world.

One of the things I learned many years ago is that all the daily sounds, the daily ups and downs, all those things that do not bring peace to our lives are very short lived.  They come and they go.  But, the beauty and stability of the universe while ever changing is also constant.  It is peace and harmony.  And, by indulging in universal harmony, we can bring harmony to our lives.