Today I'm Thankful For...

I started off today grumpy. Has nothing to do with turning 40 and everything to do with daylight savings time robbing me of a precious hour of sleep. I'm always grumpy a few days after we change to daylight savings.
Instead of being grumpy and bringing the people I share an office with down, I decided to intentionally find things today I'm thankful for. This ties back to my posts on gratitude here and here. While I haven't been posting daily the things I'm thankful for, I have been keeping a journal. I'm forced to be a little more creative with each day to find those things I'm thankful for and to be authentic with what I choose to highlight.

Today proved no different. I could write a list of the things I'm not thankful for without even thinking. This wasn't going to help my mood so I went to the office kitchen, made a cup of green tea and let myself sink into thought.

Here is what I came up with:

1. I'm thankful for the opportunity to learn and grow as a professional through projects as large and complex as the one I'm working on now. Without these opportunities I think I would sit back on my accomplishments and stagnate.
2. I'm thankful for people who have my back and are willing to let me know when I missed something or have made an error - before I go too far down a path that would lead to sticky results.
3. I'm thankful for authors who write about the redeeming power of love and show me through story that at the end of the day it is love that saves all.
4. I'm thankful my muse isn't fighting with me anymore and that I'm making progress on my stories even if my plotting is still my weakest link. I can fix plotting. I can't fix a blank page.
5. I'm thankful laughter is contagious.

I looked at this list through out the day as I was tempted to sink back into feeling grumpy and low and behold it is now 5pm and I'm ready to head home with a smile on my face and a lightness of being.

Hmm, maybe there's something to this gratitude stuff after all.