Giving thanks

Tis the season... For hectic-ness, crammed parking lots and over consumption of calories!

Or at least that's what we've made it out to be.

But really, this should be the season of gratefulness. Not that gratefulness should be for a season, or one specific reason (rhyming is maybe intentional).. But if anything, the thanksgiving/upcoming Christmas season should serve as a reminder. When the world gets overwhelming and life is flying faster then the pumpkin latte orders at Starbucks, I am thankful for the reminder to be grateful and to give thanks.

This thanksgiving, I want to give thanks for the opportunities that have come my way and the ones that never did; I want to give thanks for my Santa Barbara family but also my San Diego one; I want to give thanks for the job(s) I have; the people I have met; and as simple and maybe cliche statement, I want to give thanks for the life I am able to live.

They say that the secret to happiness is living with an abundance of gratefulness. Melody Beattie wrote the following: "Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow," and I couldn't agree more.

Quote of the Day 11/04/14

We are always falling in love or quarreling, looking for jobs or fearing to lose them, getting ill and recovering, following public affairs. If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavorable. Favorable conditions never come.   [C.S. Lewis]