Thankful

This morning I woke and the world outside my window was gone. There was only fog, white and alien.

Slowly, I noticed the wisp silhouette of a pine tree. It was like a pencil tracing on a huge sheet of paper. All the rest of the world was white. In the heavy silence, a hawk screeeeeed and screeeeeed.

I am thankful.

It is easy to be thankful for beauty. For hawks and pine trees and fog. It is hard to be thankful for pain.

Yesterday, just a simple email made me angrier than I’ve been in a long time. My stomach had that hollow feeling from too much adrenaline and anxiety.

And this anger was like paint. It coated everything it touched in red. I tried to keep it in its bucket, but there were red stains throughout my day.

I remembered the next day was Thanksgiving.

Thankfullness… right… what am I thankful for?

Certainly not anger and emails from fools. But I decided to try to be thankful (thankfulness is a choice, after all).

So I was thankful. I thanked the sender for the email. That it made me stronger through adversity. I thanked the pain for cleansing me of pride and laziness. I thanked the anger.

And the red paint fell off me like dragon scales. All that was left was peace and warmth…

…and the prospect of a lot of great food the next day!

Happy Thanksgiving.

PRACTICE Holidays are busy, so take a moment to be by yourself for twenty minutes today. Take a walk and choose thankfulness. Choose to be thankful for both the beauty and the pain. How can thankfulness change the way you see the world? And if you like, post one beautiful thing you are thankful for and one painful thing here.