Be Thankful…

A mantra I have from several years ago is that “things could always be worse”.  Taken in a more positive light, this essentially means – “always be thankful for where you are in life”.  No matter how bad it is, there is always stuff to for which to be thankful.

Today I had this concept shown to me.  I did not go to Boulder today as there was no real reason to drive all the way there given my key client counterpart wasn’t going to be available for our normal meetings.  On top of that, Nancy had a doctor’s appointment at a doctor to which she doesn’t go very often and she feels better when I drive her to places which aren’t so well known to her.

Since I was home I decided to use my lunch hour to get a number of different errands done.  One of my errands took me to the Audubon Society of Greater Denver.  I have done a deal with them for a number of years in which they collect the envelopes from the mail that they receive.  Given the number of fundraisers that they do, this often turns into a large number of envelopes.   I take the envelopes so that I can get the used postage stamps off of them.  It provides me with a great source of stamps for my stamp collection.

My visits to the Audubon Society are never short because I end up chatting with the office manager who collects the envelopes for me.  Today she told me a story which just made me thankful for all that I have.   Over the weekend she and her husband had both of their cars stolen.  The thieves came to their driveway and stole both of their cars right from in front of their house.  Because of the current economic situation they are not sure whether they will be able to replace them as the money they get from insurance will not necessarily provide enough coverage.

My point in telling this story is simple.  How often do we forget to be thankful for all the blessings we have in our lives?  For me the situation is pretty apparent.  As much as I feel depressed and sad over the demise of my relationship, there is still so much to be thankful for in this life.  Sometimes we become overwhelmed by our present situation and forget all the good things in our life. 

Yes – I am still very sad about all that has transpired, but I still have a lot of good memories from our relationship.  I still have that silly almost teenager – Zack who is the light of my life.  I still have Nancy and Lex.  There are so many things for which I should be thankful.  Heck – even if I never get Shelly back in my life, I still am so thankful for the time we got to spend together.  In that respect too I am thankful for my optimism that keeps he focused on trying to win her back.  So there is much for me to be thankful!

The day was very busy with the combination of work and trying to get some other things done.  My evening will continue to be busy as I am desperately working to get things around the house done.  Zack got to do a “blast from the past”, as he got to go to Willow Creek Elementary tonight.  He was invited to act as a “guest speaker” at the Willow Creek Elementary Science Club.  He has done a great job separating from Willow Creek so I thought a visit won’t be too big of a deal.  This was the first time he has been back at Willow Creek since June 9^th of this year.  He was amazed by all the changes that took place with the reconstruction over the summer.

On a totally different note – I read the following in Wired magazine.  I found it so interesting I wanted to add it to my blog.  It is from a section of the magazine called “Jargon Watch”.  This section of the magazine deals with new and interesting words and concepts being added to the English language.  This section is written by a guy by the name of Jonathan Keats. From the November 2010 issue of Wired, here is “Jargon Watch”.

“Bacterial Fingerprints – n. pl. The mix of bacteria living on an individual’s fingertips.  Believed to be unique to each person and constant over their lifetime, bacterial fingerprints left on keyboards have been swabbed and sequenced in criminal investigations to identify computer users.

Probability Chip – n. A microprocessor developed at MIT to calculate the statistical likelihood rather than binary certainties.  Since the math is running on hardware instead of software, statistical computations – like the odds that an email is spam are accelerated by as much as 1,000 percent.

Hajj mafia - n. Epithet for the Indonesian government officials who run packaged tours to Mecca, widely criticized for pricing fixing and profiting off deposits from would-be pilgrims.  A growing number of devout Muslims, unable to afford the $3,000 round trip are sneaking illegally into Mecca as “hajj backpackers”.

Cybercase - v. To scope out a joint using geotagged data written into digital photos posted online.  By browsing imagines of luxury goods on sites like Flickr and Craigslist, thieves can often glean the exact location of the loot and then plot a targeted break-in.

All of the material is copyrighted by Wired Magazine.  I just thought it was really interesting and conveyed the every changing nature of our language as new concepts evolve in our world.

Anyway – a long winded blog entry for the night, but for me in this month of Thanksgiving I wanted to talk about being thankful.

We hope everyone had a great day.

Thanks and peace to all! ~J.

FYSRD