Lessons in Gratitude Day 24

Today as I write this, I find myself smiling. I’m so gratified that people read these postings and are enjoying them and are taking the time to comment. You make me smile and sometimes you are the motivation I need to keep writing. Thanks to each and all of you for being part of my daily journey and walking with me on this path I call lessons in gratitude.

I am grateful for small things today. I sat and watched the first half of the women’s professional basketball all star game (http://www.wnba.com/allstar/2011/index.html). It was fun watching these young women play hoops and having a good time with one another. Back in my day (the proverbial olden days) my high school didn’t have any women’s athletic teams until I was halfway through school, and then they added volleyball. I didn’t play volleyball. They eventually added softball and track in my senior year, but by then it was clear I wasn’t going to fulfill my athletic fantasies. In college I did play intramural softball and basketball and I suppose that helped somewhat satisfy my desire to play sports. I never have lost the interest in playing a sport, but never found myself in any league or anything where I could play regularly. I can tell you this, though: I can still dribble and shoot a basketball and after some 15 or 20 years since I swung a bat I took myself to a batting cage and delighted myself at how often I made good contact with the softballs whizzing toward me. Once a jock, always a jock I reckon. Maybe I will find an over 50 quasi-out-of-shape league of some kind…Nah! At least I’d better get into a bit better shape before I call myself trying to play anything competitive.

I am also grateful for learning to live in the moment. Over the past six months I’ve had plenty of opportunities to regret the past and worry about the future–both of which are completely useless expenditures of energy. I am spending more time learning about mindfulness and bringing focused attention onto what’s happening in the moment. I spent some intentional time earlier today playing with my dog. I could learn a lot from Honor. Any time is a good time to play, or take a nap, or lie in the sun sniffing the air. She doesn’t seem to regret too much of anything and I haven’t noticed that she’s worried about where her next meal is coming from. She is attentive to what is happening right now in this very moment (cat! squirrel! loud sound! yawn, nap, bone, squeaky toy…)

But wait, one could say, she has no responsibilities, no obligations, so of course her life is easy. This is true…lucky her. I looked up the word responsibilities in the dictionary. “Responsibilities–the state or fact of having a duty to deal with something or of having control over someone.” “Obligation–an act or course of action to which a person is morally or legally bound; a duty or commitment.” Put in those terms, I vote for being a dog.

Recently I’ve heard myself saying that I need to get a job so I can meet my obligations–things like rent, car payment, other bills, groceries. And it’s true, I have a responsibility to “deal with” those things. But living involves so much more than working to meet financial responsibilities and obligations. I’m learning to treat this time that I’ve been unemployed as a gift–time to heal from hurts I received during the past several months, to recover from having worked in what was at times a very toxic environment, to rediscover and remember and reconnect with what I love to do, what I am good at, and what gifts I bring to the world. All of this is still unfolding, and meanwhile I do still have responsibilities and obligations I have to meet somehow. But for now, in this moment, I am grateful to be on this journey and able to share your company along the way.